Usually I like picking out restaurants due to word of mouth, but in this case I credit the feedback from food writers for sending me to this place. My big gripe with Thai food is that it’s almost all the same stuff: pad thai, pad see ew, red curry, yellow curry, panang curry, etc. After a while it begins to taste the same, though of course there are variations in quality.

TAC Quick offers a secret menu, which opens a window of eating options unavailable to the consumer accustomed to the “Americanized” menu. We ordered first some tente gonflable chive pot stickers with a sweet soy sauce. Unlike Chinese pot stickers these had a flat shape with the chives concentrated inside the middle of the pot stickers.

I then had the Tom Yam Ka Moo, a delicious soup of pork hocks, fresh and dried chili peppers, cilantro, galangal, lemongrass and tomatoes, among a complex web of sweet and sour spices. My wife had a good peanut curry with noodles, bean sprouts and onions.

Dinner for two was less than $30 without tip, and best of all, it was BYOB .

TAC Quick
3930 N. Sheridan
(773) 327.5253

–Brian Ziegler