Address: 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda (Shin-Marunouchi Building, 6th floor)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-SIAM-Heritage-TOKYO/181142475342972
Type of Meal: Dinner
Located in the Shin-Marunouchi Building, The Siam Heritage specializes
in Thai cuisine offering crowd favourites done with traditional ingredients.
Price points are on the higher end, but dishes are fairly sized and meant to be
shared. If you wish to try a number of items, there is a set menu available,
which may be a better option for parties of two or fewer.
My husband and I ended up ordering way too much food, so what’s listed
below could easily feed three people. Before our starters arrived, the waitress
brought over a collection of ingredients (from what I can recall - peanuts,
lemon grass, dried shrimp, shallot, lime peel) where she made us each a leaf
wrap topped with a sweet sauce. Despite some of the ingredients sounding hard
and unpleasant tasting (i.e. lime peel), everything actually went well together
and the wrap was an interesting start to the meal.
A shrimp rice paper roll (¥600 for two rolls, only one shown below)
arrived adorned with a pretty flower. It was much fresher than what I’ve
typically had at pho places, where the wrapper was moist and springy and didn’t
break apart. It could be improved by putting more shrimp in it as I found
the roll predominantly took on the lettuce, carrot and sweet & spicy
dipping sauce flavours.
We had to order tom yum koong (¥2,400), a traditional spicy and sour
soup. Siam’s version definitely had a kick to it and was as strong as the ones
I’ve had in Thailand. At first, we were wondering why a bowl of soup would be
so expensive, but upon seeing the portion size realized the reason – we each
were able to have two smaller bowls and in hind sight I guess we should have
asked. Complete with prawns, lemon grass and mushrooms the ingredients were
typical and decent. Pieces of chilies also came with the broth so you really
had to be careful to not eat them, unless you wanted your tongue to burn even
more. Overall, a good soup but very powerful so is better suited for parties of
three or more.
Luckily, the green papaya salad (¥1,800) arrived next and cooled down
our scorching mouths. It had a really nice medley of sweet, sour and salty
flavours with the green papaya being a little crisper than mango. Even this
dish had some small red chili pepper pieces tossed throughout but at least in a
bearable volume. I did find the wedge of lettuce a bit strange so we ended up
leaving it untouched; Siam should consider serving the salad in larger lettuce
leaves which would make the dish look more attractive and allow patrons to
easily eat the lettuce.
Siam’s chicken in green curry (¥2,300) was wonderfully fragrant and not
just from the typical coconut milk – likely a plethora of ingredients that I
couldn’t decipher but gave the curry a bit more depth and wasn’t as heavy.
Additionally, the use of Japanese eggplant in the dish was great as they soaked
up the sauce and were deliciously tender and flavourful. With it came
all-you-can-eat rice, with the waitress bringing over a container at the
beginning and spooning individual portions onto our plates. But, she diligently
came back throughout the meal to offer us refills.
Lastly, came the pad thai (¥1,800) where it contained a pretty heavy
dose of fish sauce but also some sweetness and heat balancing it out. Although
some tamarind must have been used (on account of the colour and slight
sourness), it was used in moderation so didn’t become overpowering. Throughout
the noodles were very tiny dried shrimp (pictured in the second photo) adding a
further depth to the pad thai. Despite being stuffed I still had a portion of
the noodles as it delicious and one of the best I’ve eaten.
Siam offers a nice atmosphere with plush linen covered tables and
comfortable chairs. Service was outstanding and I had a delightful time
conversing with our waitress who was so helpful and extremely friendly. I also
commend the restaurant from a diversity and inclusion perspective, for its
almost all female staff and employing a person with disabilities; up until this
point, most restaurants we ate in had a predominantly young male workforce. All
in all, Siam lives up to higher price points as it was one of my better
experiences with Thai food.
Like the blog? You can now follow me on twitter for notifications - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
- Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
- 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
- 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
- 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
- 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
- 10 - absolute perfection!
