I'm in Chicago, and good Thai food is indeed hard to come by around here. I've been to Bangkok and good food is everywhere, even in mall food courts (Siam Parag

I'm in Chicago, and good Thai food is indeed hard to come by around here. I've been to Bangkok and good food is everywhere, even in mall food courts (Siam Paragon in Bangkok has surprisingly excellent food -- I think it's because most Thai people tend to hang out a lot in malls due to the hot weather). Most of the places that non-Thai people recommend in the Chicago Loop are mostly of the Americanized variety (because restaurant economics -- these places need broad appeal to turn a profit given the high rents). Don't get me wrong, I'm ok with non-authentic cuisine as long as they are good, but Loop Thai restaurants are mostly only "passable". The better Thai places are in locales with cheaper rent, e.g. JJ Thai Street Food in West Town, and Aroy Thai in Ravenswood (Aroy was recommended to me by a Thai person). These serve dishes that are much closer to what you would find in Thailand (i.e. spicier, more fish-sauce punch), but the downside of this authenticity is that folks with milder palates might be put off -- you probably wouldn't be able to bring any Olive-Garden-loving relatives to these places. My personal barometer of how good a Thai place is the sweetness. The sweeter the pad thai, the less authentic the place. Tyler Cowen, the economist, has this to say about Thai food in the United States: [1] "Thai food in the United States is becoming bad. It’s getting sweeter—with excessive use of refined sugar—and the other flavors are growing weaker and less reliable. In absolute numbers, more excellent Thai restaurants exist than ever before, but I wouldn’t want to vouch for the average quality of Thai food in America these days. One problem is that many Thai people have such a wonderful service ethic. I don’t think I have ever once been treated poorly in a Thai restaurant. That has made courting wide audiences relatively easy. Thai food also looks healthy and has beautiful colors—all those greens, reds, yellows, and oranges. As a result, Thai food has become cool. I first saw this trend in California, in the 1980s, when young people in black started turning up in large numbers at Thai restaurants in Hollywood. It spread. Americans eating in a Thai restaurant are likely more hip than those eating in a Chinese restaurant. Yet hip people do not always have superb taste in food. As Thai restaurants have become more popular, they have become unreliable. It is so easy to make the food too sweet, appealing to lowest-common-denominator tastes or masking deficiencies in the food’s preparation. The best sweet Thai dishes mix sweet with tart, but there’s been too much abuse on the sweet side and not enough use of fish sauce or fermented shrimp paste or ground white pepper. The most-reliable indicators of bad Thai restaurants are a large bar and sushi on the menu. Those are both signs that the restaurant isn’t that serious about food. Stay away." [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/six-rules-for-dining-out/308929/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/six-rul...