Review: Habraé offers beautiful, hard-to-find Thai comfort food near Chicago

When a Thai cafe opened last summer near Chicago, the owners didn’t expect people to start asking for food. Habraé was just supposed to be a dessert shop, they said. But the delicate sweets offered a glimpse of something more.

“Some people asked for pad thai or pad see ew,” said Jumpol Prasitporn, manager of the restaurant he owns his wife, chef Ussanee Sanmuesngchin. “But there is a lot of Thai food that she would like to present. Hard-to-find food, for someone who’s visited Thailand or lived there. To help them find comfort.”

Thai desserts are where Sanmuesngchin herself first found comfort, including charcoal pudding.

“The story of the charcoal dessert in Thailand goes back hundreds of years,” Prasitporn said. “They used to burn the coconut shell.”

The chef uses a modern food-grade charcoal, lending more dramatic color than flavor to silky cups she finishes with a light layer of coconut cream.

It’s not too sweet, one of the highest compliments many Asians believe they can give dessert.

The roasted tuna sticky rice is surprisingly a traditional dessert deserving of that praise. This rarely seen cousin to mango sticky rice replaces the fruit, which the cafe won’t serve out of season. The fish is transformed to feathery floss, like Chinese rousong.

“You have sweet, you have salty, you have creaminess from the coconut milk,” Prasitporn said. “Only one customer told me that it tastes good, but they’re not into it, and it surprised them.”

Radiant rice has always been the focus of the dish, no matter the accompaniment, here with a fluff that could be mistaken for a sea salt caramel garnish.

“I make this because it’s one of my favorites,” Sanmuesngchin said. “If you open your mind and give us a chance, it tastes pretty good.”

The couple is from Bangkok, but they met near Chicago, in Berwyn to be precise. He goes by Jump, and she by Au, pronounced “ooh.” They’ve made Habraé a beautiful space in suburban Forest Park, a next-door neighbor to Oak Park just west of Chicago’s city limits. Woven basket light fixtures overhead and exposed brick walls all around create a warm modern farmhouse feeling to the airy dining room. A pastry case displays desserts like edible jewels in palm sugar gold and pandan green.

The green dish they call Chive Crispy is a street food snack turned terrific appetizer, served with sweet and sour soy dipping sauce.

“You see it a lot in Chinatown in Bangkok,” Prasitporn said. “We call it guichai tod. Guichai means chive.”

The pan-fried squares seem similar to Chinese dim sum chive dumplings crossed with turnip cakes, but much thinner and fried far crispier.

The khao soi, steamed egg noodles in a complex spicy coconut curry soup topped with crispy egg noodles, showcases a bowl as thoughtfully composed by the chef as Japanese ramen, or a centerpiece cake.

“In Thailand, you will find a side dish on the table,” Prasitporn said. “But you should have it with the vegetables. You should smell the onion.”

And you should feel the texture of the green mustard pickle, added the chef.

The menu is deceptively extensive, ranging from sai ua, distinctive little Thai sausages; to rat na moo, a Thai-Chinese noodle dish comparable to pan-fried chow mein; to khanom thuai, coconut pudding cooked and served in covetable ceramic cups — and much more. They’re all alluring, but a bit bland, and perhaps distract from a mission to offer food that’s harder to find.

Not that every dish needs to be historic or rare. The stunning salted egg croissant mirrors a recent Asian pastry trend, a molten filling barely contained within buttery flakes. The trembling egg tarts should be bought in pairs, at least, but more probably by the half-dozen, particularly if warm from the oven. And remember there’s perfectly, not-too-sweet oliang, Thai coffee with condensed milk and a hint of cardamom.

“We would like customers to taste Thai food as it should be,” Prasitporn said. Some order dishes without the spice, he added. “Sometimes we make it, because we would like to serve. But (with) certain dishes, like kanom jeen kang kai — red curry chicken — the only way that we can make it less spicy is to put more water in there, so you won’t really taste anything.”

The striking coils of rice noodles with which it’s served are meant to temper the heat.

“If you mix it with the rice noodle, I think it’s a perfect bite,” said the chef.

lchu@chicagotribune.com

7230 Madison St., Forest Park

708-689-8852

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habrae.com

Open: 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., closed Tuesday

Prices: $4 (egg tart), $4.50 (charcoal pudding), $5.95 (salted egg croissant), $7.50 (tuna sticky rice), $8 (chive crispy), $17 (khao soi), $5.50 (Habraé coffee)

Noise: Conversation-friendly

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with restroom on single level

Tribune rating: Very good, 2 stars

Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.