altThai — Restaurant in Wheeling Township

We have been going ot Alt Thai for over 15 years. This is absolutely our favorite place in the Northwest suburbs for few reasons: • Consistently great tasting food • Freshly made and beautifully presented • Fantastic appetizers - highly recommend Big Platter with a variety of appetizers and Crispy Calamari Rings, which are very fresh. • Most favorite soup of all time - Tom Kha Soup - you must try it - order the family size to share. It is a coconut base with your choice of meat (chicken is our family favorite) - has a sweet and spicy taste. • Reasonably priced (for family of 4 - with teens; appetizers, drinks, meals will cost around $100) • Serving crew is friendly and attentive without being intrusive and interrupting personal conversations • Fast service -there is usually a minimal time waiting for your food (10 min for drinks/appetizers; 15-20 min for main course; 10 min for deserts) • Very ambient, cozy and a great place to talk • Good location & free parking

• TIP 1: get the tables on the left when you enter- where there is more privacy and good street view. • TIP 2: Recommended first visit: 1) Appetizer: Big Platter 2) Soup: Tom Kha Soup; 3) Main Dish: Green curry with your choice of meat or Mixed Vegetables w/ meat choice; 4) Drinks: Thai Ice Tea is a given 5) Dessert: Mango ice cream - delicious • TIP 3: Mild can be still spicy if you have low-spice tolerance. • TIP 4: No need to make a reservation unless it is Father’s Day on Sunday and you come at 6pm. ;-) You may have to wait a bit then, otherwise we have never waited more than 1-10 minutes.

One Con: Two bathrooms only. Let just say when you go with a family and people are not used to spices, you may want to make sure there is a bathroom near by.

Quality of Food For 10 years going there, we have never had an issue with the quality of food or service. Once or twice there was a bit of wait for food, when there was an issue in the kitchen and once when they were especially busy. Otherwise, it is a very reliable place to go for dinner without any drama. My all time favorite is the Tom Kha, absolutely great. I prefer with shrimp and my husband loves it with chicken. It has a coconut milk base and a perfect combination of spice and sweetness. My second favorite is the green curry with shrimp or chicken. I ask for mild as that is spicy for me. ;-) When I don’t finish, I love to take the leftover juicy sauce home and next day warm it up and pour it over fresh rice. Delicious.

Atmosphere The place is small without being cramped - maybe around 20 tables or so, which I like. You don’t feel like you are going to a banquet hall. I like the very delicate traditional and comfortable ambiance and cozy atmosphere. There are always small candles on the tables ready to be lighted up for a romantic ambiance and so much fun for the kids. ;-) Whenever we want to take friends or family to a new place for dinner - our first pick is Alt Thai. It is not loud and you can actually carry on a conversation without being so quiet that you overhear the table next to you. Perfect acoustics.

Service Only once did we have to wait for a table at AltThai and that was on Father’s Day in June @6pm. But when I say we waited, I mean 10 minute wait, which is very reasonable. All other times we came in we were either seated right away or waited 1-10 minutes.

You get your food quickly. You get your drinks within 5-10 minutes. Appetizers next 10 minutes and the main meal within 20-30 minutes from when you came in. Perfect timing in my opinion. The servers are very polite and accurate. They don’t interrupt your conversations and hover over you. They give you space. If you want to sit and chat longer, they don’t ask you every two minutes whether “you want anything else.”

Price: Reasonably priced - appetizers start at $5.50 & up; main dishes start at $11 & up; (dinner for a family of 4 - with teens; appetizers, drinks, main dishes will cost...

The service was very distasteful and a very low quality of food. We were expected to read their menus fast like robots and our server was just hurrying us with unpleasant attitude to give her answer despite being our first time in this restaurant.Pad Thai tested like vinegar and flavorless, red curry with eggplant was better but still low quality. The egg plant was tossed last minute and was completely raw and tasteless. At least make sure it’s a bit cooked it’s not a carrot. We were hungry and wanted a decent meal but this place is ridiculously low quality in every angle. Food like that should not come out of the kitchen.

Updated to restaurants feedback.

If you really looked at the video with honesty , when we first walked in our server was waiting for an elderly woman to finish looking at the menu to order at the counter and she looked irritated. A proper etiquette would be to acknowledge customers with a simply hello and mention someone will be there shortly to seat them since we waited for sometime before being seated by another server. If you watched the video and read my lips or if it has audio, I did address to her it’s our first time and I looked dumbfounded about the manner and the speed she was talking to us . We couldn’t even understand nor catch what she was saying.

Next when the food arrived I did say out loud it tasted like vinegar and it did not taste right nor had pleasant flavor so asked first another nice server if there is sriracha to give some level of flavor ,she said no and mentioned there is a house hot sauce so I said yes better to try that than nothing. It came and I initially added a very small amount, tasted it and really nothing changed. Am not new to Pad Thai and I have had many. So the person I dinned with offered to exchange food after tasting the curry and I agreed. Yes he added more hot sauce to make it at least edible since we went out of our way our way to get to your restaurant and were hungry. If you also noticed I was picking on the curry and left the only few raw eggplant slices in the dish on the side along with other vegetables and ate the rice.

The curry did not have many vegetables on there probably 4 slices of thin carrots , and similar with other used. Thats not even 1/4 of a carrot. Same with the pad Thai. Buying bulk whole Sale foods ,I bet all the vegetables in the dish didn’t even cost you a dollar overall.

Sending back the food despite the taste was not a risk we chose to take because we don’t know what would happens behind the scene before our food comes back since the server was unpleasant.

Food sometimes may not come out tasting right, different things happen in the kitchen and can be corrected. If our interaction with the server was pleasant to begin with , it would have resulted in a possible better outcome, may have made up for the food, and our wasted...

I normally don’t give a review like this but my god. Let’s begin:

Care to know every financial and scheduling issue they have? I know because I spent my ENTIRE meal listening to the staff and manager VEHR LOUDLY discussing and arguing about it in the middle of the dining room.

There is only one option for each type of wine and I don’t feel the price was worth it. Wouldn’t recommend he Pinot Grigio.

I also got to listen to lovely Hip Hop music behind me while a staff member blasted it on their phone while eating at the table behind me.

I came for a quite meal and got chaos.

The waitress for some reason didn’t understand or comprehend my order which was Catfish with jalapeños on the side. Side jalapeños seemed to confuse her. When I received my food (a different waitress who was incredibly sweet) big surprise no side jalapeños.

When I needed anyone’s attention for water they didn’t come back at all and an off the clock employee filled it for me (he was sooooo sweet I wish he was my server)

The second, lovely, waitress came back to check on me not my original server. The original server didn’t come back until I was done. She seemed to be more interested in the new computer system and her tips from some other days issue then serving a customer. I entirely blame the manager for allowing all of this chaos in the middle of the dining hall with on the clock staff. So inappropriate. I got the most attention when my check came to collect my money. Shows what they really care about.

Postives the food was delicious so I will definitely order to go or delivery. I would highly recommend them for that but as far as in house dining I’m not sure. I’ll give them another try in the future hoping today was an off day. The staff for the most part seemed very friendly and sweet so I’m hoping the second times the charm otherwise I won’t be returning.

The environment including the restroom was very clean.

Great prices for the food in my opinion.

CATFISH...