There’s a Thai restaurant in Forest Park that started out as a dessert shop, but over the last year, has been adding a lot of noodles and curries to the menu and Steve Dolinsky is here to showcase their offerings.
There’s a Thai restaurant in Forest Park that started out as a dessert shop, but over the last year, has been adding a lot of noodles and curries to the menu.
The owners of Habraé in Forest Park have been more than accommodating to their regulars. Because as they’ve carefully expanded from a serious dessert shop - offering puddings, tarts and Thai sweets – they’ve taken suggestions to heart. When customers who’d traveled to Chiang Mai kept requesting khao soi, the fantastic noodle curry dish that originated there, they obliged.
“Khao soi is the most popular in Chiang Mai, so after they ask for it, we think we should put khao soi on the menu,” said Jumpol Prasitporn, the co-owner of Habraé.
Combining coconut milk with two curry pastes is key.
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“A lot of restaurants using only one curry paste, and when you put two of them together it increases the smell and increases the taste,” he said.
Discs of palm sugar balance the heat. Instead of chicken legs, they use thinly-sliced, lean beef, which cooks in a matter of seconds. Bowls begin with egg noodles – soft-boiled as well as cispy-crunchy. Then the beef and curry and finally, garnishes of red onion, pickled mustard green and scallion. It’s imperative you mix everything up to incorporate the flavor and textures.
A simple salad, called larb kai, is bright and refreshing. Cooked, ground chicken is tossed with a chili-lime and fish sauce dressing, as well as toasted, ground rice powder, scallions and chili flakes. It has all the hallmarks of a proper Thai dish.
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“Have the spicy taste, have a sour taste, salty and a little bit sweet,” he said.
Khao Mun Gai is essentially chicken and rice, but the chicken is marinated and grilled while the rice is suffused with chicken stock. A crunchy papaya salad is served alongside, providing some heat and acidity.
Dessert is where you’re going to have to make important decisions. An egg tart is a good call.
“And the popular one in Chinatown in Bangkok is egg tart so that’s why we put egg tart on our menu,” said Prasitporn.
You may have seen sweet sticky rice, covered with warm coconut milk and fresh mango. But since mango is seasonal, they also top theirs with roasted and dried tuna, mixed with fried shallots and sugar. Sounds odd, tastes great.
“The roasted tuna with sticky rice, no one around here selling it, only in Thai grocery, and you cannot find that easy and I think it’s very interesting,” he said.
Here's where you can go:
7230 Madison St., Forest Park
708-689-8852
