lotus of siam

Ugh ... jet lag. Tonight I'm going to take melatonin and force myself to sleep at a normal-ish time. Tomorrow, I prescribe sunlight. A walk with Jane in the park will do us good.

In the meantime, I'm going to give up chronology in my Vegas write-up and skip right to the best: Lotus of Siam. It's a famous Thai restaurant; they had a review from the NY Times posted on the wall which described it as the best Thai food outside of Thailand. I have nowhere near enough experience with Thai food to even have an opinion on that assessment. I can say that our lunch was incredibly good.

A tiny place in a small strip mall on East Sahara, Lotus of Siam is pretty much the definition of "hole in the wall." It even faces away from the road and would be really easy to miss. There's just a wall along the road with a small neon sign. Pull into the next driveway and the restaurant entrance faces the parking lot.

They have a lunch buffet, but we had read a review on Chowhound which suggested several dishes so we ordered off the regular menu. We had:

Nam Kao Tod: "Minced sour sausage mixed with green onion, fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, crispy rice and lime juice." This may have been my favorite thing we ordered. It's the dish on the left in this photo. I was expecting "crispy rice" to be like Chinese fried rice, but not stirred so it had a crispy edge. Instead I think the rice was deep fried? Every grain was dark and crispy. "Crunchy rice" would also have been accurate. The sour flavor on the diced pork was wonderful. They let us choose the spiciness on a scale of 1 to 10. I like a nice zing but I'm not crazy about sheer heat, and figuring that a Thai restaurant wouldn't kid around, we chose 3. And I have to say, it was at about the upper limit of my enjoyment. If we had ordered 4, I could have still eaten it but I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much.

Stuffed Chicken Wings: "Chicken wings stuffed with ground pork deep fried, served with sweet & sour sauce." The dish on the right in this photo. The chicken wings were boned, leaving just the wing tip, and pork stuffed into the place where the bone had been. Yum! The sweet & sour sauce tasted completely sweet, not sour at all. That might have been in comparison to the sour rice.

Kana Moo Krob: "Stir-fried Chinese broccoli and crispy side pork slice with oyster flavored sauce." The dish on the right in this photo. Side pork slice means chunks of deep fried pork belly. They also have a dish that's just the pork with Thai basil, which was recommended by the Times review. We felt like we'd regret it if we didn't have at least a few vegetables.

There were a handful of whole dried chilis on top, and the waitress who brought the dish to us advised us to break them open and crumble them onto the pork and broccoli, demonstrating by rubbing her hands together. We didn't, and she came back later and chided us (goodnaturedly) when she saw the pile of uncrumbled chilis on the side of the plate. We probably could have added a little bit of chili, as without it the dish was very mild. But even without the chilis ... mmm, pork belly.

Rad Na: "Stir-fried flat rice noodle topped with gravy Chinese broccoli with choice of meat [we had chicken]." The dish on the left in this photo. This was the only dish that resembled Thai food I've had before. It was just as described, a big bowl of noodles, chicken and broccoli in a brown sauce. Two of the wait staff came over and told us how much they like rad na. Neither one of them used the phrase "comfort food" but that's what they were both describing. Makes perfect sense to me; I can imagine coming in from a rainy winter day and warming up with a bowl of those noodles.

The waitress who wanted us to add more chili to the pork belly told us that she likes to make it with chopped jalapeños and eat it in front of the TV (making enthusiastic eating motions). I guess jalapenos are easier to find in Las Vegas than Thai chilis. Then the waiter who had taken our order told us that he liked rad na, but with a sort of embarrassed laugh he said that he liked it with rice! He told us that when he was a kid, his mother used to make it, and they had a big family so there weren't enough noodles and they would add rice. And now he still likes it that way. He's right about the rice; we mixed in the rice from the pork belly and it soaked up the sauce nicely.

So in case you haven't guessed, I highly recommend Lotus of Siam. It's on our "must-do" list for next time.