Food is great. Chicken 65 is the best. I usually have non veg thali which comes with variety of non veg and veg items. Taste is excellent. Service is very friendly and courteous. Summer is open for outdoor seating. My recommendation would be chicken 65, fish fry, parrota, dosas and thali read more

Probably the best Indian restaurant in the Chi-Town 'Burbs. The owner/ manager is extremely nice. The best part is the ambiance and the food. Though its a 25 minute drive from my crib, I get tempted everyday to go there for lunch. So, that damn good and you better believe it, my friend! So far, I've had Idli, dosa and the vegetarian thali. From the texture to the taste, it's authentic indian food. I've tried so many in this area, and was tired of eating not so authentic food, and then I found Thalaivas. Thank God! Even thinking about it makes me hungry. Anyway, you should give it shot, and if Indian food is not your thing, maybe it's not your thang. PS: The food is catered towards all audience and so, it's not like hot spicy as some folks think about Indian food. It's moderate. God bless the good people of Thalaivas. Thank you for a wonderful experience! Thai manne Vanakkam read more

Great food. Friendly staff Highly recommend getting the thali thats there over the weekend Also recommend the cut mirchi and the kothu parrotas read more

The food is too good..would recommend this place if you like south indian food. Had the best filter coffee till date. read more

My go to take out place for delicious South Indian Tamil food! I think we have ordered take out 5 times in the last 4 months. Our favorites are goat varuval, goat sukka, lamb varuval, tawa fish, chicken pepper fry. You can't go wrong with the usual veg fare like idli, dosa, sambar. For a milder option the lamb korma are great. The thali are prefect option for dine in. They may have added new dishes...we tried the Schzwan fried rice with chicken which was absolutely wonderful (this may be a part of a regular order). The whole family enjoyed it! read more

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This is a hidden gem, plain and simple. From the minute I waked in, I could smell the aromas of the spices cooking. We were greeted very nicely by the staff and they sat us immediately. We ordered the masala dosa, vegetarian thali, chicken curry and paratha. The thali consisted of some amazing biryani, paneer subzi, papad, and some dal. Super tasty and a great variety of a South Indian traditional dish. The masala dosa was light, thin and crispy. The filling with potatoes was not too strong and the coconut chutney was perfect to go along with the sambar. It was very delightful and the perfect way a dosa should be made. The chicken curry was out of this world, not your standard gravy. This gravy had so many colors and spices put in, the chicken was immersed in it and went amazing with the flaky and crispy paratha. This is a must try! All in all, the food is more than excellent and I am coming back for sure. The great food tied with amazing hospitality makes for an amazing restaurant and one to stay for a long time. Keep up the great work! read more

I only started ordering food here since covid-19 took hold. Honestly, I just had not eaten Indian food since moving back to the area 2 years ago. Firstly the staff are excellent. They are so friendly and quick to get food orders out. Secondly and most importantly the food is so tasty!! I always order chicken tikka masala at Indian restaurants and this one is one of the best I've tried. I like it medium spicy and I order 2 potions of rice - this is enough for 2 people. Thalaivas is my new favorite indian restaurant. read more

Ashish was the best at his profession! He knew exactly how much food and choices to recommend. The foods we had for lunch were full of so many flavors and textures! The most delicious food ever!! Top notch food and service! read more

Really delicious authentic Indian food... I like spicy, but always order mild from here! This place is great for dining outside and is byob, but it's also great for takeout. I wouldn't recommend dining inside- it's small and not the greatest ambiance. Always friendly service, but usually very busy. read more

Delicious food and incredible service. What a gem. Totally would come back here another 1000 times. I Am telling everyone about here. The server took his time and explained everything on the menus and couldn't be more amazing. Thank you read more

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Awesome food. Hole in the wall kind of place - lot of character. Always a wait but worth it! read more

Amazing food, great service Lamb and good location. We ate: Curry Chicken Tikka Masala and Lamb Curry. read more

Food is amazing there. Server is nice and kind and very suggestive. Very tropical Indian vibe.

This place was amazing! Very cute tiny Indian restaurant in the heart of Park ridge. We walked in and were seated right away. The gentleman working was the host and the server. He was very attentive and came back often to check on us and make sure we had enough water. We both ordered the chicken Tikka masala and were not disappointed! Did not come with rice, so we ordered 2 rice sides (12 oz each). We also ordered a side of garlic naan, which were so delicious as well! The portion sizes and prices were great! read more

Tried here again because we enjoyed it so much the first time, but that was dining in. This time got delivered via Uber Eats, and the delivery process was great. The food was lacking, however. Literally lacking in chicken in the chicken Tika Masala with 6 tiny bites of chicken in the entire dish. Vegetable curry was ok, but it seems like they used frozen peas and carrots. Lentils were lacking in Lentils, and overall, it was not that flavorful. Naan was bad, but i could maybe chalk that up to delivery in foil. Given the price, this was not good value. read more

I have tried a wide variety of dishes here like biryani, mutton curry and liked none except for dosa. Hence, one star. Service and ambiance are good. read more

This place was amazing. We had the samosas, masala dosa, and the special chicken biryani (little chunks of fried chicken inside). Service was friendly and food was outstanding! read more

This place was great! We stumbled upon it on yelp because we happened to be in the area. Reviews looked solid so we decided to try it out, and I'm very glad we did! We came in on a weekday evening and it was mostly empty. We were seated immediately, given water, and taken care of. The service overall was very quick, friendly, and helpful. We both ordered chicken tikka masala because we were craving, and I also got some garlic naan. We also ordered rice. The food came out quickly and the first thing I noticed was the portion size was very nice, especially compared to some of the other Indian restaurants I've ordered this dish at. I was a little bummed at first that rice wasn't included, but at this price point, I think it's totally fair because the entree is rather large. As far as taste goes, it was just spicy enough (we ordered it spicy) and it was very flavorful. Definitely top 3 of tikka masalas I've had in the Chicago area. Overall, we had an excellent experience here and I would absolutely go back if in the area again (I likely will be)! read more

Weekday lunch - no Thali on weekdays. So that was a miss although not obvious on Yelp. Ordered the non-veg combo. Fair but not great. There are no gluten free options unless you want to go al-carte. Butter chicken order took about 40mins and was fair. This was a weekday when we were early so not sure what the delay was. Overall experience not as touted at Yelp. Your standard off the mill restaurant. read more

Food might be decent( not out of the world) but the experience was very bad. The place looked understaffed, staff was confused. We went based on good reviews and pictures of food. We called before starting to make a reservation and put our name. The person on call was not sure what is he doing. There is no system on who is taking order, who is seating people, who is taking care of to-go orders. We realized it might take time to get food so we ordered items on special and those also took time. Thali was good, dosa was decent and biryani was not up to the mark. They need some experienced people who can run the place and take care of operations. At least at weekend. read more

Great biryani and chicken lollipops . Recommend visiting ..........,,,,..................................................... read more

Went there on a Sunday morning. Ordered veg thali and masala dosa with filter coffee. Both were flavorful and better than what we usually get around Chicago. The staff was courteous. The ambience is simple and nice! I wish it opened before 11 am over the weekends for breakfast and offered more south Indian breakfast items. Can eat again if i am around in that area bt don't think if I will be goin specially to eat there. read more

Thalaiva's Indian Kitchen - Masala dosa - Indian Near Me - Park Ridge, Illinois

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Exquisite, delicious, fantastic, butter chicken. Great water pitchers, and simosas that are heavenly seasoned. Excellent customer service. Everything was made to perfection. Bountiful ice offered. Full machine in right hand corner. Couldn't resist. Absolutely love this place! Best Indian in all of the Chicagoland metropolitan area (that's like 9 million people!) No white people in this place so you know it's good. 10 stars if I could. read more

Thalaiva's Indian Kitchen - Indian Near Me - Park Ridge, Illinois

Great tasting food. Service was a bit slow but otherwise good. Portions are good size. read more

Hands down one of the best South Indian restaurant. My fav from there is lacha paratha , goat curry, mysore masala dosa , and chai. Their lacha paratha is very similar to how it is made in India. Many places don't make it like how they do. read more

We love this food! The dosas and thali are amazing. The service is awesome. So friendly. I could eat here every day. It's tight and packed inside but comfy. The only thing I wish was the bathroom had paper-towel to dry hands and open the door! :). read more

I feel that the Food was not good and service is also not great and ambiance is not bad

I'm from Malaysia and we used to have banana leaf so accessible everywhere -- this place in Illinois is a gem. Their plain dosa with chutney was SOOOO delicious and the non-vege thali came with different curries (fish, mutton, chicken) and also daahl. read more

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Our recent takeaway was such a stark contrast to our earlier experiences at Thalaiva that I feel compelled to update my review. The Dindigul Biryani which is available only on weekends was sold out at 7:00pm when I called to place my order. While disappointed, I didn't think twice before ordering the Thalaivas Special Chicken Biryani with hopes that it would be just as good. While the taste was decent it was basically biryani rice and Chicken 65 - here I was with high hopes of something very different! They might as well have named it Chicken 65 Biryani.. The chutney that came with the Medhu Vada was spoilt and smelled terrible. We just trashed it. Am sincerely hoping TIK rolls up their sleeves and fixes these bits before customers go looking for another restaurant - I still love this place for the fab food I had in the initial days. read more

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The food was excellent, we ate masala dosa, lacha Parantha, naan, and dal fry. The food was reasonably priced, the restaurant was taking good precaution in COVID-19. The food was not at all spicy which was good because normally Indian restaurants have spicy food! We would recommend this restaurant to others. read more

Absolutely delicious chicken tikka masala! The naan was absolutely amazing. You can tell that it's homemade with a beautifully crisp bottom. The S.O. got chicken vindaloo that wasn't spicy at all, which was disappointing, but it was still good. We noticed that some of the tables around us got dosas, so we're already planning on a trip back to try them out! read more

Great food and Amazing service. It's always busy so account for wait time if you are a big group read more

Thalaiva's Indian Kitchen - Goat sukka - Indian Near Me - Park Ridge, Illinois

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This is the best south Indian food I've ever had. The curries are delicious and flavors are varied and complex with the perfect amount of heat. We had the garlic naan, biryani, masala dosas, saag paneer, chicken 65, chicken tikka, lamb curry... All were amazing, a celebration of wonderful flavors tucked away by the train tracks in Park Ridge. Ordered takeout right when they opened. When it came time to pick up, there were at least a dozen other takeout orders ready to be picked up by other patrons. The food was warm and the portions were generous. I'm happy they're doing well during the pandemic. I'll continue to support this hidden gem! read more

Awesome South Indian food especially the dosas. Great service. Enjoyed the experience

Tried this place last week on a weeknight when the husband wanted to have the South Indian parotha. Wasn't disappointed at all. The husband ordered the parotha with chicken curry. I had the chicken kothuparotha. Loved both the dishes. Reasonable prices, normal quantity for an Indian restaurant. The service was pretty quick and efficient. The food was authentic and I loved it. Just the right amount of spicy. We also had chicken 65 that tasted just like from back home that was amazing. The place is neat, easy to find, no frills. The only issue for us is that it's quite a ride away from the city. But we definitely plan to go back for their weekend thaali meals. The owner, Vinod is really friendly and very attentive. Definitely give this place a try. read more

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My husband and I are catching our flight back home to Dallas (so we have A LOT of Indian restaurants around us) and we stopped by and grabbed lunch- it's all carry out at the moment. We ordered chicken lollipop, goat sukka for apps and chicken kothu parotta, chicken curry and parotta for lunch- everything was super amazing. And to top it off (even though we were soooo stuffed) shahi tukda, like we probably didn't eat this for 30 mins after we ordered and it was still crunchy! Don't think about it, just do it! We can't wait to visit again, and hopefully we can enjoy a nice dine-in meal in the future! read more

I think this place was good, but not quite amazing. They did have a couple of big hits, but also some misses. Normally I'd review them at a 3, but I've given them one extra star because they're new, for their effort, and most of my disappointment stems from how a friend of mine described the place to me and set the expectations artificially high vs reality, which isn't their fault. First of all, people should know the type of place Thalaivas is. It's a quick service restaurant. A small place with very informal decor and ambiance. For some reason I went in thinking it was going to be a full-service establishment, but it wasn't. You have to order at the counter and they bring your food to the table. It seems like they've built the place for food delivery and pick up business. Maybe because they're new... But all of the staff isn't familiar with with the menu as you might hope. Also, btw, the menu is printed on regular printer paper with black and white ink literally clipped together. There's nothing wrong with that again... But just setting expectations. If my expectations had been more realistic, I might've had a better time. So the food... To start, we had this mushroom appetizer, and that was awesome. Probably the best item we had. Something unique and something great. The chilly paneer app was just ok. The dosas were good. Not the best I've ever had, but they were fine. I got a masala dosa and it was fine. They definitely seemed to skimp on the masala (the potatoes in the dosa). Not sure why you'd do that as a new place. The sambhar was quite good. Oh, and the red chutney that comes with the dosa was really good. I wish they had an onion rava dosa option, but that wasn't the case. Usually, that's my go to... Rather than a focus on idli dosa, I think they had more of biryani and other items. Friends we were with really enjoyed their chicken biryani. We also tried the veg biryani, which was just ok. Far too much moti elaichi (I don't know what the English name for this is, but a direct translation would be "fat cardamon"). The flavor of it overpowered the dish. Not something I liked and we ended up with the entire serving left over... Nobody ate it. North Indian... the food was just ok. I mean, decent paneer makhani and vegetable jalfrezi. Overall decent gravys... On the other hand, the naan's were not good - period. I can imagine they might've been the frozen kind, or something like that, but they had no life... Served wet and soggy... thats exactly the opposite of what naan is supposed to be. I could fault myself for ordering quite a bit of North Indian food at a South special place, but I had a friend who recommended it thus - I think the meat items might've provided a very different experience at the end of the day. I'll say that the main guy behind the counter was very nice. I terms of going here, this restaurant apparently serves a particular market really well, based on the reviews on Yelp and otherwise. I must not be in that target market - which is fine. You can't please everyone. As long as a lot of people are happy with this place, I wish them well! Thanks for you kind hospitality and great attempt folks. Best wishes. read more

Service has improved immensely and the food is outstanding. You will not find a better dosa in Chicago, maybe not even in the US. Amazing.

super good food， best service. The naan is so fluffy and soft. The environment is so good read more

Thalaiva's Indian Kitchen - Indian Near Me - Park Ridge, Illinois

The food here is excellent. We had ordered chicken biryani and chicken vindaloo. The gravy was good. The biryani was excellent. After such a long time we had such a tasty and authentic biryani. read more