Lotus of Siam - NYC

It's been almost a year. Ha! I bet you'd given up on this thing. 'You' and me both. That makes two people in all.

Also, two reasons this is a special post: 1.) it's a revival post, and 2.) it concerns the highly-anticipated arrival of the famed Lotus of Siam of Las Vegas, in New York.

A short note about the general ambience: weird. I wish it had occurred to me to photograph the interior, but I was preoccupied first with the sort-of-fanciness of it all (no doubt trying to revamp its image to match its new trendy, upscale big-city neighbors), and second with the overly eager, almost pushy service. More on this later. Food first.

Brass tacks - we began with the same dish I had started with at the Las Vegas location, which came highly recommended by several posters on Chowhound.

Nam Kao Tod, Crispy Rice Salad

Comparing it to my memory of the Las Vegas version, I enjoyed this one a lot more. Plating and presentation clearly have been updated to match the fancy new digs. But more importantly, the flavors seemed to be more refined and balanced, as well, not so much overpowered by salt and acid. Smoky Thai sausage, salty crunchy rice, bright splashes of chili and lime - I finally get what the fuss was about. This is to beer as cookies are to milk.

Or:

nam kao tod : beer :: cookies : milk

Issan Larb (chicken)

The larb was also delicious, and actually spicy (as requested), which was a happy surprise. Despite lacking the rather characteristic crispy, granular rice flour component, the flavors were fresh, bold, and satisfying. However, the portion of cabbage provided ostensibly to be used as scooping vessels proved unwieldy, impractical, and unnecessary. Straight plate-to-mouth shoveling was the unanimously preferred method.

Som Thum

I can't seem to eat a Thai meal without it. Maybe it's my Korean blood that makes me crave a crunchy, tart, and usually spicy accompaniment to any meal whenever possible (kimchi, pickled ginger, jalapenos, sauerkraut, coleslaw, etc.). Som Thum in particular, however, also just happens to be one of my favorite dishes to eat, of any cuisine, in any season. Like the larb, it was stingingly spicy, in that deeply gratifying, itch-scratching sort of way. Spicy, tart, funky, and savory, all singing in perfect harmony to the percussion of happy crunching of papaya and peanuts. Nothing better.
And so pretty...but small. Why so small?

Crispy Duck, w/Spicy Thai Basil Sauce

Showstopper of a dish. Intensely delectable, if also a dead ringer for my favorite dish at Sripraphai (Crispy Pork Belly With Chili and Basil). Like smaller, pricier, ducky doppelgangers, these beautiful little morsels had a crisp exterior that exploded like chili-basil meaty fat bombs in my mouth. They were, dare I say, exquisite. But at $26 for, what is that 5? 6? measly nuggets of momentary molten meat nirvana*--it's half the portion at more than twice the price of similar dishes at other Thai restaurants around the city.

* Talk about alliteration! Meat poetry. And that is going to make for some interesting google search visitors.

This was my main, if only complaint about the food here. Everything was undoubtedly tasty, fresh, and well-executed. There just wasn't enough of it. Of anything. Thus, making prices seem wildly disproportionate for what it was. This is the primary reason why M and I agreed we would never return to Lotus of Siam, New York--despite the quality of the food and convenient location compared to some other great Thai restaurants in the city. For those looking to eat delicious Thai food without leaving the comfort and security of Manhattan, and are willing to drop the extra cash in exchange (albeit probably about the price of a cab ride to Queens and back), it's a fine option. Otherwise, there are far greater values to be found in the not-too-outer boroughs.

The second reason is the service. I'm not going to harp on about it, since this blog is about food, and that is my main concern. Also, it was about the second week after opening, and I know it sometimes takes a while for restaurants to find their stride. But suffice to say there is attentive, and there is obtrusive, and good service depends on knowing the difference.

On a related note, with regard to this post on Chowhound (an ongoing series of pointless scaremongering to detect and mark the downfall of Sripraphai, arguably the city's best and most beloved Thai restaurant--started in July 2009, and ongoing up to this month): I just returned this past weekend after a few months long hiatus, shared my favorite dishes along with some new ones with a few friends, and everything was fantastic. We did encounter some annoying, but brief, cautionary protest when ordering the Southern Style Curry, but after assuring our waitress that we were completely aware of our actions, everything was fine. There are reasons and occasions to visit other places for Thai food, of course, but it's good to know I can still rely on Sripraphai for a fix.

(The first picture is of the rather forgettable but innocuously pleasant dessert of tapioca and lotus seeds from Lotus of Siam.)

Sripraphai vs. Lotus of Siam - East vs. West of Thai Cuisine

[Thanks, Girl Who Ate Everything, for reminding me that I needed to do this, via her Sripraphai post.]

Alright. Here we go.
I have been promising posts about Sripraphai since about the beginning of this blog, have since commented on other blogs about it, and eaten there at least 8 times in the past 4 months or so...it's time to finally do this. No longer shall this be a blog of broken promises (at least not this one promise).
I was waiting until I could get some better pictures to do the food justice, but I realize now that no pictures [taken by me] will ever do it justice, so I might as well post these AWFUL AWFUL pictures that I have had sitting on this hard drive for goodness knows how long. Here goes - this might be more epic than my burger post, so sit back (or just skip to the food pics).

There are two people in my life who have had definitive roles in the forming of my ideas about food: first, my mother [duh], and second, M.
My mother's home cooking, along with her predilection for funky, off-beat [read: eek] foods, and her militantly enforced "you have to try everything once" attitude has made my palate what it is today. Thank you, Mom.
M, a later influence in my life, opened my eyes to a world of cuisines that I thought I knew about, but actually had no idea (Polish-born, raised in Rockaway, schooling me about Asian cuisines - go figure). One of these is Thai food. I always thought, "Sure, I like Thai food. Noodles, curry, whatever. It's good for a greasy fix." Then M took me to Sripraphai. It was a revelation. It was like I had never tasted flavor before - not just 'these' flavors, but any flavor. It knocked my tastebuds on their asses, all of them, simultaneously. Or maybe like dominoes. I dunno.

I believe my mother's attitude towards Thai food was similar to my former feeling - as I believe it is for many people whose only experience with Thai food is pad thai (often take-out), or for the more daring pad kee mow or pad see ew, which is somewhat equivalent to believing Panda Express is Chinese food. So when I went to Las Vegas this past Thanksgiving with my family, I had to grab at the opportunity to potentially allow my dear mother to experience this same revelation, as I was confident she would, at Lotus of Siam - the legendary, and often hailed "Best Thai Restaurant in North America." I had never been, but even with my limited experience, felt sure that Sripraphai should be the holder of this title. Both are helmed by women made famous (locally and nationally) for their killer dishes (Sripraphai Tipmanee and Saipin Chutima, respectively), both have die hard fans. I needed to test for myself.

SRIPRAPHAI - Woodside, Queens, NY
[worst ever photos of best food ever]

Som Tum

Southern Style Curry w/Duck

Crispy Pork w/Chili and Basil and Inexplicable Satanic Red Glow*

*Do not ask me how that happened...maybe it was the heat of the Thai chilis emanating through the lens. Or that my sucky photography transcends the whole earthly spectrum of hues.

So, these are my standbys, which I unjustly call 'standbys' when actually they are 3 of my favorite things to eat on any given day. I've already talked about my love of som tum, so suffice to say that this is where it began. And ends. The crispy catfish salad is also a favorite, which is similar, but with shredded green mango instead of papaya, cashews instead of peanuts, and topped with heaping portions of deep fried minced catfish, which has a unique consistency somewhat like honeycomb, or fried cotton candy, but tastes like fish. Mmmm, right? YES, RIGHT. EAT IT. Ask for 'Thai spicy' if you want to experience nirvana...and a runny nose and sweaty brow.
Same goes for the Southern Style Curry, which is supposedly too spicy even for the chef. I've heard she doesn't eat it herself, yet she somehow manages to make it taste awesome. Thai eggplant [those things that look like tiny watermelons, or alien tomatilloes], long beans, green peppercorns, bamboo shoots, generous slices of succulent duck, and about 50 other components - all in a fiery soupy curry of psychedelic max flavor™. For best results, eat poured over a steaming bowl of coconut rice.
Lastly, Crispy Pork w/Chili and Basil. Words cannot explain. The consistency is not like any other pork or meat dish I've had - some might find it off-putting at first, though I think a few bites more would turn them around: crispy, then fatty, then tender...at times jerky-like. Flavor pow . That's all.

[Irrelevant Tangent: two nights ago M rode out to pick up take-away from Sripraphai, since it was raining, and I don't have fenders on my bike, and so didn't want to bike there. Coming off a big meat-binge, I requested for myself just Som Tum AND Crispy Catfish Salad. He also got an order of Crispy Pork and coconut rice. Long story short, the salads were so good, we ended up eating just those for dinner, and reheating the pork w/the rice the next night. Two very big meat eaters, being sated with just 2 salads for dinner. SALADS. We are not salad eaters. These dishes are serious.
Also, PROTIP: DO NOT REHEAT THINGS WITH THAI CHILI PEPPERS IN A PAN OF POPPING HOT OIL. I thought I would try to re-crisp the crispy pork in some piping hot oil, along with the chilis in the sauce, of course, whose seeds promptly popped open and released highly unpleasant amounts of capsaicin into our tiny, windowless kitchen, thus turning our meal into a riot scene simulation where we had just been pepper sprayed and then forced to eat delicious pork. Me: #1 Top Genius of the World.]

There are mores dishes/pictures from Lotus of Siam, as this was my first and only visit, and I was with my whole family, and who knows when I'll be back.

LOTUS OF SIAM - Las Vegas, NV

Nam Kao Tod

Crispy rice mixed with minced sour
sausage, green onion, fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, and lime
juice.

So, I composed a list of dishes to try, based on a honed down list of the many recommendations on the numerous Chowhound threads about this place. This was one of the items that kept recurring. It was flavorful, and had nice textures, but everyone agreed it was really salty, and a little too sour to enjoy all of the other flavors. And really salty.

Crispy Garlic Shrimp

Close-up

Okay, this was a winner. Another recommendation from the astute contributors to Chowhound, I don't believe it's on the actual menu, and so have to thank them for the tip. They separate the shells from the bodies almost entirely, except near the tail so it's still attached, batter it all up in some kind of magic (garlic), and then deep fry the whole shebang. Really spectacular. I don't even like shrimp that much. Mom was beginning to warm up.

Hoh Mok Plar

Close-up

Another Chowhound insider tip - the menu lists it as catfish, but if you ask for it with sea bass, they're more than happy to oblige. Now this was the dish that really got Mom's attention. She's not one to pretend to like something, and you know you've got her when she's scraping the aluminum foil with her chopsticks for dregs to flavor her remaining rice at the end of the meal. The waiter actually tried to dissuade me from ordering it - "It's, uh, you know, not for everybody," he offered with well-meaning naïveté - and I'm so glad I insisted. The menu description is not what some would call enticing: "With curry paste-fish, egg, sliced cabbage cooked in a bowl with your choice of catfish." 'Paste-fish'? 'Sliced cabbage cooked in a bowl'...whee. And I'm not sure what 'Your choice of catfish' means. Anyway, it was delicious, and I'm still not even sure what the waiter meant, because it didn't have any sort of funky or off-putting flavors or textures (as I was expecting, but probably also still would have liked). It was just wholesome and plain good.
(After the trip to Las Vegas, and I returned to NY, and my mom returned to LA, she called me to ask the name of the restaurant we ate at in Las Vegas, and this dish. My mother loves food, but she's never made such an effort to recall some place we've eaten so she could rave to her friends about it. Lotus of Siam turned my mom into a foodie.)

Khao Soi w/Beef

I like Khao Soi, there's nothing not to like, but it also just sort of falls into my previous notions of Thai food: delicious, rich, sort of sweet, noodly, but nothing life-changing. This one was obviously tasty, but nothing to travel to the desert for.

"Pork Stew" - possibly Kang Hung Lay...?

Another Chowhound rec, known only to me as "pork stew." I simply asked the waiter for "pork stew" and he seemed to know what I was talking about, and brought us this. I went back to the menu just now to see if there is a proper name for it, and I think it's the Kang Hung Lay, but don't quote me on it. Anyway, this dish pretty much remained untouched. Maybe I ordered the wrong thing, or they brought the wrong thing. In any case, I can recall nothing about this dish except that the meat was kind of tough and dry, and the flavor was all around just sort of...brown.

Crazy Dessert Sampler

I couldn't decide on a dessert, so the waiter recommended we get the sampler, which included portions of three of their best desserts: sticky rice, coconut ice cream, and fried banana roll. YES. So good. The fried banana roll is basically what it looks like: bananas rolled in thin springroll-type skin, and deep fried. And then glazed with some sort of sugar syrup. Coconut ice cream was coconut ice cream, and the sticky rice was sticky rice flavored with coconut. Put them all together, and you have a dream team sticky, warm, crispy, cool, creamy, chewy, sugargasm...with banana and coconut, one of nature's most beautiful flavor combinations. 'Nuff said.

So, the big question: whose cuisine reigns supreme???

The big answer: not sure.

Wah wah...Honestly, after having only been to Lotus of Siam once, and eating at Sripraphai semi-religiously about once every other week for the past year and a half or so, I can't even try to give a diplomatic opinion. If Lotus of Siam was in biking distance of my home, I would definitely eat there again. Perhaps as frequently as I eat at Sripraphai. Being that it's not only on the other side of the country, but in Las Vegas, and that I hate Las Vegas...it's definitely an excellent restaurant, and I would most certainly return if I was in the area. Based solely on that 1 visit versus about 50-some visits to Sripraphai: Sripraphai is, in my eyes, THE Best Thai Restaurant in North America.

Sripraphai
6413 39th Ave
Woodside, Queens, NY

(718) 899-9599

[Also at: 280 Hillside Ave
Williston Park, NY]

Lotus of Siam
953 East Sahara Ave
Las Vegas, NV
(702)735-3033