Lotus of Siam

Some of the best Thai food we have ever eaten. The atmosphere is ok, but the service makes up for it. It can also be a little hard to find as it is located in an Asian Mall off of Sahara and the mall only has one small enterance. If you love Thai food it is worth getting off the strip and seeking this restaurant out.

Lotus of Siam is in an odd neighborhood. It looks like you are going into the ghetto, but it is so worth it. If no one mentioned it already, Al Roker was there for Food Network, and I think Tyler Florence has his picture up as well. The meals are devine. The servings aren't HUGE, but they are big and worth more than LoS charges. If you are in Commercial Cntr. and looking for a place to eat then definately try LoS --they are a few doors down from the "world famous" Green Door establishment, but the crazies don't seem to bother the restaurant at all.

I love Thai food. I heard a recommendation for this restaurant by the Chefs on Foodnetwork and knew I would try it the next time we were in LV. It was a little difficult to find, and once we did we were surprised at the looks of the restaurant....I expected it to be a nice, fancy and expensive restaurant since it was rcommended by world class chefs. The restaurant is any thing but that. It is in an obscure strip mall. There is nothing famcy about the restaurant. When you walk in the restaurant the waiting areas is very small with only a few chairs. The walls are filled with newspaper articles, magazine articles etc giving glowing reviews. Make sure you have a reservation for dinner. We did not, but they were able to squeeze us in and only had to wait about 20 minutes, but I understand that is unusual and we just lucked out. The food was phenomenal !! The Pad Thai was the best I have ever eaten. Presentation was great....servings were large and meant leftovers to take along. My husband who almost refused to even try Thai food is now a convert. We know that everytime we go to Vegas, Lotus of Siam will be on out itinerary. It truely was the best meal we had that week, and we ate at some well known restaurants owned by famous chefs. Do your self a favor and go to this restaurant but make reservations.

http://www.saipinchutima.com/- you can find the menu and prices here.

Believe the hype. When they sentence me to the lethal injection, I am having Lotus of Siam cater my last meal.

I have to admit I’ve become something of a fixture at Lotus since my arrival. Usually when I find a restaurant I really like I tend to hone in on a small number of dishes and order them again and again. But the variety in the Lotus menu is so broad and the menu so uniformly well-prepared that I’ve ventured away from the familiar often, and never been disappointed.

Ask your server for the Northern Thai menu, a special sheet featuring dishes you’re unlikely to find in most Thai restaurants in the US. Some of the most vibrant and flavorful dishes I’ve had there are on that menu - like the Issan sour sausage, a dry sausage served with cabbage, ginger, roasted peanuts and chili peppers; and the nam-prik-noom, a fiery green chili dip served with sticky rice, tons of fresh veggies and crisp pork skins for dipping.

Which brings me to the issue of spice. I am a spice junkie. My fiancée tells me that I’ve desensitized myself to spicy food and I tend to agree. I need more and more spice to get off, and I could go off on a million tangents here, but I want to stress two points when it comes to spicy food at Lotus of Siam:

1. This is just about the spiciest food I’ve ever eaten in my life, and
2. Even requesting the spice be amped up to its maximum, the natural flavor of the dish is never overwhelmed. Sometimes overheating the spice of a dish kills it, but here it seems to bring out those flavors even more.

Of course, you don’t have to get everything hair-sweatingly spicy - they can prepare just about anything spiced to order, on a 1 to 10 scale. I’ve been told that the 5-to-7 range of the scale is about equivalent to the super-spicy options elsewhere, but I tend to stick to 9’s and 10’s.

Of course, some dishes are fiery enough by themselves, like the robust panang curry and two different kinds of fried rice specially for spice-fiends: a fresh chili fried rice made with big chunks of hot green chili peppers and white onions, and the spicy fried rice, made with lots of garlic, cilantro and mint.

It should also be noted that Lotus of Siam’s pad thai is probably the best I’ve ever tasted - it’s not a dish I’m particularly fond of, but I devoured it.

Lotus of Siam’s appetizers are also well worth the attention - while the fried wontons and dumplings are tasty, they’re outshined by the outstanding beef and pork jerky, the pungent garlic and black pepper chicken wings and the nam kao tod, which is a sensory overload of sausage (this one more salami-like), crispy rice, green onion, ginger, and lime juice. While I found it a bit salty, its appeal is undeniable - the mix of flavors, colors and textures makes this an irresistible dish.