Siam Thai Eatery Staten Island — Restaurant in New York

Siam Thai is a beautiful, quaint, and spacious new welcomed-addition to the New Dorp area with lots of parking due to it being located in a highly trafficked plaza. The staff, hostesses, and servers were very welcoming, friendly, and efficient! The interior design is vibrant yet intimate, with its warm-toned lighting providing a romantic atmosphere. The tables and bar are spaciously apart, which provides a comfortable dining experience. The music volume was just right and allows you to comfortable converse without raising your voice.

This review is strictly for its soft opening takeout experience, for I'm sure the dine-in experience will differ in quality. The drive home for us was around 10 minutes, so the travel time is taken into consideration with this review, for it definitely impacted the quality of the food. We were informed as we placed our order that the order will take approximately 15-20 minutes and our ordered arrived prompted in 20 minutes, showing that the staff knows the capacity and functioning of its kitchen staff well!

Below are what we ordered for takeout:

Chive cakes: 3/5 - The chive cakes didn't have a crispy texture and was very mushy, which unfortunately detracted from its enjoyment. It's likely that the 10 minute travel made the chive cakes extra moist and mushy; perhaps its container retained a lot of moisture, rendering it overly soft and not crispy at all. The sauce was pleasantly sweet and salty, which would've paired perfectly with it if it was crispier; it probably would've tasted a lot better if eaten at the restaurant. Definitely would try this again for dine-in and hopefully it'd be crispier to provide a nice enjoyable contrast between its exterior crispiness and interior softness.

Pad See Ew: 2.5/5 - The Pad See Ew is definitely under-seasoned, which although the meat was good quality, rendered it quite bland; can definitely benefit from more "wok hei." The portion is also quite small for its price tag. Overall, if the price, quantity, and seasoning were adjusted to reflect the abovementioned changes, I believe it has great potential of being an amazing noodle dish!

Morning Glory: 3.5/5 - As evident in the picture, this dish was quite watery, which perhaps can be due to the transport. The wateriness definitely diluted its flavor, but it still packs quite a punch in terms of its spiciness. Once again, it's probably a dish best served at the restaurant instead of takeout.

Tomahawk Short Rib Massaman Curry: 5/5 - Definitely the showstopper of tonight's experience! Incredibly tender and flavorful, with a beautiful balance of nuttiness and creaminess. It's not spicy at all and tastes amazing with rice (which is not included). My only critique is that the potato could be a bit softer for its quite tough to the bite. Highly recommend it and the price is pretty reasonable for its portion and quality!

Overall, I definitely recommend to dine-in instead of takeout. There's definitely some more kinks to be sorted through, but for a soft opening it's pretty great in how they handled everything, from serving time to the quality of their food. Their prices are the same as its sister location in Queens, and if their quality/quantity improves just a bit, it'll definitely be worth the price. This isn't your typical Thai restaurant, where its atmosphere and vibe definitely paints a more elegant and intimate experience. Siam Thai has a lot of potential and I can only see them continue to grow and do better. Give them a shot and definitely order the Tomahawk Short Rib Massaman Curry!

Thank you for reading and...

Can't say much about the service or atmosphere as we ordered take out.

We ordered a few dishes including pad thai, pad kee mao, pad see ew, the tomahawk curry, crab curry, spicy "filet mignon" basil, beef boat noodle, crab fried rice, and a couple mango sticky rices. We were planning to share this with our family of 10, but turns out the portions were way smaller than we imagined. Total of the dinner : $268.95

Both pad thai and pad kee mao was probably the worst we've had. There was not much flavor, just very bland. Tasted like it was missing something. The pad see ew was salty, but again no real flavor. These noodle dishes just tasted like rice noodle with barely any seasoning, with the exception of salt. How can all these noodle dishes look like there was soy sauce but not taste like it? The toddlers eating with us didn't even like the food, and they love eating pad see ew, just not from here.

The tomahawk curry was supposed to serve at least 3-4 people. It barely fed two people. It came with one roti cut into four, that looked like it was microwaved. Once the "tomahawk" was taken out there was barely any curry. The curry was lacking as well, missing flavor. Imagine a curry, without the big curry flavor. The only positive I can give is that the meat was definitely soft. The size of the crab is laughable, fits in your palm. One crab by the way. Curry was absolutely salty. Where is the curry flavor?? Also no rice with these entrees, I'm pretty sure they want you to pay extra for the rice.

The menu advertised as spicy filet mignon basil which is only available in the Flushing location, by the way. We ordered that, but was told it was ribeye at this Staten Island location and was charged the filet mignon price. The beef was bland. Didn't taste like it was previously marinated before it was cooked. Was flavorless as well as everything else we ordered. The vegetables tasted good at least, but that's about it.

Beef boat noodle looked promising. It was a good serving size, however it was so salty. You can smell that there was spices used but none of it could be tasted. Again, just salty, salty, salty. Beef Maruchan would taste better than this, and that is embarrassing to say.

Crab fried rice was maybe the most redeemable item off the menu that we ordered. Tasted like crab, it was decent. The fried rice was the only thing that wasn't too salty or too bland. But it still could've used a little more of something.

Not much to say about mango sticky rice, it's just mango with coconut sticky rice. Can't possibly mess that up.

Overall I would not recommend this place. I would feel so sorry for you if you ate here as your first experience for Thai food. Even after all that we ordered, we had to order pizza. Go elsewhere if...

Delicious food, nice presentation, but overpriced.

We visited Siam Thai for dinner during their first week operation on Staten Island in March 2023. The place has a very nice interior and indeed feels much more upscale than a usual Thai restaurant. We were really excited to try the dishes it could offer. Despite this being restaurant's first week it had quite some people in and more were coming while we were there.

All the food we ordered was delicious and had a beautiful esthetic presentation. The only drawback was that everything was roughly 30-35% overpriced. You are getting Manhattan prices on Staten Island.

Appetizers Larb Tartare - tasty, flavorful, with perfect texture, and high heat level (right for my taste). It was perfectly presented and nicely accompanied by some chips. I only regret I forgot to ask for optional egg yolk on top and our waitress unfortunately didn't offer it as an option. This beef tartare is very different from usual French beef tartare. It's more dry, flavorful, and of course spicier. Would definitely order again. Thai Summer Roll - this was good and tasty, nothing extraordinary though.

Mains Duck Red Curry - delicious, flavorful, with generous pieces of duck, and nice sweet notes coming from lychees and pineapple. It was on mild side of heat which was exactly right for my wife. Presentation was also excellent. This dish is certainly recommended. Beef Pad Kee Mao - this was great and tasty, with high heat level as I wished. The noodles were smooth and silky. The meat was melting in the mouth. I only wished the portion would be a bit bigger. The dish is a solid go if you like high heat.

The service was polite and quick but it definitely needs improvement. The waitress didn't mention the optional egg yolk for the beef tartare. She also didn't offer the rice with the curry though it's not automatically included as you would expect in an Asian restaurant. We had to order the rice after the curry came... Hopefully, these little mistakes are only due to the place being new and the stuff still learning. Just wanted to mention this for the owners to know what need to be improved.

Overall, we liked the restaurant for its food, interior and atmosphere. However, we are unlikely to be back due to overpricing. The value for the money is questionable.

Suggestion to owners: Include rice on the side with curries and other dishes that are supposed to come with it. Don't charge $3 for a cup of rice. $3 is nothing and the rice is cheap anyway, but making it an extra charge is not nice, it leaves the feeling the place is greedy. And same goes for $2 to add an egg yolk on $18 beef tartare. C'mon. Egg yolk costs you 30c max. Just offer it as a free option. You can...