We decided to try Siam's House for dinner tonight. As it turns out, we were generally disappointed in our meal.
The pleasant waitress took our order. She asked how spicy we liked everything, and we told her how we like it (medium, fairly hot but not burn-your-head-off hot). As it turns out, everything was prepared with the specified level of hotness. Kudos for that.
We started with a drink. My SO had a Singha, and I had the cha yen (Thai iced tea). This was not one of the better cha yens I've had; it was
way too sweet and syrupy (cha yen is normally sweet, but not
this sweet) without the characteristic smoky tea flavor to offset the sweetness.
The first dish was great. We had the satay gai (chicken satay), and it was excellent. Plump, juicy, flavorful, with a nice char on the outside, served with lots of peanut sauce and lots of sliced cucumber (enough that we did plenty of cucumber dipping after we finished the satay). And, unlike every other Thai place on the planet (or so it seems), they serve an even number of skewers, six. Not that that aspect is a big deal, it's not; it's just more of a curiosity than anything else.
Unfortunately, that was the best dish of the meal, and it was followed by the worst. The next item was the tom kha gai (soup made of chicken, galanga, lemongrass, coconut milk, etc). When it arrived at the table, there was a thick pool of rather disgusting orange oil floating on top. I was able to use my skimming skills to remove as much of the oil as I could. Even aside from the excess oil, though, the soup itself was, well, just not very good. The taste was too bland; it was reasonably spicy, as noted above, but other than that, there was just not that strong a taste to the broth, making it rather dishwatery. Granted, not every place (not even TAC Quick, IMHO) has tom kha gai as good as Thai Sookdee, my favorite, but this is the first time in ages that we have left over any tom kha gai, anywhere. 'nuff said.
We had two mains. One was a daily special of basil mussels with chili paste. This dish was very good. The mussels tasted fresh, and the relatively small amount of sauce was nice and tasty.
The second was less successful. This was panang gai (chicken curry). This too was excessively oily, although the oil was somewhat blended with the sauce, rather than sitting on top. Like the soup, the dish itself was a bit on the bland side - again, reasonably spicy, but not that tasty. Also, FWIW, the amount of liquid sauce in this dish was
huge - not really a big plus or minus, but there was 4-5 times as much sauce as most other Thai places serve, even though panang normally comes with a fair amount of sauce.
They didn't have khao niaow mamuang (mango with sticky rice), either on the menu or otherwise (we asked) so we skipped dessert.
How would I rate Siam's House overall? I like to rate restaurants on the following scale:
4 stars - Wow, Incredible (worth traveling long distances to dine)
3 stars - Very Good (worth recommending to others)
2 stars - Just Okay (worth visiting if you're in the neighborhood)
1 star - Disappointing, seriously flawed (worth forgetting)
0 stars - Dreadful (worth warning others away)
On this scale, I would give Siam's House 1 star. By way of comparison, Thai Sookdee in Evanston, my current favorite Thai place in the Chicago area, rates 3 stars, as does Thai Pavilion 2 in Skokie; TAC Quick in Chicago gets 2.5 stars; and the other eight or so Thai places in Evanston and Skokie all get 1-2 stars, as do another four or so Thai places I've tried on the north side in the past couple of years.