In Thailand, the elephant with trunk lifted is a symbol of good fortune, especially if you walk under the noble beast three times. So, after three trips to Elephant Café I was feeling pretty lucky to have tasted a good variety of traditional Thai favorites at this tiny restaurant on Farwell. The Elephant Café, a sister restaurant to EE-Sane, has an extensive menu using fresh and traditional Thai ingredients and many dishes with ginger and Thai basil.
Elephant Café offers many choices, from the portion size of soup to protein and, more importantly, the heat index or spice scale. We ordered a 3 and it was spicy, but pleasant on the heat index scale. However, a few of the dishes could have been served hotter in temperature, including the soup and appetizers.
The café’s lunch is a great deal for $6.95-8 and includes your main choice with either the soup of the day or a crispy egg roll with house-made sweet-and-sour sauce. The ginger vegetable soup was warm and comforting on a cold day, but also gave me a glimpse of spring with crisp vegetables in a gingery broth. The eggroll was light and crunchy, and the plum sauce glistening underneath had a wonderful flavor and consistency. Lunch specials run Tuesday-Friday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
Equally impressive were the fresh spring rolls with choice of pork, chicken, tofu or just vegetables (average price, $4.95) and the crispy squid ($7.95). The squid were not the calamari rings coated in a thicker batter that you might expect, but thick-cut pieces of squid steak, lightly dipped in tempera batter fried golden and crisp. We couldn’t stop eating them.
Elephant Café is a great place for vegetarian, vegan and other dietary restrictions and they are happy to accommodate. The biggest surprise was the tofu satay ($5.95). Even my “non-tofu eating” guest loved the texture and would order it again. Six skewers are marinated in a house curry blend and brought with a little hibachi to char and caramelize tableside with a side of cucumber sauce as an accompaniment for dipping.
The hot plates had an even longer list of proteins including steak and duck; the pho is served with a rich beef broth unless you opt for the vegetarian noodle soup with a light vegetable stock. The Crying Tiger Marinated Beef in the a la carte selection was tender and served on crisp lettuce with lime wedges ($15.95) to complement the beefy flavor and tone down the spicy sauce.
There are eight curries to choose from. The ginger and squash curries for vegetarian options were filling and robust in flavor. Other curry favorites were the Paneng and Mussuman, with just the right amount of coconut milk ($11-$13). In the noodle lineup, my favorite dish was the basil noodle with ginger, a great flavor combination with fresh vegetables. Although the Pud Thai was executed well, the house-made sauce was a little sweeter than I expected.
Don’t pass up the interesting desserts, including Thai custard with taro or sticky rice in banana leaves. If you had your fill of rice, the fried bananas with ice cream is just right for that little bite of sweet after a spicy meal ($4-$5).
About that lore of the elephant that brings good luck to those that walk under it: I think no matter how many times you walk inside, the Elephant Café brings good food without spending a fortune.
Elephant Café
1505 N. Farwell Ave.
414-220-9322
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Handicap Accessible: No
