Royal Thai
2209 W Montrose Ave., Chicago, IL‎
Neighborhood: Ravenswood

Royal Thai.

Tonight, Anna and I finally found a Thai restaurant that reigns supreme over all of the others we’ve tried in this great city.  Royal Thai is a family owned and operated restaurant tucked inside the Ravenswood neighborhood, right across the street from Welles Park.  They have a very extensive menu that includes everything from traditional noodle and rice thai dishes to fancier curry and seafood options.  We started off with an appetizer of crab rangoon that was served with Royal Thai’s homemade sweet and sour sauce and proved to be crispy and light, and not greasy in the slightest.  For our main entrees, Anna and I both had noodle plates.  I had the crispy pad thai that was very filling and delicious.  Anna ordered the Royal Thai noodle plate, which happens to be the house special.  It included crispy wide rice noodles topped with bok choy, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, baby corns, onions, carrots and peapods in Royal Thai’s special house sauce.  Overall, the service at Royal Thai was excellent and our entire meal was under $20.  The only complaint we had is that we wish we lived in their delivery zone!  We will definitely be visiting Royal Thai again soon.

-Rob

Crab Rangoon.

Anna’s Royal Thai Noodle Special with chicken.

Rob’s crispy Pad Thai with chicken.

Metropolitan Brewing
5121 N Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL‎
Neighborhood: Ravenswood

Metropolitan Brewery.

Hello to our abundance of new followers!  This is the second of two posts this week since our laziness from last week resulted in no post.  Continuing in the apparent brewery theme of the week, Rob and I decided to go on our first brewery tour at Metropolitan Brewery in the Ravenswood neighborhood this weekend.  Having never been on a tour, we weren’t sure what to expect, but we instantly felt at home as we walked into the huge brewery space and were handed samples of Metropolitan’s Kölsch-style beer, Krankshaft, to start with.  The informative nearly hour-long tour was conducted by owners Doug and Tracy Hurst, who led the group of thirty or so around the space, explaining each component of the brewing process.

As the tour progressed, Tracy filled up our airline-sized cups with samples of each of Metropolitan’s beers, including the Flywheel Bright lager (my favorite of all their beers), the Dynamo Copper lager, and their special winter seasonal beer, which was over 8% in alcohol content and definitely left a smile on my face by the time I headed back out into the cold Chicago afternoon.  At $5 a person, Metropolitan’s brewery tour is inexpensive and highly entertaining.  Rob and I definitely recommend it to any fellow beer enthusiasts in the Chicagoland area, or elsewhere.

-Anna

Metropolitan’s three beers.

Doug Hurst explaining the grain process in front of the brew kettle.

Rob sipping on some Krankshaft.