We found lots of culinary light rays of winter sunshine at Satay, a new global Asian haunt tucked next to the CTA’S Diversey Brown Line station. Even the bright-yellow menu is inviting. This is a place to sit at a cozy table and let Asian comfort foods pleasure you. Let the "Great Beast" CTA el roar overhead. Sensuous surges of music will keep you focused on the main event — the great acts of savoring, ingesting, inhaling, and just plain wolfing it down.
You could call Satay a high-tech buttercup growing under the tracks. Satay has a trendy feel — inviting chartreuse walls, magenta neon and organic, pulsing music. It’s unconventional, sprightly, and the strangely appropriate place for chef and owner Patty (Panthipa) Neumson to strut her stuff.
With a predominantly global Asian food concept, Satay sports Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese and even Caribbean delicacies with nods to Hawaii and New Orleans. But stop..., in the name of love...of food. The most intriguing Satay offerings are uniquely Chef Neumson’s creations and something we dub "Patty style."
"Patty style?" Yes, these are the strange infusions and mixtures of Chef Neumson, her loving additions, quirky emendations, inversions and fanciful flowerings. Face it, Chef Neumson has created a culinary pleasure palace where nothing is naughty and everything is nice.
"I’m constantly seeking flavor," she says. Of course, as Chef Neumson tells it, nothing could ever keep her out of the kitchen. Her grandmother and great-grandmother were great cooks. At four, she learned to cook rice. In high school and college, she cooked for free in restaurant kitchens just to learn. She reveled in the art of French cuisine, savored the secrets of the Italians, delved into Japanese technique, never losing touch with the extra-worldly wonders of her Thai heritage.
Business and Pleasure
When she moved on to earn a degree in finance and an MBA in marketing, cooking still owned her heart. "Sure, as a kid I wanted to be a business woman. I love to cook, but I didn’t know I could be in the restaurant business," she says almost naively. These days, Chef Neumson does "research," dining in some of the toniest places in New York and San Francisco. In Miami, she savored Caribbean flavor, which she now includes in her menu. "I tried it. I liked it," she says.
So did we. Pale green chive dumplings with spicy sweet soy sauce are totally "Patty style" — big, hunky, chewy, gooey, earthy dumplings that are her version of a Chinese chive dumpling, impossible to describe and absolutely memorable. You could call them an Asian reflection on a jelly donut, but don’t quote us. Judge for yourself.
The hot-and-sour soup swam with tofu, chicken, bamboo shoots, egg, carrots and peas, and was much more subtle than any sweet and sour we’ve known. "More, more," we sighed as our waitress brought us tasty Thai chicken satay skewers prepared in Madras curry, ready to be dipped in crunchy peanut sauce and accompanied by a dainty cucumber side-salad. We had just begun when Chef Neumson suggested we smooth all this down with one of many frothy drinks. "Watermelon Freeze" sounded tempting, as did the "Melon Lover Smoothie." But "Lychee Freeze" captured us with the subtle sweetness of the lychee, that mysterious, sumptuous, pale-white tree fruit.
As for the Malaysian roti with vegetable curry? Stop the world. We’ll get off willingly, satisfied by this heavenly curry served with Indian pancakes. A triumph of turnips; a passion of potatoes. Even the carrots have charisma. After that, "Patty style" savory cucumber chicken-roll soup soothed us with chicken wrapped in hollowed-out cucumber and spritzed with pepper. Darling fried "Patty style" golden bags — filled with diced tofu, carrots, peas and corn — resembed moneybags and were served with a subtle peach sauce.
So, how was the green papaya — that classic Thai dish made with slices of green papaya, carrot, cherry tomatoes, slivers of long Thai green beans and lots of peanuts? "Tasty, tasty, very tasty." And so much fun to chew! "And very high in vitamin C," the Chef adds, noting she uses no MSG, little sodium and fries in canola oil.
The halibut with six peppers was a delectable, delicate chunk — bathed in an enticing dry-pepper mixture, topped with asparagus, framed by yellow squash "tongues" and lounging against a "hillock" of mixed greens.
There are numerous chicken choices. Rapturous sesame chicken rolls in crispy-fried chicken skin wrapped up with pollack, omelet, spinach and chicken, and sprinkled with sesame seeds. Jerk chicken with Caribbean spices frames a breast with gooey fried plantains, a confetti of mango salsa and a sedate mound of rice. As for crispy chicken cashew nuts — hooray for pure "Patty style." They are beautifully arranged fried chicken fingers ready for a dip in spicy, sweet-and-sour corn, red peppers, carrots, green peppers, onions, and chunky, yummy cashews (It also comes with tofu).
Save Room
Goodies for other trips include roasted duck in coconut red curry, yellow veggie curry, catfish stew, Hawaiian seafood and cooked sushi.
Sweet endings are limited but lush, including yummy mung bean "toy fruit." The lilac plum-colored taro mousse wrapped in warmed banana leaves is clearly an acquired taste. However, warmed gingko nuts with sweet taro mousse is magnificent, accessible comfort food — a magical plum-colored concoction coupled with sweet sticky rice and mysterious melt-in-your-mouth gingko nuts.
A trip to Satay, Chef Patty Neumson’s land of winter sunshine, ends our year with high hopes, full expectations and merry tongues. Make your resolutions, dear friends. We will try to keep ours. Happy New Year, joyful holidays, eat well, dream well, love well. You are in our thoughts.
Satay, 936 W. Diversey, Chicago; 773-477-0100, 773-477-0600, Monday through Thursday, 11:30 am to 10:00 pm, Friday through Saturday, 11:30 am to 11:00 pm. Appetizers, soups and salads from $1.99 to $9.99; entrées from $7.99 to $12.99. Lunch specials 11:30 am to 2:30 pm, from $6.99. Freshly squeezed juices, smoothies and freezes from $1.99 to $3.95. Desserts from $2.99 to $3.99.