Having just gotten back from Thailand we were eager to try recreating some of our favorite dishes at home. There used to be a store on Argyle appropriately called “Thai Grocery” but it closed semi-recently. Without any other obviously-named choices, we were pleased when we randomly saw a sign on a store on Dempster proclaiming “We now carry Thai Groceries”.
The aptly named Uni-Mart mainly sells Filipino food (both in a restaurant and grocery store), there was a healthy helping of Thai food mixed in. There was a huge selection of canned Thai sauces and bags of cookies, but what most intrigued us was the beverage selection. Happily, we found both of the items (both beverages) that we were looking for – Milo ($3.25), a powdered chocolate malt drink and loose Thai Tea ($1.85).
The Thai Tea was an especially fortuitous find since we like to brew our own Thai iced teas and all of the blends we had tried in America had not been up to snuff (Thai Tea is very fine, full of red dye and contains other spices like Vanilla and cinnamon). We are happy to report that it was worth many times the $1.85 we had paid for it. We are looking forward to visiting the Uni-Mart again to sample some more Thai groceries and hopefully try out some Filipino food too, a regretfully blank spot on our global food quest.
Uni-Mart
7315 Dempster Street
Niles, IL 60714
