Siam Thai

We went out to dinner last night at Siam Thai, on Andrew Street in Dublin.  My better half and I are big fans of Thai cuisine.  We would really love to visit Thailand some day.  Every time I talk to one of my friends who has been there, they rave about how kind and wonderful the Thai people are.

At the moment the closest we can get to Thailand is through the culinary world.  Ireland is a very multicultural place, and Dublin is something of a European metropolis.  Ireland is not the Quiet Man township of thatched roof cottages like the movies would have you believe.  There are several excelent Thai restaurants in Ireland.  Some day I would like to do a blog about Thai Garden at Spanish Arch, in Galway.  The service there is excellent and OMG the green curry is fantastic... anyway back to Siam Thai:

This evening we both ordered Duck with Tamarind Sauce.  The skin was perfectly cooked.  It was crispy and golden without too much fat.  Duck can be quite fatty.  We were actually wondering how they cooked it:  Perhaps it was deep fried, but then it was not greasy at all... so maybe it was roasted, but then the skin was so evenly golden.  There were no brown-and-burnt spots like you would get in the oven, so we're confused.  How did they do it?

In any case, I'm doing my Homer Simpson "loooolllarrrrrgggghh" tongue noise right now because it was so awesome.  That's the noise he makes whenever someone mentions Krusty Burgers and Duff beer in the same sentence.

For dessert we ordered boozy-coffee.  I had an Irish Coffee and my fiancee' had an Amaretto Coffee.  We shared a chocolate & strawberry ice cream with strawberry, kiwi and tangerine.  It was romantic.  Even the ice cream had heart-shaped waffles in it.  Awwww.

I'd give the restaurant 4 out of 5.  It was a nice experience:  The service was satisfactory, and the interior was clean.  We sat in the front window where they have brightly colored LED floor lights.  Unfortunately we got the full glare from them.  During the meal they played fashion-show runway music.  It was a bit too metro for me... a French girl sang over electronica that went Oontz-Oontz-Oontz.

On the positive:  The meal was cooked perfectly and it came out in a decent amount of time.  The waitress was nice and didn't pester us during the meal.  The interior had kind of a zen thing going on, and the decor looked new.  The tamarind sauce served with our duck was decadent and fantastic.  The rice tasted like it was cooked in pure Evian water; it was that clean.  My Irish Coffee was flavorful and they didn't skimp on the whiskey.

On the negative:  We ordered a wine by the glass with our meal.  We selected a Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile and it had an interesting cinnamon character to it.  Unfortunately there was also a diesel taste and metal-on-the-back-of-your-teeth thing going on.  The bottle had obviously been opened a couple days earlier and it had oxidised...   Come on guys, you should open a new bottle every day.  (If you don't sell it, take it home.)  Life is too short to drink bad wine.