Misty "The Kitty" S.'s Profile

Well, if this place is closed, then something awful has resurrected in its place.  The name Siam Inn is still on the sign, but also has "Blue" something as part of the name.

FOOD:
1.  Bamee with chicken - Normally one of my favorite dishes, but it tasted like teriyaki chicken on soggy noodles.

2.  Chicken curry - It was ok, but the spoonful of rice that came with it just seems insufficient.

This place didn't get 1 star since the food was not too bad and the ambiance was nice.

I have always been skeptical of going to dealers for maintenance because I hear they always charge more and try to take advantage of you.  I don't feel that way at this place.  

PRO:  I bring my Toyota here for all my maintenance care.  Their oil change is between $25 - $30 and comes with a car wash.  Nothing has ever been stolen from my car here (which I appreciate after my Oakleys were taken from my car at another auto shop).  The waiting area is nice and clean with complimentary coffee and water.  There's a big screen TV and free wireless (toyota4u).  

CON:  I'm normally not confused in general, just so you know.  However, the set up they have here is a little confusing for me.  I pull into the service lane, the garage door opens and I drive in, but then I get out of the car and nobody greets me.  I stand there feeling awkward guessing that someone will approach me once they are available.  Then after the car is done, I would get confused about where to go to find my car because the cashier just takes your money and offers no instructions.  It turns out you have to walk back through the garage, and then out the back door and go the long way out of the parking lot through side streets to get back to 64.

I would have given this place another star if I didn't have a couple of  incidents...

1.  They tried to make me pay for a parking ticket I did not receive while using one of their rental cars.  The car number wasn't noted on my carbon copy of the the receipt, so after a long debate, they dropped the charges.

2.  They accidentally overcharged my credit card, which I noticed and they corrected.  Make sure you check your receipt!

Best hump day, EVAR!

I was looking forward to this event all week and it was more awesome than I thought it would be.  I could see there were so many people there (over 2000?!!?), but I couldn't feel it because of the enormous amount of space we had to roam in.  

At one point, I felt like I was walking an awful lot to end up in the same room (tricky thing a circle is).  I guess I should have used the map.  I wanted to run around all over the place to make sure I didn't miss anything, but ended up spending a lot of time in the pizza line.  It was worth it, though, since I met a couple of cool people in the process (call me).

Things I did once I ctrl-C out of the infinite loop:
1.  The Dewars tasting station - So much fun!  Drank 3 different shots of whiskey, which started to taste the same after the first one.  I still picked out my favorite man - Johnny....but I think I was supposed to pick out Dewars since they were hosting after all...oops.

2.  Said hello to baby beluga...awww

3.  Tasted AMAZING desserts from Il Giardino Del Dolce...OMG, soooo good.  I'm going to find a special occasion just so I can get order a cake from them.

4.  Tomato flavored vodka...the jury is still out on this one.

5.  Spotted Joe and his rod and went in for a photo op.

6.  Stood in front of the huge aquarium dreaming about swimming with the fish.

And a big thank you to the trolley man for driving us back to the red line.   I *heart* Yelp!

If you ain't FIRST, you're LAST!

No no, it's not about winning, it's about having fun!  [Then again, this review may have gone the other way if my boyfriend had beaten me at bowling :p]

This place keeps my bowling scoring ability sharp with their pencil and paper system.  Not to mention my weight estimation ability when searching for a ball.  The bowling balls are old, scratched and mostly unmarked.  They will also leave your hands black and greasy by the end of the night.  I feel like I travel back in time when I bowl here with it's old school ways.

We were the only ones left by the end of the night and the resident drunk made her way over by us.  She was a bit scary and possibly bi-polar.  Halfway through her story telling, she grabbed one of my friend's drink and started drinking it.  Guess she was thirstier than my friend.  She hung around while we tried to finish our game.

"It's my turn!"  She would scream.
"Sorry, I have to go next because they are closing." I would reply.
"You're a f*$#( c$%#" She would comment.

Then a minute later she'd forget we didn't let her take a turn and tell us how much she loved us.  I wonder if she drove the other people away and that was the reason we were the only ones left.  Or maybe bowling isn't that popular at 2am.

I'm learning so much about tendons...  

Soup always sounds good to me in cold weather like this, so I looked through the soup section and thought beef short rib soup sounded delicious.  The waitress kept speaking to me in Korean and just kept repeating herself when I didn't understand.  Maybe if she said it one more time, it'll click.  I was trying really hard to channel my ancestors to help me out in case one may have known the language.  No dice.  I pointed to what I wanted on the menu and thought we were good to go.  

When the soup arrived, I was quite skeptical that it was short rib.  There were semi-transparent gelatinous morsels floating around in the broth as I stirred it.  Okay...I thought...maybe this is Korean style short rib.  

Not what I was expecting.
I ate it.  
It was interesting.

Halfway through my meal, I was able to signal a waitress over to ask what was in the soup, specifically the morsels.  She proceeded to rub her rib cage and nodded when I said ribs?  Still not convinced, I was determined to get to the bottom of this.  I went on Yelp when I got home to see if anyone has reviewed the beef short rib soup.  There was a brief mention in one review, but in a positive light, so surely it couldn't be this soup I got.  I looked up pictures and it certainly not what I ate.  Finally, I tracked down the menu and saw that right above the short rib was the beef tendon soup.  

Geeze, I felt like a dumbass.  TENDONS...of course.  I have seen this stuff before...not so up close and personal, but I should have known.  

Eeeeeeeeeeew...I ate tendons...*gag*

If they hadn't made me eat tendons, they would have earned one more star.  The rest of our food was good.  The service was terrible! They didn't once fill our water glasses.  The table next door had a huge bon fire going with their meat grilling and I could barely see the tendons through the smoke.  

This place was packed at 10pm on a Friday  night.  That's always a good sign, I thought.  The restaurant is fairly large, so we got seated right away.  We sat in the section were we had to take our shoes off and climbed onto the seating area and stick our legs under the table.  That was fun.  Not fun enough to block out my tendon experience, though.

Clean
Good temperature
Great sound
Stadium seats with adjustable armrest
Not crowded

I can't ask for more from a movie theater.  You can request a Regal club card when you're buying your tickets and earn points.  I asked for one to get the $1 popcorn deal on Tuesdays (and you get $1 candy on Mondays).  It's the biggest small popcorn I've ever had at a movie theater!  With the exercise I got going up all the stairs and escalators, I felt good about eating all the popcorn.  I thought the salt packets they provided was a nice touch since I can salt halfway through my snacking.  Mmm...salt.

Nearby:  If you're looking to eat before seeing a movie, don't count on finding something good near the theater (see review of Yushi_).  Your best bet is probably the Whole Foods across the street (which you can see out the window from the DSW that you past on the way up to the theater).

I think they forgot the "t" on the end of their name.  The only good thing about this place is the seating area.  It looked like it was taken out of an upscale restaurant and stuck into a fast food joint.  

Miso Vegetable Dumpling Udon
It was...how do you say...gross!  The soup was ew.  The dumplings were ew.  The vegetables were ew.  I want to know what ingredients they threw together to make something so awful so I don't ever make the same mistake.  The dumpling tasted like they came right out of the freezer and into the soup.  The shell was freezer burned and I'm not convinced that the filling was actual vegetables.  I gave a dumpling to one of my friends and he thought it was disgusting.  This was quite surprising to me since he is one to eat anything and enjoy it.

Chicken Pad Thai
Normally, we'd all take a taste of each other's dish, but judging by his facial expression, it was a wise choice to pass.  

Don't eat here unless you hunger for 3 ew's for $8.  If you're thinking about finding a place near the theater to eat, it's worth the time and effort to go to another area for food.

My Thai Restaurant test:
1.  Thai Ice Tea - Pass!
2.  Thai Fried Rice - Pass!
3.  Pad Thai - Pass!

I was a bit skeptical coming into a Thai place with a Vietnamese name.  It's like going to a burger joint called Paco or something.  But it was raining and I wanted Thai, damnit!

If a Thai place passes the initial test, then I go back and sample their other dishes.  From the results above, I'm definitely coming back to this place.  They were a bit slow on bringing out the food, but it was worth the wait, especially with #1 to keep me preoccupied.  I did venture outside my normal protocol and tried their papaya salad.

Waitress:  How spicy would you like your dishes?
Me:  Medium please (I figured you can't go wrong with medium).

HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THINGS GOOD...

Medium was waaaaay too spicy.  My poor Caucasian companion across from me was crying his eyes out.  Now, being half Thai, I'd like to think I have the tolerance to handle "medium" any where in America.  I was so hungry, though, and the salad was delicious despite the spiciness, that I kept eating the salad.  It was good going in...but you have to think about the consequences in these circumstances.  This is where slower service comes in handy.  I managed to tackle the waitress down after putting the fire in my mouth out and casually asked her to change the rest of the order to "mild."

Waitress: Haha, too spicy for you?  No problem, we'll change the rest of the order.  

Haha, indeed.  So...if you take nothing else from this review, go MILD!

My first Yelp holiday party!

Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!

I wasn't planning on attending until Yelper George raved about last year's party and how I could still enjoy it this year even if I can't get there until late.  RSVP'd I did.  

I pretty much came to the party straight from the airport.  I was hoping to catch an earlier flight on standby but they had to go and cancel it this week of all weeks.  Curse you United!  Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise...arriving after 8:30 wasn't a bad thing after all!  There were only 3 people in line for coat check and the temperature inside was warm and cozy.

It was great to see tons of people there.  What's a party without a crowd, right?  I had plenty to drink and lots of desserts to sample.  The photo booth was fun and I wish I had more time to check out the rest of the party.

As a parting gift, I got a a "Yelp is 'Tote'ally Awesome!" Eco friendly bag.  How clever, right up there with Yelpstick.  Hooray to reduce, reuse and recycle!!

Max sauce FTW!  (yes...for the win)

The sauce that came with the fettuccine was AMAZING ($12)!  So thick and full bodied with small chunks of meat, I could eat it without the pasta.  I tried my friend's pesto pasta special and it was quite boring.  It was like going from a Porsche 911 to a Toyota Camry.  It's still a good car, but it's no Porsche.

It's a very romantic place, probably good for a date...but suitable for you and say 3 of your coworkers to have dinner.  My eyes took a while to adjust to the dim lighting that I needed to hold the candle up to the menu to read it (you may want to bring a flashlight).

Ixnay on the Cabernet ($7).  My friend took a swig of mine and described it as tasting like hairy bum (not in those exact words).  I'm not sure how he knows, but you can be the judge.

Oh, and if you want an extra basket of bread, that'll cost you an extra buck.  The garlic vinegary oil dipping sauce for it is pretty good.