Community Tavern sits on North Milwaukee Avenue in Portage Park, working from a menu that pulls freely from Thai, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese cooking without committing to any single tradition. Starters include green papaya salad, Werp Farm carrots in thai basil curry, kim-cheese fries topped with house kimchi, and a choice of Bar Harbor mussels prepared champagne-brie or kimchi-roasted style.
Dumplings come in short rib with XO sauce, mushroom butter with thai basil, corn and potato, chicken and miso, or crispy crab. Noodles range from dan dan to khao soi curry to a swordfish panang curry over vermicelli. Mains include sakura pork belly, a community bibimbap, charred flat iron with cherry bomb sambal, and a double cheeseburger built with fish-sauce-spiked community sauce. Desserts run to a four-layer coconut cake with passionfruit curd and togarashi caramel.
The cross-cultural approach has split opinion among regulars, some drawn to the range and others less convinced by the mixing. The Infatuation scored the restaurant 7.8/10.
Dumplings come in short rib with XO sauce, mushroom butter with thai basil, corn and potato, chicken and miso, or crispy crab. Noodles range from dan dan to khao soi curry to a swordfish panang curry over vermicelli. Mains include sakura pork belly, a community bibimbap, charred flat iron with cherry bomb sambal, and a double cheeseburger built with fish-sauce-spiked community sauce. Desserts run to a four-layer coconut cake with passionfruit curd and togarashi caramel.
The cross-cultural approach has split opinion among regulars, some drawn to the range and others less convinced by the mixing. The Infatuation scored the restaurant 7.8/10.