LIL SIAM

Lil Siam is a sister branch of the long standing Thai restaurant Café Siam on Lyndhurst Terrace. Opened in Soho, the new place features classic Thai dishes, particularly street food in Bangkok and Chang Mai.

This restaurant has a simplistic modern oriental design. The interior concrete walls are decorated with rustic wood and copper elements, creating a chic industrial feel in the restaurant. There is a big blackboard in the dining area listing the daily specials. Their tables are orange-brown, providing a refreshing and contracting effect. Despite the restaurant’s small size, the seating there is fairly spacious and the relatively large chairs are very comfortable. There is also a small alfresco table at the back of Lil Siam for smoker diners.

When we enter the restaurant, the waitresses politely lead us to the table near the big windows next to the entrance which is a nice spot for people watching. Not long after we sit down, we are offered their complimentary appetizer. It is mixed pomelo salad wrapped in lemon leaves nicely present in cups that comes a honey dip. The staff kindly warns us that the chilli can be very spicy. It is indeed very hot, but very refreshing and tasty. It is really nice that you can enjoy some snacks while deciding what to order. And since the starter is so good, we are quite looking forward to the dishes we have chosen for tonight.

We order Signature Siam Salad ($68), Satay Gai, Moo, Neua (Chicken, pork and beef satay with peanut dipping sauce) ($76), Koh Moo Yang (Char-grilled marinated pork) ($86), Yum Ma Khera Yau (baked eggplant with toasted garlic and basil) ($62) and Pad Pak Ruan (Stir-fried Thai cabbage spouts with garlic) ($62). We just have to wait for around 10 minutes for the satay, grilled marinated pork and salad to arrive. The satay and grilled pork are served hot and done to perfection. They are well seasoned and very tasty. We particularly love the home-made peanut dipping sauce which adds extra flavor to the meat. We also like the Siam Salad made of fresh green veggies, tofu and herbs and its sweet-sour peanut dressing is very appetizing. Yet the baked eggplant and stir-fried Thai cabbage that arrive 10 minutes later are quite disappointing compared to the dishes mentioned earlier. The baked eggplant is a bit over-cooked and under seasoned, so as the Thai cabbage. They are not bad, just not great and since it’s a sister branch of Café Siam we are expecting more from them. For the same price range, we think that Café Siam is doing much better when comes to the food quality. Having said that, the service in Lil’ Café is excellent. The staff are very friendly and they know a lot about their menu. Their warm welcome and professional advice, together with the comfortable seating really makes dining experience in Lil Siam quite pleasant.