Dao Thai Restaurant

We were in town Nov 21-23, 2008, due to the Christmas lighting ceremony/parade it was packed downtown. After a cold morning of fighting the crowds on Michigan Ave this restaurant was the perfe3ct resting place. The food was very good! The vietnamese spring roll was excellent with a terrific mix of flavors. The shrimp Tom Yum soup was a surprise. The light citrusy broth was perfect. My wife enjoyed her cashew chicken. The service was spot on and we enjoyed all the authentic decorations. Highly recommend.

I knew nothing of this place until my boyfriend recommended it one day. He works downtown and I come down to have lunch with him, so needless to say it needs to be close and fast. Well Dao is both of these, and to boot, delicious! We usually get the chicken fried rice, and have yet to be disappointed. The service is quick and friendly. We are in and out in about 45mins. Im always wanting to go back and can't recommend them enough!!

This place is fantastic. My favorite downtown food for cheap. Sometimes dine-in service takes 30-40 minutes, but I always get my take out in less than 15 minutes. The Almond Beef and Panang Curry Beef are my favorites. I eat a lot of Thai, and this is my favorite $10 and under place I ever been to. I can't recommend this enough!

I wish we had read the reviews before we ordered. Last week we had a craving for spring rolls and pad thai, we chose Dao for delivery. We were dismayed before we even put the food on our plate. The delivery took an hour and a half and we live in the same block. The spring rolls were a mush of what tasted like bean sprouts and wet tortilla. Our Penang Curry had chicken, no vegetables, and seemed to have more oil than peanut curry sauce. Very unappetizing. Always wary of new places, we had ordered fried rice, just in case . . . The rice was tight and grainy as if they used day old rice to prepare it. The chicken in this dish was so dried out it was almost unedible. They have a great location and all of Streeterville needs a good Thai restaurant. Are the owners really Thai? Very discouraging.

We went to this restaurant on Saturday night hoping for some good Pad Thai, after having a horrible experience at the Star of Siam (not too far from Dao).

In short, it was the worst experience we have ever had in a Thai Restaurant. We waited for more than 10 minutes after we were seated for someone to take our order. We could not customize our orders, such as asking for Woon Sen noodles in our Pad Thai, not adding cilantro, or putting broth on the side (all of which are very easy things to do). This is the first time we have had these "customizations" refused in a Thai Restaurant. They also forgot to bring our Crab Rangoon, because the waiter forgot to write it down while we were ordering (even though he looked like he was writing something down). It took another 15 minutes to get the check.

To top it all off, at the very end of our dining experience we saw an "exotic-looking" flying insect on the condiments. . .we will not be back.