Rice Bistro

One of the best thai places in Chicago

While this seems like a friendly small business, I overall found it to be a bit no-​frills. I didn’t find the panang curry flavorful at all. We fared better with our noodle dish, but my low rating is reflective of two main points which should be relatively easy to rectify: I am convinced the white rice must be parboiled (i.e. instant — way overboiled, or of particularly low quality). I really love my white rice, and both the texture and flavor of this were wayyy off the mark. Frankly, unforgivable.
Also, the damn door doesn’t have any latching mechanism, doesn’t close properly (even when forcefully pushed shut) and cold air pours into the restaurant. It was a cool fall day – I can only imagine what it’s like to dine in for winter.

I went to rice bistro several years ago right before a concert at athenaeum before I lived in lakeview and it was delish.
Now that I live up here I am glad I have a go-​to thai place.
Rice bistro has a very charming back patio.
I get the spicy basil pork belly and it’s truly delicious.
They always have deals and Unilocal check in gets you free crab rangoons — my fav!
Paying with cash gets you a 10% discount.
They recently re-​did the inside but I haven’t been in yet.
I usually get delivery.

very friendly restaurant. Ordered cucumber salad and chive dumplings, which were ok but the noodles were all very good: Pad Thai, Pad See Eiw, Lard Na and drunken udon.

This place was a little bit odd when we first got there… felt like the floor was kind of slanted and we ended up walking through a little alley/​hall to get to a cute little back patio. We were pretty early for dinner, so we just about had the place to ourselves. The food was tasty and it was lovely sitting out on the back patio with a nice view of a lovely church across the way. Throw in a Unilocal deal to bring the price down a couple of bucks and it was a real winner!

A thai american fusion place! Way back in the alley and nice patio outdoor. Quiet and private. Great place for a date. I ordered the tom yum noodle and it was absolutely satisfying. The noodle was not overcooked and the broth was very flavorful. Shrimps were juicy and has the bouncy texture. Highly recommend! It’s a bit pricey but i’m happy for the quality I got. They are also BYOB, another reason to love this place.

Went here and we had to call 3 times and walk back to the patio and bang on the door before they’d let us in. Said open n we saw people but they wernt opening up. Since we were wanting to eat here and had a time constraint we were really trying to get in.
When we finally got seated we were told the waitress hadn’t showed up yet. We asked if we could order anyway and they let us. The crab Rangoon was the highlight of the meal. I had the salmon pad thai. Id give it 2 outta 5 stars. The salmon tasted artificial. The noodles were so so.
I’d go back for the crab Rangoon but that’s it. The actually make them by hand. They are so little and Delish.

This is my first Unilocal review and Rice Bistro is very deserving of the honor. I have been going here regularly since February when I found a Groupon and fell in love. They have the best crab rangoon I have ever tasted — they are adorably wrapped and fried to perfection. I order them every time I dine here. The entrée items also have a ton of flavor — in particular, the panang noodles and all of the curries are delightful. I recently tried the Thai iced coffee and that was also tasty! Lastly, Rice Bistro is BYOB and the staff is prompt to provide glasses, a corkscrew, and an ice bucket if you bring a bottle (or multiple bottles) of wine.
Tried it, loved it, will continue introducing new friends to the place.

I absolutely love thai food and have been on a constant search for my «Must Have» Thai place. I am very surprised with the positive reviews for Rice Bistro. Whenever I go to a new thai restaurant I like to order 4 – 5 dishes to try my favorite thai dishes. Today, I ordered two of my typical choices (pad thai and green curry), 2 new dishes (singapore noodles and fried pork basil) on their menu, thai iced tea, and their thai iced coffee.
I feel like everything went wrong the minute I walked into the restaurant. As soon as I walked in, I was hit with an unpleasant aroma. I was originally seated at an unstable table and had to request a new one. At first… I thought. its okay… As long as the food is good. I was sooo hungry I felt like I could eat a cow. Oh~~~~ the disappointment I had when the food came out. =(
Where to start…
1. Thai iced tea and thai iced coffee were overly sweet with a powdery after taste.
2. I ordered all my dishes extra spicy. They assured me it would be spicy… It was only a medium spice level.
3. The Pad Thai had a strange fishy after taste. At first I thought maybe they used fish sauce. But it tasted more like they took the same pan/​wok they cooked fished in and used it to cook my pad thai. (still cringing at the thought of eating it).
4. The green curry was bland and the eggplant was undercooked. Oh. I must not forget the chicken in the green curry had a funky taste as well.
5. The crispy pork basil was salty but not too bad. There isn’t anything really special about this dish aside from its crispy texture. I could taste a lot of soy sauce.
6. The singapore noodle was a simple curry egg noodle dish. This was probably the most enjoyable dish for me?
In conclusion, this was probably the worst thai place I’ve had out of 4 places I’ve tried in Chicago. I currently live in the suburbs and have tried numerous places closer to home. Sad it could not compete with the «not so great» places closer to home.
Life moves on~ Off to my next adventure!

Panang was watery, garlic chicken had no flavor, pad Thai was ok. Surprised by all the good reviews

I am baffled by the positive reviews of Rice Bistro. Perhaps the quality is better in the restaurant than their delivery, but after this experience there is no way in which I will be darkening their door to find out.
I ordered Kha Moo, which is described on the menu as «Stewed country style back ribs, five spices, Chinese broccoli & pickled cabbage.» However, what I received was three measly pieces of meat in broth. No vegetables, no pickled cabbage. When I called to report that they had sent me the wrong menu item. (Honestly, I thought they sent me soup by mistake.) They told me that they would be happy to make me another order with the vegetables. Fine. It seemed like an honest mistake. However, ten minutes later they called to tell me, they were out of cabbage and that it would take two hours to deliver my food. Instead, would I accept a ten dollar credit? This seemed fine until I realized it did not even cover the original cost of the dish! Stay far away from this place.

Caution: floor is slanted! Literally its like waking into a fun house.
I didn’t find the RIce Bistro great… prices would make you think it is slightly upscale Thai, but the food and service doesn’t match.
We chose to dine-​in = first mistake. The restaurant was SO focused on its delivery/​take out operation, that we were practically invisible… service was mediocre at best…
We started with a Crab Rangoon (not Thai) free from checking-​in on Unilocal.This was the best part of the meal — hot and fresh just out of the deep-​fryer. I would have been disappointed if we had to pay for this given the small size of the appetizer — these are like bite-​size rangoons.
Blake had Crazy noodles — it was passable, but for being ordered spicy is was probably the most bland Thai food I had ever tried. So not-​appetizing that we threw the leftovers away.
I had a Panang curry with tofu. Panang curry is my favorite thai food — not here — curry was soupy and there were almost no vegetables. There was also very little tofu — about three spoonfuls.
We also split a tom-​yum soup — nice, but for $ 6, it should be more than a coffee cup size!
The food just wasn’t great and the service left much to be desired. We’ll skip this one in the future!

We came here because of a Groupon offering a deal of $ 10 for $ 20 worth of food. The restaurant was a bit quirky, with the crooked look on the outside and the eccentrically-​painted blue squares on the walls. The inside of the restaurant was small and was pretty empty for a Saturday night. It was air conditioned too on this humid evening. Apparently there was also an outdoor patio that the waitress offered for us to sit, but the air conditioning felt really good.
We ordered beef Pad See Ew and Crazy Noodles to meet the $ 20 value of the Groupon. Customers are given a choice of different levels of spiciness. We went with a medium level of spiciness to safely accommodate the boyfriend’s spice tolerance.
The beef in the Pad See Ew was overcooked and it left a small pool of sauce, which isn’t really traditional for the dish. But there were large bits of egg and it had decent flavour. The Crazy Noodles were also flavourful, with a lot more chicken than rice noodles. There were only two jumbo shrimps though, which made sense considering the price of the dish. In my opinion, it could have been spicier but it was probably for the better for the boyfriend.
Service was friendly and quick. If it weren’t for the Groupon, I would not feel like it was worth the tab. You can also get 10% off your bill if you pay with cash on Saturdays. It was an enjoyable experience overall, but the small portions left us still somewhat hungry.

I have officially found a new favorite Thai restaurant — now only if I lived even remotely close to this place…
After finding them on Groupon, and scouring reviews for this place my husband and I checked it out, and got the recommended Crispy Pork Basil and their Singapore Noodles. They were honestly both amazing. They had plenty of flavor and heat — but the spice didn’t overwhelm any of the flavors.
I also ordered a Thai Iced Coffee, which is espresso with condensed milk over ice. It was also delicious, and will be ordered again. It had very little bitterness and almost a caramel taste to it.
The restaurant is small, but cute, they have one bathroom and it’s a little grimy, the owners/​waitress was really nice, my only two complaints would have to be the fact that their door doesn’t latch close, and the intermittent 20 degree breeze (followed by the heat from the heater) might be why I caught a cold, and their inconsistency. with their dishes. We had two friends meet us a little later, and one of my friends also ordered the Crispy Pork Basil after seeing mine, and her order was double the size and actually had crispy pieces of basil– which was honestly kind of disappointing that they were so different.
As we were leaving, the super nice waitress/​owner gave us a coupon to come back, and we definitely will.
I also tried to check in on Unilocal here, but my GPS couldn’t find me. If you do check in while you’re here you get a free crab rangoon — which I hear is very good!

Janet W. and I came here for dinner, and we ordered moo ping for appetizer. This was good, but I didn’t particularly cared for the sweet and sour sauce. Don’t get me wrong, the sauce was good. I just thought it’d have paired better with something like nuoc mam.
Janet’s entrée was the kha moo (Stewed country style back ribs, five spices, Chinese broccoli & pickled cabbage). I love stews, so this was my favorite item, and I wish I had ordered this instead.
I ordered the crispy pork basil for my entrée, based on the server’s recommendation. It was only okay.
If I come here again, I want to come here with someone who can handle spices, as I think Thai food is better served spicy sometimes. Sorry Janet. :P
Also, we came here during Spring, I think. The dining area was empty and REALLY cold instead. I think we both kept our coats on during the meal.

I’m not really sure how they manage to offer items for $ 4 – 6 during brunch and still stay in business, but I’m not complaining.
Minor notes, the food here errs on the spicy side. Also if you sit outside there is this tree that will shed organic material into your food/​drinks/​hair the ENTIRE TIME.
But our waitress was super nice. She let us substitute fat rice noodles into a dish and even let us use a Unilocal coupon even though technically they aren’t allowed during brunch. And now Unilocal is yelling at me to write a review. So here I am.