Restaurant Review: Sunda

Location: 110 W Illinois St  Chicago, IL 60654

Yesterday, one on my friends , Asha, who I hadn’t seen in 5 years told me that she was stopping through Chicago and wanted to grab dinner. Since she had never been to Chicago, she gave me 3 guidelines on choosing a restaurant:

1) It had to be one of Chicago’s best
2) It should be asian food (since that’s her favorite cuisine)
3) They had to have a great lounge area so we could meet one of our other friends afterwards for a drink

Enter, Sunda.

I had heard a lot about this place and had been dying to try it! This seemed like it was the perfect opportunity to check it out and I am so glad that I did.

Food Review

First of all, I want to start by saying that this may be one of the largest menus I’ve ever seen. To be honest, usually extremely large menus overwhelm me and make we worry that the food isn’t top notch (because they are spreading themselves to thin). Within five minutes of sitting down, the waitress came over, acknowledged that the menu was large and walked us through section by section. I instantly felt at ease.

The Appetizers:

1) Sunda Steamed Buns ($11): I am literally still dreaming about these. This dish is kind of like the asian version of a pulled pork sandwich. The bun is a traditional steamed bao bun and filled with crispy (yet so tender and moist) pork belly. It’s covered in a succulent hoisen sauce and topped off with a little pickled veggie slaw. They come in a duck version as well that I guess I will have to try next time! Do your self a HUGE favor and order these buns.

2) Grilled Spare Ribs ($15): You won’t find these fall off the bone spareribs ribs at your traditional Chinese restaurant. These ribs are super thin cut (still attached to the bone), but barely holding on because of how tender they are. If you love meat, I don’t think you can go to Sunda without trying these.

3) Ohhkoy Fritters ($10): One of my favorite appetizers in the world is the Bird’s Nest from Trader Joes (here is the only review I could find on them). Well this appetizer far exceeds the boxed version (which I didn’t think was even possible). This tempura fritters are made up of super thin kale, carrots, zucchini, sprouts, ginger and coriander.  Just check out the picture below to see this masterfully designed dish.

The Sushi:

1)  Spicy “Tale of Two Tunas” ($16): This dish is truly a tuna lovers paradise. With yellowfin, pickled jalepeno, spicy mayo and fried shallots, how can it possibly be bad?

2) Lobster and Wagu ($21): I know what you’re probably thinking, $21 for a sushi roll?!? Listen, you have the most decadent lobster paired with one of the worlds best steaks. If you love surf and turf, this roll is worth every penny. Oh an did I mention it has a truffle-foie aioli?

3) Firecracker ($14): This was probably the most unique roll I had. Basically, it was a spicy tuna roll jazzed up. It was layered with cream cheese, jalepeno and water chestnuts. It was tempura fried and then topped with chili threads, unagi sauce, spicy mayo and MORE tempura crumbs. Yum!

Dessert

1) Mochi Ice Cream ($10): I have to be honest, I don’t typically order dessert at asian restaurants. This all changed when I saw that Sunda had mochi ice cream on the menu. If you don’t know what this is, its essentially like a fluffy (but kind of sticky) dough, dusted with an unflavored white powder and wrapped around ice cream. If you like ice cream, this takes it to an entirely different level.

Normally, if places have this on the menu, you choose one flavor. At Sunda, they give you 5 FLAVORS: vanilla, red bean (just try it, it’s delicious), green tea, strawberry and mango. They are served with three delicious sauces (carmel, chocolate and strawberry). This was one of the most innovative presentation of a traditional asian dessert that I had ever seen.

Overall

Overall I have to give my experience at Sunda an A+. Not only was the service, ambience and food exquisite, but I literally walked away with not a single complaint. With a menu that large, I figured they had to screw up somewhere! I’ll have to head back soon and see if I can catch them with a bad dish next time (although I doubt I will) 🙂

Love always,
Erica