Serai

Recommended by our Malaysian friend. The meal that we ordered were also recommended by him. Please order their Koay Teow and their laksa. They are phenomenal!! Don't miss this restaurant! You will regret!!

Absolutely delicious except the Tom yum ramen, which was blend and soggy. The Hainanese chicken is extremely tender and flavorful. The portion of calamari is small for its price but the seafood is very fresh. If you love coconut, definitely try the coconut pudding, it's really really good!!

I can say with confidence this restaurant is one of the best I have been to in Chicago. We had the beef rendang (phenomenal) and chicken curry. Portions were great and the food even better, an exceedingly rare combination nowadays. The coconut pudding alone is reason enough for me to bring a party of friends here soon.

Delicious Malaysian fare with big portions. We ate at the patio and it was a lovely sunny day, the atmosphere was great! Standouts include the Beef Rendang Nasi Lemak and Chicken Rice.

One of my favorite Malaysian restaurants in Chicago. I was pleasantly surprised by the flavors, service and the choice of menu. We ordered the roti canai (paratha with Malaysian curry), lamb curry, chicken sizzler, noodle curry dish and flat noodles too. The coconut pudding dessert was amazing too. Each dish was amazing and very flavorful. Will be back for sure when visiting Chicago. The lady who seated us was very polite and gave us all info when we asked questions. She went out of her way to ensure we had a good meal.

We really loved this place. Just a ton of personality from the menu, to the drinks, to the vibe. I knew immediately as soon as I walked in and they were playing Bob Ross’s Joy of Painting on the TV that it was going to be a good time. The cocktail menu made me laugh out loud, our server was hilarious, and we were thrilled with the large portions of their delicious pasta dishes. Highly recommend the cumin margarita if the sound of a savory marg makes your mouth water.

Serai in Chicago offers an authentic Southeast Asian dining experience. The vibrant atmosphere complements the diverse menu, featuring well-executed dishes from Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Standouts include the fragrant rendang, flavorful serai curry laksa , and the perfectly balanced Indonesian fried rice. The attentive service and inviting decor make Serai a top choice for those seeking a culinary journey through Southeast Asia in the heart of Chicago.

We were craving some southeast Asian food and luckily Serai had a nice big patio! We had the char kuey teow - very good, obviously not cooked over coals so you don't get the wok hey, but thats not a surprise for an indoor kitchen. It did the trick. The mee goreng flavor was spot on to what they serve in Indonesia. The nasi lemak and lamb rendang also took us back to Indonesia. It was all so good. I would highly recommend!

This place is so great! The Malaysian Masi Lemak Nyonya Curry Chicken meal was fantastic, and the pulut hitam dessert was amazing. The servers were so nice. They have two spacious rooms with booths or tables, as well as a TV, and they play really nice music!

Excellent curry laksa and pork char kway teow, a.k.a. char koay teow! Difficult to find parking, not easy to find restaurant on Google maps (drive slowly as you get close to the restaurant). The food is totally worth it. And they have ice Milo as well!! Excellent service. Relaxed, chill atmosphere. Highly recommended for the food. It's quite rare to find a place that has pork char kway teow as well as ice Milo, the two basic ingredients required to pass the Singaporean-Malaysian restaurant authenticity test. Highly recommended!!!

Great Malaysia style, the dishes are unique, cold dish is sweet and sour, and the rice come with the chicken is cooked in chicken broth, very delightful dishes

I’m from Singapore and this place has such high quality, authentic-tasting Malaysian/Singapore dishes that rekindled my memories and made me homesick (in a good way)! The chicken satay, beef rendang, laksa and wonton noodles were so well-done, rich, generously portioned for the price and had the authentic local taste. Can’t believe I didn’t come here earlier. Great job, chef!

I’m so so happy because they’ve made all their meat halal. Not pictured is the Malaysian Chai (tea) which is addicting!! The food is all phenomenal. I would definitely recommend the fried beef because it’s so flavorful and juicy. The chili chicken and the roti canai is also worth ordering.

Great food, my husband and I are from Singapore so we've been dying to get some Malaysian/Indo food locally, and we can definitely say it tastes pretty authentic! We got the chicken satay, roti paratha, nonya chicken curry, beef rendang, and char kway teow and all of those dishes were great.

Really really yummy. The Satay chicken is unbelievably tender. The various sauces are so flavorful. I cannot have enough of the mee goreng.

Authentic maleysian restaurant. My favorite dishes are Spicy Char Kway Teow (Flat noodle stir fried with eggs, shrimps, squids, dried Chinese sausages), Malaysian Ice Tea (Coffee like color), Hainanese Chicken (Boiled haft chicken with sweet soy sauce), and coconut pudding (made from real coconut).

The food and service was excellent. The mango chicken (pictured) was one of the groups favorite. The basil chicken was another favorite. Serai was a good choice for a Saturday night meal and is definitely recommended. We'll be return customers.

We ordered the three chili chicken, drunken noodles, mee goreng and pineapple fried rice and everything was absolutely amazing! The three chili chicken was not spicy but very flavorful (I asked for Sriracha on the side). The portions were big in spite of other reviews, we ended up taking leftovers home. The service was great, our server helped us decide our dishes. I’d definitely come back and try their other options.

It seems Serai closed and reopened, and now shares a location with Kapitan, so I guess this is a review for both restaurants. Interesting. Anyway, my friend and I came last Thursday for dinner -- really big (and no-frills) restaurant and it was not very busy. Our server was friendly and helpful with our questions, and service was prompt and efficient. We ordered the kaya toast and roti canai as appetisers. The kaya toast was yummy (and honestly a bit rare to find in the US), but I think the portion size was definitely a bit small for the price. Roti canai was yummy -- I loved how fluffy and flaky the roti was -- and the curry was delicious, if not a bit too salty. We also ordered the mee goreng, which was a bit more disappointing. The underlying flavour of ketchup was really just too strong and drowned out all the other (sweet or savoury) sauces. The noodles were also too soft / soggy, but I thought the other ingredients (veggies, tofu) were good. Finally we had the curry laksa (the serai recipe - apparently the toppings are different), which I would definitely recommend. The egg noodles were very well-cooked to a great chewiness, and I really liked the variety of tasty toppies it came with (loved the chicken and char siu, and the fish balls were soft and very flavourful). I wish there were more broth because the noodles did get dry very quickly. Overall a pretty good meal -- I'd be keen to come again :)

The overall of the food is good but the service is average. I love their tofu claypot. The tofu is very soft. I think their tea tarik and Malaysia ice tea have weird taste with little spice in it. Their coconut pudding is very good too.

Quite enjoyed lunch here! Malaysian food options in the city are very limited sadly, but this does a pretty great job of satisfying this space. The service was good, though we were the only ones around I think at the time we went. The space is fine, but I don’t think you come here for the ambiance, you come here for the food! Looking forward to coming back and trying more options! Highlights were the nasi lemak and roti paratha. Both the beef rendang and the ayam merah were delicious for the nasi lemak. The roti paratha is buttery and wonderful and the chicken curry it comes with was rich and flavorful—we really really liked that. I would probably go with the ayam merah or the chicken curry with my nasi lemak next time, both were delicious. The beef rendang is also a solid option for those who prefer beef. Be aware it is a little fatty. Cumin lamb skewers were good but pretty straightforward in flavor. Also a small serving. We enjoyed both the dessert options, but they weren’t exceptional. Pulut hitam is on the watery end of a rice pudding type of dish, but with a deeper rounder sweetness than a typical rice pudding. I had never had something like this before and glad I tried it. The coconut pudding had a lighter and sweet flavor, with a delicate consistency served inside a coconut. I’d recommend both, but if you’re in the mood for a more robust dessert option these may not fully satisfy.

Serai has okay food, the laksa soup wasn’t warm and noodles in it tasted like they sat in the soup too long. Otherwise the taste was good. Enjoyed the lamb rendang and the curry chicken appetizer.

Had lunch at Serai. The server was very helpful. There are a lot of choices on the menu and the server was able to explain things and had good suggestions. Had chicken satay to start. Good but not exciting. Had chicken mango. That was exciting and very good. My friend had a curry soup which he said was a good choice. Ended with the warm black rice pudding for dessert. It was good and very unique. I enjoyed lunch and will be back.

Wonderful spot for Malay dishes (and some nostalgia). Everything was good but the mango shrimp was both new to me and surprisingly memorable. Beef rendang is second only to my mother's, and the Hainanese chicken felt like it's own mini vacation.

My friends and I check this place out after watching an episode of a Check Please. We were all pleasantly surprised at the delicious and different flavors of each dish we ordered. We ordered appetizers, which seems more like the types of items found on an Americanized Asian restaurant. We got the crab Rangoon, pan fried pork sticker, satay chicken and cumin lamb skewers. The satay and lamb were tasty. We’d get those again. Of the five dishes we ordered, we liked all of them, but would only reorder the Szechuan chili fish filet (the best dish of the day!) and the Szechuan spicy beef. We also had the Char Koay Teow and enjoyed how well the seafood was cooked. But these noodles lacked flavor next to the other dishes we got. The Penang chicken was rich and very peanutty, quite delicious. The only dish all of us were disappointed in was the three chili chicken. The chicken was cooked very well, super moist; but the skin was flabby and was unappealing. We skipped dessert but got some drinks. The alcohol drinks were not very strong. The iced tea and iced coffee were wonderful. Overall, I’d definitely go back, but the area is not easy to get to if you don’t live locally. So I’d limit my visits to lunch or early supper times over the weekend.

Great authentic flavors. Liked the roti paratha but portion size pretty small. Recommend the Serai curry laksa and the lamb rendang, both very delicious. Love the fresh coconut as well. The nasi lemak lacked coconut flavor in the rice, and the beef rendang was a little bit dry. Overall the food is not quite as good as Penang Malaysian Cuisine Arlington Heights, however the restaurant is the only Malaysian food in the Chicago city limits and will satisfy your cravings.

Serai has some homey food from where I come from! I’d say the kway teow was good although the noodles were over cooked. Flavor was there! Fried calamari was my personal fave. My non Asian friends enjoyed their laksa and mango chicken!!

During my birthday month, I dined at four different Malaysian restaurants to compare laksa dishes. The coconut broth here was one of my favorites. My friends and I also tried the roti pratha, szechuan spicy beef, drunken noodles, Hainanese chicken rice, lamb rendang (listed in order of most to least favorite). The drunken noodles were flavorful, but a bit too sweet after a while, the Hainanese chicken rice was bland, and the lamb was nothing special. You could get away with sharing 1 roti pratha per 2 people, which is what we did. 3/4 of my group tasted something off about the water; you'll have to taste it for yourself. All the dishes seemed to arrive separately, but that didn't faze us, as we family styled our dinner. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my top two picks, and the ambiance of the cuisine felt quite dreamy. Be prepared to be induced to a major food coma afterwords (in a good way).

Chicago was finally a little bit warm so decided to try a new restaurant for me in the area. Checking on google I found Serai, I have never experienced Malaysian food so I was a little worry I wouldn’t like it but by the reviews and photos of other user decided to give it a try. At first the GPS got me lost cause they don’t have a big bright sign outside but once I found we parked the car and walk inside. When got to the restaurant server was very attentive, she offered us if we wanna to sit inside or outside which I surprise, didn’t know they had a patio. Since it was so nice outside we walked to the patio and wow I was very surprise of how beautiful and private it was, This was definitely A+. I ordered for appetizer something it’s call Roti Pratha (pita and beef stew) and for the main dish I ordered Rendang chicken (kinda like a curry) and my husband ordered Serai curry laksa (noodle soup) I absolutely love the Roti and my dish, my hubby didn’t like much his since he is Thai and I guess they have similar food. I really enjoyed the food on this restaurant, definitely great spot, specially in summer because of the back patio. I wish they would be BYOB but they do have their own full bar so no BYOB allow.

I Came to eat here with a party of 6. There are pros and cons with this place. I'll start with the things I'm not so crazy about: First, this joint is hard to find especially at night. It's on the main street but the sign was dark and was too small to see. I and my other friend missed it while driving and had to go around before finding it. Secondly, the place is too noisy and cramped that I don't recommend this as a place if you want to have a heart to heat conversations with your eating companion. But then again, it's Chicago, and if the place is crowded, it's probably good! Thirdly, the place was too dark. We had to use our phone's flashlights to see the menu and to take a good look at our food. I think they were trying for a cozy atmosphere but I think turning the light up a little bit won't hurt. Now for the pros, we liked the food, especially the Char Koay Teow which is the Malaysian signature flat noodles. We did a family style meals so we can try different dishes. We ordered the Mango fried rice, some chicken, beef and a baby coconut for dessert. The food were all delicious partnered with a Malaysian iced tea which completes the meal. Overall, for me as long as the food is delicious, the place is clean and the servers are polite then it's a winner for me. I think I will come back here again and try the other dishes they have.

Arrived shortly after the restaurant opened. Was thrilled to find that they had a good amount of gluten free dishes to choose from. Had the Singapore noodles for the first time. The flavor was not what I expected, but I still enjoyed them. Also enjoyed a bottle of sake.

Serai was a nice surprise. The menu covers many Asian cuisines. When I dined, there was a decent crowd for a Thursday night. Service was attentive. The food was very good. The Sersi martini had a nice Asian twist. I would definitely return.

First time Malaysian food. They are helpful for pick our choices. I liked noodle Laksa the best... But I forgot to take Pic.

A friend was in the mood for Malaysian food. We checked this place out since it was by one of our old haunts the Congress theater. Appetizers were good, we tried those that were recommended by the waiter. Drinks were just ok, nothing really stood out. The main courses were delicious, I had a shrimp with curry like sauce. Service was fast and prompt, where I feel the place lacked was in the price. The prices for the appetizers and main dishes were to high for the portions served. It was close to 50 per person including drinks. A bit over priced and don’t think we will be coming back.

On my most recent visit, the flavors seemed more muted and not as vibrant as I previously remember; however the food was still pretty good. Beef rendang was super tender, so that's definitely one of my favorites. The chow quay teow (spelling?) was good, but probably the least memorable flavor-wise, although the noodles were cooked with a bite in the texture which I like! Reservations are recommended on weekends since they get busy. Also, they are child friendly and have high chairs available.

Unfortunately, Serai didn’t quite meet my expectations— I felt that it had a lot of unmet potential. The menu is expansive and features a fusion of Malaysian, Thai, and other Southeast Asian cuisines. The interior space is large and very dim. I ordered the Sambal Eggplant, and as an eggplant addict, I was a little disappointed— it tasted okay, but wasn’t very satisfying: it was a bit too oily and the natural eggplant flavor was masked by the excessive oil and chili oil. My friend ordered the Rendang Shrimp, but said that it was kind of undercooked. Other dishes we ordered were: Char Koay Teow, Mango Shrimp, Mango Chicken, Teh Tarik, and Claypot Tofu. I personally think the Mango Shrimp dish looked the best out of all these. Located in Logan Square, they were pretty busy when we stopped by on a Saturday night, but we still got a table without a reservation with minimum wait time. Though friendly, the service was slow and inconsistent. A few people in our group ordered Ginger Ales, but they never brought it out until we asked ~30 minutes later and were told that it wasn’t available anymore. They did give us a few complimentary cans of Diet Coke and Sprite instead though. Overall, the prices of the main dishes ranged from ~$15-20 and portions are decently sized. — Price (relative to peers): 3.5/5 Food: 3.5/5 Ambience: 4/5 Service: 4/5 Overall Value: 3.5/5

The taste of quality of the food was average. I ordered Yelp's most popular dishes, which tasted merely no different than a Chinese buffet in terms of complexity and quality for x3 the price. Overall, I'd say the dishes themselves were authentic, but taste-wise, it was severely lacking in flavor. Service was fairly attentive and food came out within 20 minutes.

I was expecting much bigger portions for the price, or at least better quality food. Mongolian lamb was very small portion and too greasy, the vegetables were not fresh, the dish looked like someone else’s leftovers. Drunken noodles were okay. Pineapple rice was not edible - there was so much burnt char mixed into the rice that all you could taste was the burnt bits of whatever was being cooked prior and scraped up from the bottom of the pan. Dangerous to consume, but no flavor anyway. We did not have the traditional Malaysian dishes but won’t be returning to try them due to the poor quality cooking.

Recently visited Serai, this is my first time here, however the food quality is quite disappointing.While it was not terrible, it was far from outstanding. As a Malaysian, dishes lacked the wow factor. We ordered Nasi Lemak with Ayam masak merah, Hainanese Chicken Rice and Char Kuew Teow. 1. Nasi Lemak- the sambal was cold (fridge temperature) and the rice served was certainly not coconut rice (the waiter acknowledged that upon me asking and he said because they ran out of coconut rice THEY DECIDED to replace it with plain rice without asking the customer!) 2. Ayam masak merah- Fried Chicken topped with a tablespoon of sambal is not Ayam Masak Merah!!! Sambal also tasted sour 3. Char Kuew Teow- tasted raw, the bean sprouts and the flat rice noodles was undercooked. 4. The hainanese chicken rice was the only acceptable dish here. Having had Malaysian food in NYC, San Francisco, Seattle, Omaha, Houston and Chicago, I would rank this place the last on my list, there are room for improvement and what's definitely missing is the passion in cooking. The waiter is not bothered about the food nor answering any questions pertaining to it. The customer service needs improvement. After being seated, I went to wash my hands, someone took the menu off my table, when asked for the menu, the waiter replied rudely "Were you even seated?" Why behave as if I am there for free food? I ended up getting the menu myself.

In covid times I feel really bad leaving a bad review for restaurants but on the other hand when I’ve spent $100 on a meal which included a 20% mandatory gratuity and have received both sub par food and service, it pains. First the service, very lackluster. We were seated and never informed the cocktails weren’t available anymore. After we’d gone through the list on their menu and decided to order, the lady taking our orders informed us they weren’t doing cocktails. And I saw them doing the same for other tables as well. 2. We ordered a bunch of stuff. They did tell us to place the last of our orders, but I never expected that everything from appetizers to desserts would be bought out and just placed on our table like a buffet. It was only 9PM. I understand a last call to the kitchen but closing down the kitchen and loading up our tables with even dessert before we’d done eating? And on a Friday night at 9PM? 3. Food: I had such high expectations on the food based on the reviews and the price point, but ended up being the worst Rendang curry I’ve ever eaten. There hardly was a curry, was just dry pieces of chicken and green beans, zero flavor. The coconut pudding is supposed to be a popular item? It was literally canned coconut flesh ground up and set gelatin. It wasn’t even pudding consistency, too hard and just too sweet. The mee goreng was not mee goreng. It was something else. And to say the evening actually started on really high note Cz their roti Paratha and chicken curry were on point! Who new it’d take such sharp plunge. Again, I feel bad for them during covid times but come on you’d rather start giving customers what’s worth their money so they keep returning as things are getting back to normal. Also don’t charge a 20% gratuity if you can’t provide service at that level, it’s robbery.