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“TAC QUICK” KHRUA THAI : TAC QUICK THAI KITCHEN (2006)

"APPETIZERS"

kài thâwt : Thai-style fried chicken served with a spicy, tamarind dipping sauce
néua tàet dìaw : dried “jerky” beef served with a sweet and salty dipping sauce
mũu ping : grilled pork skewers served with a spicy, tamarind dipping sauce
sâi kràwk isãan : grilled Isaan-style pork and rice sausage, served with chile, ginger, and peanuts
nãem “nướng” : grilled Vietnamese-style pork balls, served with rice papers, herbs, and a hoisin-based sauce
thâwt man : fried fish cakes with ground fish, long beans, and lime leaves

"TASTY NOODLES"

kũay tĩaw pèt : egg noodle soup with braised duck, in a sweet and salty broth.
kũay tĩaw reua : spicy rice noodle soup with tender beef, beef balls, beansprouts, and Chinese broccoli
kũay tĩaw mũu sàp : rice noodle soup with minced pork, bbq pork, and a pork wonton
yen ta fo “Wát Khàek” : wide rice noodles with assorted vegetables and seafood, in a thin, sour and spicy broth
khanõm jiin náam yaa : rice vermicelli with an herbal fish curry sauce
râat nâa sài khài “Empire” : wide rice noodles and c/o/m braised in an egg-based “gravy,” with Chinese broccoli, and ginger
sùkîi-yaki : mung bean noodle soup with c/o/m and assorted vegetables, in a sour, sweet and spicy broth
phàt thai kûng sòt hàw khài : mung bean noodles stir-fried with shrimp, bean sprouts and scallions, wrapped in an omelette
kũay tĩaw khûa kài : wide rice noodles stir-fried with chicken, squid, chopped scallions, and lettuce

"TEMPTATIONS"

pa low tràwk sung : star anise-braised pork hock with tofu and hard-cooked egg
khâo man kài : “Hainan” chicken // poached chicken breast served with stock-infused rice, mild soup, and sliced cucumber
khâo khãa mũu khaki “Padriew” : red-braised pork hock in a sweet and savoury sauce
khâo mũu daeng : Chinese-style sausage and bbq pork loin, served over rice
khâo khlûk kà-pì nãa “RAM” : shrimp paste-seasoned rice, served with sweet pork, green mango, omelette, dried shrimp, and red onion
khâo tôm plaa : rice soup with Catfish and Chinese celery
phàt náam phrík phão râat khâo : c/o/m stir-fried with roasted chile jam, served over rice
krà-thiam phrík thai râat khâo : c/o/m stir-fried with garlic and black pepper, served over rice

"SAVOURY DISHES"

sômtam thai : papaya salad with dried shrimp and peanuts
sômtam puu : papaya salad with pickled crab
sômtam puu maa : papaya salad with raw blue crab
sômtam kûng sòt : papaya salad with fresh shrimp
néua náam tòk : “waterfall” beef // grilled beef salad
kûng châe náam plaa : raw shrimp marinated with lime juice, fish sauce, garlic, and chile
yam krà-phao plaa : tangy and tart salad with crispy fish maw, shrimp, and fried cashews
tôm sâep : sour, light and spicy soup with beef offal
phàt phèt plaa dùk “phîi Ittí” : Catfish stir-fried with green curry paste, chile, Thai eggplants, and green peppercorns
krà-phrao kràwp khài yiaw mûa : deep-fried holy basil with minced chicken, stir-fried and served over preserved eggs
kaeng khĩaw-wãan khài jiaw : green curry with c/o/m, served over a Thai-style omelette
kaeng sôm cha-om thâwt : “sour,” tamarind-flavoured curry, topped with an Acacia leaf omelette [no coconut milk]
náam phrík kà-pì plaa thuu : shrimp paste “dip,” served with mackerel and crudités
plaa nin phàt châa : Tilapia filets stir-fried with assorted vegetables

jîm jòom *chõot bon bak (20.0) *chõot tháleh (28.0) : “pick dip” // Thai-style hotpot with assorted meats or seafoods
[Not Currently Available]

---------------------------

GENERALLY AVAILABLE BY SPECIAL REQUEST

kũay tĩaw reua mũu : spicy rice noodle soup with lean pork, pork meatballs, beansprouts and Chinese broccoli
kha-náa plaa khẽm : Chinese broccoli stir-fried with “salty fish”
kha-náa mũu kràwp : Chinese broccoli stir-fried with crispy pork
khài yát sài : plain omelette wrapped around stir-fried minced pork and vegetables
khài jiaw mũu sàp : Thai-style omelette made with minced pork and chopped scallions
khâo phàt plaa khẽm : fried rice with “salty fish” and Chinese broccoli

CURRENT SPECIAL OFFERINGS (08.01.07)

hãwy lãi phàt náam phrík phão : clams stir-fried with spicy chile jam
hãwy thâwt : Thai-style omelette with mussels
yam plaa dùk fuu : fried, shredded Catfish salad with chile
plaa sãmlii tàet dìaw : Southern Thai-style fried Butterfish with chile diiping sauce
khâo mòk kài yâang : Southern Thai-style curried rice with grilled chicken
tôm khrêuang nai : spicy soup with pork offal

AVAILABLE BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT ONLY

phàk bûng fai daeng : water spinach stir-fried with fermented yellow bean sauce and chile
khaw mũu yâang : grilled pork neck with tamarind dipping sauce
puu lon : salty crab and coconut crème “dip,” served with crudités
náam phrík àwng lâwng nẽua : Northern Thai-style minced pork and tomato “dip,” served with crudités


TAC Quick
3930 N. Sheridan
773.327.5253
Closed Tuesdays


E.M.

ORIGINAL POST EDITED TO INSERT PHOTO LINKS.

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"Don't even touch my gold, I'm good."

CURRENT SPECIAL OFFERINGS (08.26.07)

1. tàp wãan : "sweet liver" salad
2. plaa sãmlii tàet dìaw : Southern Thai-style fried Butterfish with chile dipping sauce
3. yam plaa dùk fuu : fried, shredded Catfish salad with chile
4. hãwy lãi phàt náam phrík phão : clams stir-fried with spicy chile jam
5. lâap pèt : Isaan-style duck salad
6. yam phàk bûng : battered/fried water spinach salad
7. yam hèt hũu nũu : “mouse ear” mushroom salad

Corresponding Board Listings & Notes

1. "sweet liver"

2. "sum lee dad deaw" : salted and dried butterfish, deep-fried and served with mango salad and spicy dip. highly recommended.

3. "puffy catfish" : known to many LTHers as "exploded catfish salad."

4. "clam with chile paste"

5. "duck salad" : although the version picture-linked above was made with the meat from a roasted duck leg, standard service entails a thinly-sliced roasted duck breast. a beautiful presentation. highly recommended.

6. "crispy on choy" : tempura-battered/fried water spinach, topped with minced chicken, poached shrimp, and mint leaves. highly recommended.

7. "mouse ear mushroom" : reconstituted white fungus salad with minced chicken, poached shrimp, lime juice, and chile. highly recommended.


E.M.

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"Don't even touch my gold, I'm good."

I've had some really outstanding meals at TAC Quick recently. This restaurant has always had good food, but the recent specials have been extraordinary. Last nite for example, we enjoyed Puffed Catfish,Duck salad, Crispy On Choy ,mouse ear mushrooms and Clams with Chile jam from the specials menu, along with Thai fried chicken, moo ping and Issan sausages from the regular listings. Everything was excellent but the specials were spectacular (the clams may have been the weakest). I was at Lotus of Siam last week and feel TAC compared very favorably , my wife actually thought our meal at TAC was better. Thanks E.M..

Fantastic. I can only think that giving a larger group access to the "real" menu gives places like this a chance to improve dishes that might not get nearly as much mileage. In that sense, you're doing everyone a favor. Thank you!

A few weeks ago, on a particularly slow weekend night, I sat down with a couple of the waitresses at TAC to compile a "dream list" of special offerings. It was meant in fun, really, and Andy sat nearby and seemed perfectly happy to play along. But, as it turned out, and much to our surprise, Andy wasn't playing at all: much of what you are seeing now was first suggested on that night.

IMO, if Andy continues to mine that original list of suggestions, then the best is yet to come.

Regards,
E.M.

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"Don't even touch my gold, I'm good."

I will need to keep an eye on the specials over the next few months then. Something to look foreward to.

By the way, it's probably worth mentioning that this is a byob spot and that the Sheridan L Liquor store just a few doors north has a very good selection of imported and domestic beers (including many not commonly seen). They also have wines, but wine and Thai food never really made sense to me.

And, so it comes...


nãem sii-khrong mũu : fried 'nãem'-style pork ribs*

For the preparation of this dish, short lengths of bone-in pork rib are first seasoned with a souring agent, and then "conditioned" in the refrigerator for a couple of days before eventually being deep-fried. Similar in profile to both the Northeastern Thai-style sour pork sausage, sâi kràwk isãan, and the Northern Thai-style raw-cured pork sausage, nãem, this item is likewise served with an assortment of palate cleansing garnishes.

IMO, this is as good as kàp klâem, or Thai "drinking food" gets.**

E.M.

* I first encountered this item in Los Angeles last year, and wrote about it, here. You will find it listed on the specials board at TAC as "nam pork ribs."

** As I've said before, there is within the traditional Thai culinary repetoire an entire class of foodstuffs which are specifically intended to accompany alcoholic beverages. These foodstuffs are generally assertive in character, and as such, they are believed to hold up best to the dulling affects of alcohol on the palate.

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"Don't even touch my gold, I'm good."

I'm curious-- were they mostly things you had had elsewhere, or mostly things you'd read about and wanted to try?

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Well, in my case, at least, it was some combination of the two: I proposed things that I'd previously tried in Thai homes, or in Los Angeles, or in Thailand, and I also proposed things that I'd only seen, or heard about, or read about.

Here are some specific details:

1. Plaa sãmlii tàet dìaw (Southern Thai-style fried Butterfish with chile dipping sauce) was something that Andy and I first talked about over a year ago but I'd otherwise only read about.

2. Yam phàk bûng (battered/fried water spinach salad) was something that I'd only recently encountered while translating a Thai menu from a restaurant in Plano, Texas.*

3. Yam hèt hũu nũu (“mouse ear” mushroom salad) was something that I'd originally tried in Thailand and felt was often done poorly in Chicago.

4. Nãem sii-khrong mũu (fried 'nãem'-style pork ribs) was, as I said above, something that I'd originally tried in Los Angeles.**

E.M.

* And, at least one, if not both, of my waitress friends had tried it previously in Thailand.

** Truth be told, and as I've mentioned--howsoever obliquely--before, it is otherwise available in Chicago, but not to the retail public. So, loving it as I do, I really, really wanted this one to see the light of day.

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"Don't even touch my gold, I'm good."

Tonight's Check, Please! episode was a testament to everything Erik M. stood for, and more importantly, got up and did for us. I doff my cap, and savor my miang kham and en choy at TAC and every other Thai place with a secret menu around the city. This Singha's for you.

I'd argue that the Mouse Ear salad at TAC is one of their weaker dishes.

So Santander, can you talk a bit about the episode?

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yes yes yes

For those who want to see for themselves, this episode of Check, Please!--featuring TAC Quick (and many mentions of "the secret menu"), the Signature Room, and Honky Tonk BBQ--will be repeated on Channel 11 at 4:30 pm Saturday 10/18 and 10:00 pm Sunday 10/19.

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"Life is a combination of magic and pasta." -- Federico Fellini

To extend the point made by the Pilsen resident on the show, it's really a shame that we have to consider these menus "secret". To paraphrase her: If they call themselves the most authentic Thai restaurant, then why do they keep all their authentic dishes a secret?

Erik did a great thing in translating these menus and he went a step further in encouraging the restaurants to serve these dishes to non-Thai. It is my distinct wish that TAC, among other Thai restaurants, will finally come to the point of simply publishing these items (or at least a subset of them) at least under an "Authentic Thai Dishes" section of their menu, skipping the step of forcing people to ask for a menu they might not know exists. (Spoon has taken at least one small step in this direction).

There's no reason that this food needs to be treated as if you have to be in some kind of special club to eat it. The more it's out in the open, the more people will enjoy it, and the more of it there will be.

Best,
Michael

Well put and I completely agree. One of my most frequent complaints about ethnic restaurants is that they so often, and unnecessarily, dumb down the menu and/or flavors of dishes, trying to please a customer who couldn't distinguish pad thai from chow mein. It's time for them to realize that people are willing to expand their palates. Luckily, TAC is about to become inundated with "secret menu" customers, to the point where there might even be a run on preserved eggs.

And every time I send a friend of mine to Spoon or TAC, I have to tell them to stay away from pad thai and the similar (which they really do no better than any run-of-the-mill Thai restaurant) and to focus on the dishes from the translated menus which really set Spoon Thai, TAC Quick, Sticky Rice and Rosded apart from so many.

What surprised me the most about the Check Please episode though was Alpana's comment that she just found out about these "secret" menus. I figured someone so involved in the food industry would have known about that long ago.

First, let me start by saying that Tac Quick is probably my favorite restaurant in the entire city of Chicago. With that said, I personally believe that there's a large population of culturally ignorant people in my neck of the woods (lincoln park/lakeview), that would literally run from any restaurant that had preserved eggs and fish cakes listed anywhere on their main menu.

Tac Quick needs to highlight their "Americanized" dishes because (unfortunately) that's what the majority of people in the area want, and they'd probably go out of business otherwise.

I seriously doubt that the mere presence of a challenging item on a menu would drive away their customers.

Lao Sze Chuan, arguably one of the most successful Chinese restaurants in town, manages to have a menu that has both "sweet and sour chicken" and "sour pickle and pork lung soup". All types of dinners feast happily from all portions of the menu (although it may take a little coaxing of your waitress to get the exact dish you want).

Best,
Michael

Well, at least the translated parts of the menu, and everyone mostly pays the same price for this feast. Generally.

Seriously, LSC does better than 99% of the Chinese and Thai places in the city, stocking and serving a huge variety of fresh ingredients from every part of the vegetable and animal kingdom (and every anatomical part of the vegetables and animals), and offering them straight up in menu vernacular. That's why it's an Ur-GNR and my go-to for celebrations of all types. But it's not a totally unassailable bastion of culinary ecumenism - compare the Hot Pot menu (if you can find it) in Chinese and English, or ask Tony if he's ever made anything special for the visiting businessmen he hosts. I've had many "secret" things even at our beloved LSC, one of the reasons my hopes to eat everything on the menu this calendar year became quickly daunting and untenable (combined with my life events and his opening of two other restaurants).

I totally agree that happier diners, prouder staff, and fresher ingredients would result from the abolishing of all secret menus. I'm glad more places are headed in this direction, and LTH is a huge part of it. Educated diners are better diners (and happier stomachs). But it's true that one hangup from the restauranteurs' perspective is wasted ingredients. China and Thailand spawned two cultures (among many, including Western Europe, once upon a time) that use every part of the plant and animal, and abhor waste. Enlightened though the members of this forum may be, there are many out there that send "funky" dishes back to the kitchen after the first bite, or let their kids order and then not eat 'ridiculous' things for shock value, or even walk out of a place with "pork cookies," offal, or blood soups on the menu. I've seen it happen personally. Business is business, and it makes perfect sense to me that these places are setting their menus up locally the way that they are.* Now, I don't like it - but it does make sense.

How lucky we LTHers are to live in an age of interconnected knowledge, and a most friendly city, so that we can engage and respect the pride and passion of our hosts and chefs, filling our bellies with the rewards. Sometimes, these rewards even make the translated menus for Joe Sixpack.

*an example of the reverse: Casa de Samuel offers rattlesnake on the menu, and then is out of it half the time, or people complain about it being dried out from too long in the freezer when they do have it. It's a balancing act with little reward for the restauranteur.

I seriously doubt that the mere presence of a challenging item on a menu would drive away their customers.

Lao Sze Chuan, arguably one of the most successful Chinese restaurants in town, manages to have a menu that has both "sweet and sour chicken" and "sour pickle and pork lung soup". All types of dinners feast happily from all portions of the menu (although it may take a little coaxing of your waitress to get the exact dish you want).

Best,
Michael[/quote][/quote]

I've been to TAC a least a dozen times and the only time I've ever seen a table besides my own order off the secret menu--much less the chalkboard--was when the staff was having an early dinner. Moreover, I have heard some unbelievable requests, from requesting a sweeter pad thai to requests for Chinese food like egg rolls and the like. Face it: the neighborhood thinks it's a typical "Rice and Noodles" joint and treats it as such. The foodies are clearly a niche group for them.

But I'm curious how the crispy on choy's sales were affected by the migration to the regular menu.

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yes yes yes

Crispy On Choy was on the special's board, not the "secret" menu. I'm not sure you'd learn anything.

I was there two weeks ago and it was on the regular menu.

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yes yes yes

Hi,

I just caught the TAC commentary on Check Please. I haven't been to TAC in a while, so maybe things changed without my awareness. The Chef-Owner who provided the narrative, his name quickly flashed on the screen. He didn't seem familiar and the streaming audio had no names to verify. Is this Chef Andy Aroonrasameruang? When I last saw him, I thought he had very closely trimmed to no hair. The chef-owner had a full head of hair. Is this Andy or someone else?

Regards,

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Cathy2

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C2 - pretty sure it was a more-hirsute-than-we're-used-to Andy. Can't find his title card in the clips up on WTTW at the moment:

http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,5

I am not familiar with the owner that was interviewed, but there was a brief shot of Andy cooking in the kitchen.

Same observation here, not familiar with the owner that was interviewed, but did see Andy briefly cooking in the kitchen.

How about them Crab Rangoon.

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I don't think that's a fair assessment when you consider that Lao Sze Chuan is situated in an area where Asian Americans are in the majority. Have you seen the Check Please where they visit Lao Sze Chaun?

http://checkplease.tv/ViewRestaurant.aspx?restaurant_id=122

Egg drop soup, sesame chicken, "crispy shrimp", szechuan beef, and empress chicken.

I'm sure I sound like a bit of a snob, but those are the kinds of request I hear from people at Tac Quick all the time.

I don't know, we had these amazing snail-y sort of seafood-y things at TAC. They were on the specials board. We asked what they were, the waiter talked it over with us, and explained carefully. They were very tasty, though I wouldn't order them again because they were VERY sandy. Beautiful conch-like shells, the animals inside were about the size of your thumb. Sort of the same texture as Octopus - firm, but not chewy or gummy. I think they were oven-roasted. A seasonal item, I believe.

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Leek
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Where they whelks?

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Steve Z.
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NO idea

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Leek
SAVING ONE DOG MAY NOT CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT IT CHANGES THE WORLD FOR THAT ONE DOG.
American Brittany Rescue always needs foster homes. Please think about helping that one dog.
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Maybe whelks. The shell seemed smoother, though, less textured than that picture.

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Leek
SAVING ONE DOG MAY NOT CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT IT CHANGES THE WORLD FOR THAT ONE DOG.
American Brittany Rescue always needs foster homes. Please think about helping that one dog.
http://www.americanbrittanyrescue.org