Saturday, May 28, 2011

Portland Restaurant: Siam Society

What: Siam Society
Where: 2703 NE Alberta St
When: Sun - Thurs 4 - 9pm, Fri - Sat 4 - 10:30pm
Honeys Heart: Happy hour is all hours, every day!


Siam SocietyImage by vj_pdx via Flickr


Sometimes when I venture to the east side, especially Hawthorne, Belmont, or Alberta, I feel like I'm not quite cool enough to be there. My look generally lacks in any homemade pieces, bitchin' boots, and edgy haircuts so I contemplate getting back in my car, putting sunglasses on, and high tailing it back to the west side. Not that I'm quite rich enough to be there. Shit. Oh well, I suffer through this feeling of inadequacy because the food is SO good and our dinner last night at Siam Society was no exception!

Last night, Adam and I made the drive to NE Alberta. Alberta is lined with cute little shops, delicious restaurants, and is home to "Last Thursday". The restaurants I have been to on this street are all great, including Tin Shed (great breakfast and daily mac n cheese!), Petite Provence, Bearnie's Southern Bistro, Branch Whiskey Bar (wonderful food, service, and specialty cocktails), and Pine State Biscuits (biscuits and gravy...oh and their homemade corn dogs). And now I can add to that list, Siam Society.

Our waitress (I wish I had gotten her name) was awesome. She was over right away to take our drink orders and offer any suggestions on the menu. Adam ordered a beer from Thailand, Chang, an award winning beer from Thailand to be exact.


We also decided we needed two appetizers, the Sweet Potato Fries ($6.95) handcut and tossed in truffle oil and the Calamari ($9.95) golden fried and tossed with lemongrass, cilantro, garlic and Thai chili. The fries were meaty and came with a vinegar-y dipping sauce, but I liked them plain. The calamari was tender and served with a sweet sauce. Perfect!


Between appetizers and our entree arriving we decided that it would probably be a good idea to order drinks. Both feeling the house ginger ale I ordered "The En-GIN-Neer" ($8) while Adam opted for a Bourbon Ginger Ale ($8), typical. The En-GIN-Neer was muddled mint and ginger shaken with house ginger ale and a generous pour of gin. The "generous" is included in the description so I expect it to be just that, and it was. They definitely make a good drink here.


For our main dishes we decided to share the Phad See Yu ($10.95) wide wheat noodles stir-fried with egg, broccoli, sweet soy and sprouts. I love phad see yu and order it (or yellow curry) almost every time I get Thai food, and this was no exception. Unlike other phad see yu I've ordered these noodles were longer and tasted like they may be homemade by Siam Society.

sorry for the blurry pic...


Based on the advice of our waitress we were stuck between a curry or the Sexy Beef ($14.95), but really the Sexy Beef just sounded so...sexy. We ordered that as our second entree. It was a wonderful combination of tenderloin, Thai chilies, bell peppers, mushroom, and garlic in coconut, served with jasmine rice.




Though I am a huge phad see yu fan, I have to say I think this dish won for flavor. It had the coconut flavor and hints of spice. Really great on the rice! Also it had that fried stuff on top which was really tasty.

Stuffed, we looked at a dessert menu, but simply couldn't eat any more! Ready to pay the bill, our waitress let us know that friends a couple tables down had got our tab...too nice of them! Thanks so much :)
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