This feisty little gem deserves a spot on the grid, mostly because it kicked my ass but also because I’m surprised it was this good. I wanted to show my friend Ben something good to eat in Elmhurst, and I was planning to take him to the Taiwanese place with the hot and sour soup, or the Indonesian ramen place or maybe some Thai or Vietnamese, but he zeroed in on this place and said “it spoke to him.”

Turns out, “this is better than Sripraphai,” according to the faded old Village Voice article by @rsietsema tacked to the wall. That’s a compelling statement but I’m convinced it’s true after one taste of that fatty pork neck!!! It was almost like charcuterie, whoa. But the spicy beef tom Zaab soup ripped open another dimension and left us stumbling around for half an hour, crying for Athena to save us. Is this place a Trojan horse???? Less