Siam – Port Rashid

Siam is a Thai restaurant in the beautiful yet often overlooked Marina Cubes in Port Rashid. I’ll bet 90% of the people who read this will not have been there as yet. Siam was recommended to me by my friends at the Thailand Foodstuff Store in Karma. They told me the chef there is Thai and the food authentic, so I thought I’d give it a try. Like all the other restaurants in the Marina Cubes, Siam is located in a Box Park style container; the biggest difference being that these ‘boxes’ are double decker’s and the view you get from the top floor is pretty amazing – I could clearly see the QE2. 

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Chef Wawa is a big, jolly man and comes to Saim from Café Isan in JLT. I think he was having an off day because the food he prepared for us was nowhere near as good as I remembered from Café Isan.

My companion and I shared a single portion of tangy Tom Yum, served in two bowls. Either our waiter or the kitchen forgot our second starter, Fish Cakes, because they moved straight to our mains of Pad See Ew, a Chinese-influenced stir-fried flat-noodle dish, and a Green Curry. Our noodles were a shambolic mess to look at and required copious amounts of chili vinegar, lime, sugar, chili and other whatnots to make palatable. The green curry was better but still too mild and bland to satisfy my description of authentic. That said, we finished every last drop. Why? Because, at 14:30 we were famished. And then (finally), our excellent Fish Cakes arrived.

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Service at Siam was friendly, I’ll give it that, but I feel their wait staff need better training. The young chap waiting our table did not have communication high on his skill-set and fumbled from one muddled explanation to another. Thank goodness we knew exactly what we wanted. So, how to rate this restaurant? The food certainly wasn’t bad. In my mind, it just wasn’t as good as Café Isan or any of the other authentic, mid-priced Thai restaurants I like, i.e. Zen, Thai Beef Curry, Smiling BKK. That said, I know Wawa is an accomplished chef. I think what happened was that, seeing we were non-Asian, he dialled down the pungency of the food. I’m pretty sure the average person will actually like the food here so, if you’re in the area, give it a try.

Hey! Now read this –
Xerxes physically dines at, or orders from, each and every venue he reviews. He pays in full for whatever he and his companions eat, drink, take away or occasionally throw at each other. Xerxes accepts no money, gifts, discounts or free meals in return for reviews or favouritism. What you have read was NOT influenced in any way by the venue. Join me on Instagram @ravenousxerxes or email me on xerxes@dellara.com.