Thai Village, Ukrainian Village

Thai Village
2053 W Division
Chicago

Date of Last Visit: Thursday, December 30th, 2010

The Victim: Me

The Damage: $20.

The Background: Thai Village must seriously have one of the best lunch specials in town. $5.95 for three courses!!! Until 3 pm every day of the week.

Of course, I got there at 3:11 pm.  No lunch special for me.

Not only did I miss the lunch special, but if you can read that sign on the right, I also missed the Groupon. ($20 of food for $10!) I seriously wish I could help Thai Village with their signage. Such an atmospheric place. Such terrible signs.

To start, I took my server’s recommendation of the Crispy Roll: rice wrapper stuffed with ground chicken, vermicelli, egg & bean sprouts; topped with tart plum sauce & ground peanuts. Maybe there was plum sauce here; I’m not sure. What I can tell you is that there was a very bright and tangy citrus sauce that made me happy all day, just thinking about it. I enjoyed this.

Much less satisfying was the glumpy Pad Se Eu. It had none of the brightness of the Crispy Roll. (Hey, I wasn’t expecting a lot–this is Pad Se Eu after all–but give me something.) The noodles were stodgy. The broccoli was scarce. I took a few mouthfuls and then had the rest packed up for later. (Luckily, the crispy roll was a very generous portion.)

The Verdict: Thai Village has a Bib Gourmand. Maybe that’s because of the amazing $5.95 lunch special. I’m not sure. Because otherwise, I don’t get it. I don’t think they’re doing anything special. I mean, maybe I’d order Thai Village for delivery it was raining, but I wouldn’t make a special trip back.

P.S. Totally forgot to give a shout out to my fellow Chicago restaurant bloggers over at BYOB Bandits, whose post about Thai Village had me making the trip.