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Siam Restaurant
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Street
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- Yes
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good for:
- Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Beer & Wine Only
18 reviews for Siam Restaurant
As other reviewers have mentioned, Siam is the best Thai restaurant in HP. I would know-- I've been living here in HP for 7 years, 5 of which have been spent living right across from "Thai Row".
Siam is a grubby hole-in-the-wall, but their food is quite delicious. Try the basil chicken-- it's my favorite!
Soooooo cheap in terms of price. Usually I shoot over to Thai 55, but headed here last evening due to 55 being remodeled. I appreciate a few things about this place:
1) I love the feeling of the interior - it's very much a bare bones kind of place - no booths or anything, just one room with a bunch of tables of chairs. Adds to the neighborhood vibe of the place.
2) The appetizers are fantastic - try anything with crab
3) The folks running the joint are sweet - the kids of the owners or something also were kind of chilling there when we ate at the restaurant, so that was a cool vibe for a neighborhood restaurant
4) The mango smoothie I had was pretty damn tasty
5) The food is spicier here than at 55, and I like my Thai food (specifically my yellow curry) to be a little on the sassy side.
Ordered delivery online, arrived promptly. Food was very good for the money. It's not high-end, but it was good. We will order again.
Being a Thai restaurant on a street with three Thai restaurants on two blocks is a tough gig.
I'm not really sure how Snail, basically next door, became more popular. Not only more popular, but somehow has developed the reputation as being the better food of the two. Maybe they just do a better job of presenting people what they expect to see. I don't know.
For some reason, Chicago area Thai food restaurants seem to heavily feature a very wide, flat noodle style more than I've seen anywhere else. And that happens to be something I don't prefer. But that's just a matter of taste, not quality.
If you've a reason to be in Hyde Park, and let's face it very few people do, and you like Thai food, try Siam before you try Snail or Thai 55.
Some will disagree, and some will insist maybe I just don't know much about food, or about Thai food. Try Siam first. You'll find I'm right.
Best Thai food I have had in the entire city, and it's in Hyde Park, hiding next to the unfortunately more popular Snail.
I make everyone I can come with me here at least once. It's a rather unassuming place, and very affordable even on a student budget. Their lunch specials are indeed generous and leave me with leftovers. The panang curry with tofu is mmmm, but my favorite dish I've ever had here is the pad see yu (the pad woon sen is lovely too). You'll need to like thick rice noodles, but the sauce is just amazing. The kind owners brought us free beer (tsing tao, which I love), and peeled orange slices so we could continue happily chatting after we'd finished dinner. I could go here at minumum, weekly. Oh, and try the thai coffee or a green tea shake!
ETA- I adore the massaman curry with tofu as well. My husband recommends the tom yum soup and the seafood soup.
As I keep noting, I just moved back to the city. I wandered around, and ended up in Hyde Park. I was hungry so I decided on going to Siam.
It was OK. I have to admit, as a North Sider, I wasn't super impressed - but the food was good, and was ready really quickly. I had Pad Siew with beef, and banana dumplings. The pad siew noodles were super fat, and pretty tasty. I could have done with some extra peanut sauce though.
The banana dumplings were really sweet and tasty, if not a bit gelatinous. Not what I expected, but still plenty good. It was more food than I could eat.
The place was very simple, and I did go kind of late. One of the waitresses daughters was running around the place with a broom, she had to have been about 4. When I smiled at her, she smiled back and then promptly stuck her finger up her nose. Wonderful.
I would go back if I was in Hyde Park again - but wouldn't actively tell people to "check it out". Cheap eats, filling, OK atmosphere.
Ordered online at http://www.foodonearth... with their 5% off promo going on while on call. Looking for something different from the usual Thai55. Some dishes were pretty good, others fairly weak:
Pros:
1) Shrimp Pad Wun Sen (mung bean vermicelli, veges & large shrimp) - was very impressed with the size of shrimp used - bigger than Thai55 and a fair number (5).
2) Basil Chicken - not as finely ground as Thai55, but certainly has quite a bit of heat; One of our Indian docs actually couldn't take the heat. Smaller in size than Thai55, but less vegetable filler.
3) Cheaper than Snail or Thai55
Cons:
1) Pad thai was unrecognizable, noodles too wide, bland and dry.
2) Fried chicken wontons had too little filling which consisted solely of some crumbly dried ground chicken
3) Beef salad was chock full of beef, but the salad fixins were weak - a few slivers of cucumber, smattering of julienned carrots and a few large leaves of iceberg.
4) Kai Yang - Thai Grilled Chicken was incongruous satay spice from a pouch and exceedingly dried out. Accompanying "sweet" chili sauce was horribly sour - they definitely did NOT give us the sauce which is supposed to accompany this dish.
5) Steamed rice is the same-old bleh you get from most takeout joints.
6) Stirfried mixed vegetables was a mix of bland, large chunked ends (nappa stems are filler... not food)
7) Pad Ped Talay - faux-scallops, tough squid, overcooked shrimp, coarse vegetable filler, bland for a red curry
Looking forward to trying their Bamee, Roast duck on rice, Yen Ta Fo, Shrimp in Hot Pot, Butterfish and Curry fried rice.
PICTURES AS ABOVE
With many options for Thai on 55th street, Siam is perfectly good. One of the places I ordered carryout from regularly when I lived just across the street; service is friendly and the food is good. The basil chicken is outstanding and highly recommended.
The only downside is the cramped dining room, so if you plan to dine in, I'd recommend another place.
If you've been to a Thai restaurant in this part of Hyde Park, it was probably Snail. Little did you know that the best Thai food in south Chicago was being served next door at Siam. Some might compare this place to a hole-in-the-wall, but I like to think of it as unpretentious. The food is inexpensive and the service is always fast, although none too chatty---the way I prefer it. Many academics from U Chicago go here, so you can often overhear some bizarre conversations about things like archaeological digs and/or quantum physics. I highly recommend the tom yum chicken noodle soup (with wide rice noodles).
(8.16.2008): Still Great! I will miss this place. Maybe I can beg them for the recipe for tom yum chicken noodle soup.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
1. Chili chicken -- it's chicken and vegetables and it's spicy and all-around tasty.
2. Basil chicken -- chicken and basil, better tasting than such a simple-seeming combination has any right to be.
3. Lunch specials -- reduced price and it comes with soup and egg roll. It's available on both of the aforementioned dishes and is a fantastic deal.
A cut above Thai 55 and the Snail for Hyde Park Thai.
I came here with a group about an hour before closing...we ordered, we ate, the food was decent. Then comes the check. We split it up among ourselves, we pay...
...and the proprietor (I think she was the proprietor anyway) comes back saying we paid $20 less than we owed. Which is patently ridiculous, because we freaking COUNTED OUT the cash before we tucked it into the little tray. So we do a search to make sure the 20 wasn't dropped somewhere by accident, but no luck.
30 minutes of searching/arguing/re-counting later, we finally pony up the "missing" $20. And then the lady has the gall to say we didn't tip enough! We tipped a good 20%, and SHE'S the one who freaking lost our money. Or pocketed it, for all we know.
I am NEVER going to this restaurant again.
Not the best Thai I've ever had, but I can walk in, order pad thai for carry-out, and be out the door in no more than 7 minutes- sometimes quicker. The best of 55th street thai places.
it's lowkey, laidback, good for any night of the week...
mostly because their basil chicken is f*ing crack. i need to go back to hyde park and get some.
no, i've never actually had their other stuff... this is five stars for their basil chicken.
Unassuming and a little divey, this is the best thai place in Hyde Park. The curries are usually great, as is the pad thai, pad si ew, and those other standards. The other thai places down the street are going to be more packed and their restaurants look nicer, but the real treat is here. The portions are nice and the staff has no problem making any adjustments to your order you might need (I went here often with a vegan friend who had no problem getting a full meal tailored to his dietary needs).
I have to say that the basil chicken this place serves is by far the greatest dish on earth! This restuarant is one of several in hyde park serving thai food, but to me, this one surpasses its competition by FAR! The owner and the service are amazing as well and extremely efficient. They have a lunch special everyday that comes with an egg roll and their daily soup, although the daily soup has been the same for the past 6 years. Even ppl who do not like this restaurant and prefer the Snail or Thai 55, agree that the basil chicken is amazing! I cant stress this recommendation enough!
I've only been to this restaurant once, but it delivered a solid performance. Service is slow, but the food was tasty and definitely worth the price. The decor is sparse, but the staff is warm and friendly. Definitely hangs in there with the rest of the 5th St. crew.
We had red curry catfish and pad thai. Both were good.
I wasn't impressed at all. I tried this place once and that was all it took. With so many other options in Hyde Park this menu got lost in the bottom of my menu drawer. There was nothing wrong with the food, but it wasn't good enough to make me think about the place again.
