‘Ruby of Siam’ is a Dining Gem

Open since 1995, has been bringing in crowds for more than two decades by offering an extensive menu of excellent Thai dishes. Sharing a menu with its second location in the Chicago Loop, the spot rewards the adventurous while also serving all the classics.

While it’s tucked away in a strip mall at 9420 Skokie Blvd., Ruby of Siam boasts a beautiful interior. The space features a mix of tables and wooden half booths with bright colored throw pillows. Walls are covered with vibrant, sparkling tapestries and a row of sculpted elephant heads hangs above the back.

The place was quiet when we came in around 6 p.m. Monday, but by 7 p.m. it was nearly full, an impressive feat considering the declines most restaurants have seen in weekday customers. Our service was fast, but not very helpful due to the servers not speaking much English. When we asked for advice on what to order, the best they could do was note that dishes on the menu with a red R next to them were considered recommended.

Ruby of Siam is BYOB, but also serves an impressive selection of bubble teas. We ordered the coconut and watermelon ($3.79), which were both served in large goblets topped with whipped cream. The coconut was great, tasting like a pina colada, minus the pineapple, but the whipped cream blended a bit oddly with the watermelon to give it an overly sweet bubblegum-like flavor.

To start we ordered the fried shrimp spring rolls ($7.99). Not really spring rolls, the dish consists of six long shrimp wrapped in spring roll paper and lightly fried. They were crisp and not too greasy, and particularly great dipped in the sweet sauce they’re served with.

For entrees I ordered the roasted duck curry ($12.99), which is wonderfully presented in a stone bowl shaped like a duck accompanied by a huge Thai rice-serving bowl. All dishes can be prepared mild, medium or hot, and at hot the curry had plenty of kick, especially when you got a bite with a fresh hot pepper. The flavorful dish featured good portions of skin-on duck, peapods, bell peppers, grapes and chunks of pineapple, with the fruit helping to temper the heat.

My fiancé went for the kaoman somtum kaiyand ($11.99); a complex dinner featuring charbroiled chicken, coconut milk-infused rice and papaya salad. The chicken made for a light base, with a mild char flavor that went well with the chili-paste it’s served with. The coconut milk made the rice slightly sweet, good for soaking up some of the kick from the papaya salad, which was the best version of the dish I’ve had since studying abroad in Thailand. The crispy strips of papaya are topped with crushed peanuts and served covered in a very spicy sauce that means the bites at the bottom are the spiciest.

For dessert we ordered mango sticky rice ($5.99). Most Thai restaurants stop offering the dish in fall, when the tropical fruit is out of season, but Ruby of Siam managed to have perfectly ripe mango to go with the block of sweet, crunchy rice. Skokie has a great variety of Asian restaurants, but it’s easy to see how Ruby of Siam has stayed a standout option for so long.

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