Food that lacks spice bores me to the point of annoyance. A baked potato has that effect on me. As one who consumes Asian fare (at least) weekly, I typically dine at Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese restaurants. One would assume that, due to my love of spice, Thai food would be an ordinary staple of my diet. I must confess something, Dear Reader: It is not. Since I lack experience in Thai cuisine, I had to turn to recommendations. Through those recommendations, I concluded that it was time to give Siam Square a whirl.
Situated on Virginia Avenue, which connects Fletcher Place with Fountain Square--and home to restaurants that are quite the current rage, one would expect a great deal of trouble with parking. Hardly. When I arrived, which was about 7:30PM on a Saturday evening, we saw plenty of street parking; however, we opted for the private lot adjacent to the building--which I later learned Siam Square is purchasing. Parking solved. As we walked in, we noted a large number of people waiting to be seated. "Crikey," we thought, "we'll never get table." Wrong. We were seated in the upstairs portion of the restaurant within five minutes. I was very pleased with our table, as it gave us more space. I find that being cramped leads to a loss of appetite.
From the first moment I entered Siam Square, I noticed that the service was top-notch. Our server arrived quickly, brought our drinks expediently (and re-filled them!), and explained the menu efficiently. I appreciated that she asked what types of food we liked, and made her recommendations based off of our preferences. My preference was spicy. Thai hot. As hot as possible. We took most of our our waitress' advice and started with the Curry Puffs. We found them to be sumptuous, but all agreed that we should have made another selection. We found that the Curry Puffs were too heavy, and maybe even dessert-ish for an appetizer. For the main course, we shared the Beef Pad Seuw, Chicken Pad Thai, and the Masaman Curry. Unfortunately, all of us agreed that despite ordering the meals "Thai hot," they still did not meet the intensity we had experienced at similar restaurants. However, we truly enjoyed the Beef Pad Seuw and the Chicken Pad Thai. Despite the lack of Scofield Heat Units, these dishes were teeming with flavor. We found the Masaman Curry to be merely fair-to-middling. While it certainly wasn't a baked potato, it was still rather boring--like pot roast is. In all, I would attest to being pleasantly full after this meal.
While I enjoyed both the experience and the cuisine at Siam Square enough to return multiple times, I would not place it on my "rush" list. I would place it on my list of places to recommend to others--and while recommending it, I'd insist they try the Pad Seuw and the Pad Thai. read more