Azha

I was walking by Azha with a friend, and the owner was standing at the door with a bag of food — an order that someone had placed and not picked up or something — and he asked me if I wanted it: «We just made this».
I could tell he simply didn’t want it to go to waste, so I thanked him and took the sandwich and soup home. OH MAN — It turned out to be one of the BEST sandwiches I have ever eaten in my life! Beef with spicy vegetables and dressings on a really delicious, soft roll. Just fantastic. And the egg flower soup (or something like that) was fantastic as well.
I will be back to Azha asap and I recommend that everyone who reads this go there too. EXCELLENT food, nice owner, with a social conscience. GOOD stuff!

I ordered before reading reviews. Then I got worried. But then I continued to read reviews of other Thai restaurants I like and saw same amount of stars for ratings and stopped worrying, then my food arrived.
I ordered their Jade Vegetable Dumplings steamed, which were OK.
I also ordered the Tropical Fried Rice with vegetables. That is a disaster. How can anyone screw up vegetable fried rice? It is the most horrible thing I have tasted. I can’t stand Chinese food and the rice tastes like something I would get at a Chinese restaurant. The smell is foul and the taste just horrible. I can’t figure out that flavor. What the heck is it?
Let me assure you– it is not Thai. I traveled in Thailand for two months and have been in almost every corner and I always liked Thai Pineapple Fried Rice and nowhere in Thailand did it taste as bad as what I have eaten today.
Skip, don’t bother. Find another place to eat Tha.
My favorite so far is Joy’s Noodles, Phở & I, Duck Walk and Taste of Asia and in the same order.
That was a waste of money and only because I wanted to try a different restaurant.
Yikes!

I hate writing bad reviews, especially for small family owned places but I must say this place was just plain bad. If you plan on ordering anything with seafood (such as crabmeat) please be prepared to get cold imitation meat that doesn’t mix well with your meal. The Pad See Ew was very bland and uneventful. There are so many other Asian options nearby to waste your time on this one.

Azha is located adjacent to the Belmont Red Line stop. I decided to stop here because I was craving some Thai food. The server that I had was really nice. I ordered some combo with soup and a chicken entrée. The soup and the chicken entrée were nothing spectacular, just alright. Enough said.

Living close to the Belmont El stop, I find it hard to go grocery shopping and cook after work when there are so many restaurants near me. Walking home, I pass by Azha frequently and one day decide to stop by to order take out.
It was early on a weeknight so the restaurant wasn’t busy at all. Upon walking in, the environment seemed nice for a local Thai restaurant – simple. I walked up to the counter and waited a bit longer than I wanted (like I said, it was early on a weeknight and I could see at least two people working a few feet by me). I tried not to hold a grudge as I just expecting they had phone orders and whatnot. But, so far, I wasn’t overly impressed by the service.
I ordered what I think should be good at every Thai restaurant – tofu pad thai. I mean, you can’t not have good pad thai at a Thai restaurant. Isn’t it a pretty standard dish? Anyhow, the food came out in average time and I took it and headed back to my apartment.
When I got home, I started eating. I don’t know exactly what was wrong with the taste, but it just wasn’t good. The noodles were too thin and too long. The taste was off. After awhile, I just got tired of eating subpar food and decided to just save it for later.
I ended up letting my roommate eat my leftovers and asked her what she thought. Was I being too picky? Was it just a little better than average? Was it even average? Sadly, she disagreed and I will likely never return to this restaurant again. Must find a good staple Thai restaurant that I can take out from.

I stumbled on this place on the way back from Chicago Comics and decided to try the duck fried rice. I was totally blown away by the overall flavor of the rice and duck, and become obssessed, I stopped there in the middle of my brown line return trip, just about a week later, and wasn’t as impressed, but still enjoyed it (I probably wasn’t hungry enough).
Just yesterday, I tried the lunch special (they’ve extended it to Saturday) and enjoyed the crab ragoons but thought the BBQ pork fried rice was just okay; there wasn’t enough meet and the rice didn’t have much flavor. I guess it’s a Cantonese thing and I probably shouldn’t be ordering it at a Thai joint; in fact the only reason I got fried rice again yesterday (instead of something more uniquely Thai) was because I’d been so impressed with it before. All fried rice there is not created equal, let’s just put it that way.
So you probably would’ve seen a 5 star rating if I’d been Unilocaling back when I first tried the place. Shows the hazard of snap judgments, I suppose. Other notes… the place have always been empty (perhaps I’ve never been there in rush periods) so the wait is minimal, and they don’t mind if you want to sit and read after eating. It’s right next to the L station, so the location is certainly convenient. I’d say, give it a try if in the area.

This is totally serviceable thai. Late one night, we were wandering around trying to find someplace to eat that wasn’t bar food, and Azha was right there, so we went in. I had my usual pad woonsen, and my date had spicy basil noodles. Mine was just fine (happily full of little peas), but the basil noodles were… weird. They tasted kind of like spaghetti, or spaghettios. We ate everything, but I’m not sure it’s going to be a regular. But if I’m ever starving on Belmont at 945 again, I’d readily return to Azha.

Another day, another craving for bubble tea. Having just gotten my hair did (thanks to Holly, I was feeling tres fabu) and my ride being stuck in traffic, I decided to hoof it to my next destination. Well, it appears that summer has finally arrived in Chicago… it was quite hot.
Sun and heat meant I got thirsty. And that damn craving for the bubble tea was there… so I hit Belmont and walked east. Sure enough, right before I hit the el, I saw Azha, a Thai place I had NEVER noticed before, but they have was boba, my desire.
A pleasant man took my order and I was able to sit in the a/​c, watch a little Armageddon, and wait for my order. One green tea boba and a strawberry boba later, I instantly refreshed. Yeah, not as creamy and wonderful as Nhu Lan, but still… it cured my craving and calmed my fire-​y thirst.
All was well on a beautiful Saturday.

This place is conveniently located right off of the Belmont stop. We were n the area somewhat late and needed a place for dinner. This place saved us from starvation!
This is a little storefront restaurant and the atmosphere was nothing to write home about. It seemed rather chilly inside. The service was fine but once again, nothing to write home about.
They started out giving us what our waiter called «rice krispies». They were pretty much light fried rice cakes with some sweet dipping sauce. These things were not good at all but I was so hungry I had to eat some. We started out with crab rangoon which were very disappointing. The were very skimpy on the filling and they were extremely greasy. I was starting to worry about what my beef Pad Thai was going to be like. When they brought out the main course, they completely redeemed themselves as the Pad Thai was excellent.
i am thinking that this place is never going to be a destination for us. I am sure that if we are in the area, and we are craving Thai, then this place will do the trick.

Azha is a good storefront-​type Thai restaurant, conveniently located right at the Belmont el stop. The food tastes very fresh, and some of the «usual» menu items have a slight twist from the ordinary. For example, the cucumber salad have larger pieces of cucumber than usual, and tastes slightly different, while still retaining the basic flavor. Until recently I’d only had takeaway from Azha, but I recently had dinner there with my sister and brother in law. It was a nice experience, and we were all happy with the food. The Thai iced tea was particularly good. The service was fine. The restaurant was almost empty, and thus very quiet, but there was a steady stream of customers for takeaway.
I’ve given «only» three stars merely becuase there isn’t much ambience, and becauce I’ve only dined in once, so am reserving additional stars until after I’ve been a few more times.