Siam Kitchen (Suntec)

I believe I tried the same offer as p w (the all you can eat buffet dinner, advertised at $16.90++ per adult) but had a much better experience.

As I am allergic to all shellfish, many of the offered items on the menu were not applicable to my husband and myself. Although the waitress didn't explain to us how the buffet worked (a minus point) she was prompt in coming over to our table to deliver an explanation when we asked.

Once we realised that the initial spread included every single dish, including items like prawn cake with sweet corn and shrimp paste kang kong which I would be unable to eat, we explained the situation to the waitress who obligingly offered to let the kitchen know we would not be requiring those items, despite the order already having been placed. The offending dishes never appeared on our table (a definite plus).

We did have double orders of the deep fried dory, sk chicken wings, and thai fish cake which were all excellent, as was the green curry chicken. The pineapple rice had more saffron that I was used to and contained actual pineapple pieces (another plus). Unfortunately, we did find the service an occasional disappointment as they did not inform us the 'complimentary' prawn crackers would be charged on our bill and they forgot to send out our initial serve of thai fish cake. However, apart from that I found the meal quite acceptable.

Total cost for 2 people, including GST and service charge, came to $40.95.

I was attracted by their dinner buffet at $16.90++ so we ventured in. Although it is an ala-carte buffet, you don't really have a choice for your first round of dishes. The waitress told us, they would serve everything on the buffet menu and we could reorder the items that we liked. Hmmm... I knew I wouldn't like some of the items listed but we decided to go along with it (don't think we really had a choice in the matter anyway.

While waiting for the food, a basket of keropok was placed in front of us. Who doesn't like keropok? So we tucked in happily.

Food came without too long a wait. All the food tasted like Indonesian food rather than Thai food.
Pineapple rice: no pineapple taste at all, though it was tasty
Fish cake, fried fish, chicken wing, you tiao, fried prawn cake: all tasted like normal fried stuff
Satay: weak watery gravy which was sweet, kinda tasty but tasted like Indonesian food.
Green chicken curry: it was oh-kay, so-so, can pass, you get the idea
Tom Yam soup: again, ok, so-so, can pass. Prawns were fresh though!

Service was pretty attentive and they topped up the ice water without prompting.

Receiving the bill, we were hit with an additional $1 for the keropok! What?? I hate these kinds of hidden charges especially when we only ate a few pieces of the keropok each!

All in all, this is NOT authentic Thai food at all and if I wanted Indonesian food, I would hit up Sanur.

OK, so I wasn't impressed when I tried it last year with friends from Beijing - possibly because they don't eat spicy stuff, and what's good about non-spicy Thai food?

Anyway, was back there last week for dinner with a HK friend whilst shopping, and she was keen to try the set dinner at $14.90. The outlet was pretty quiet for a public holiday night. Friend's set was Tom Yum soup, prawn cake and beef kway-teow soup. I had Tom Yum soup, fish cake and green chicken curry. And I was very impressed!

The soup was superb (I asked for extra spicy and clear tom yum, but the milky version arrived )- it was rich, spicy, tangy, and had sizeable prawns and fish slices and squid. The fish cake and prawn cake were delicious! I love Thai food, and having just had dinner at a downtown Thai restaurant less than a week ago before this, I had to admit these 3 dishes tasted better than that up-market restaurant..at a fraction of the price! The green curry was rich and tasty, and served with rice. We ordered the ice lemongrass tea, which was refreshing, but for $3.90, thought it would be good if it could be refillable? :P Would have loved to try the dessert, but was too stuffed..

The service was commendable - the young waiters seem pretty new but they were helpful and obliging, service with a smile. They were quick to clear our plates and refill our ice-water. When I found out there was a lucky dip promo with ABN-Amro credit cards and requested to change cards, they willingly obliged and cancelled the transaction for the 1st card I offered. There's a sure-win dip - you get a voucher for next return visit. Not sure when the promo ends tho.

Well, I'm definitely gonna bring my friends back here for more tasty authentic Thai fare! :)

Well, I was browsing through other reviews and was shocked that Siam Kitchen had scored so low for food... basically I quite enjoyed my dining experience there, we ordered the buy 4 get 1 free thingy for our group (3 people). My favourite was definitely the Tom Yum (seafood) Soup, as I felt the portion was just right, and just spicy enough for us. The kangkong was good, and the best dish of all, in my opinion, was the udon with prawns thingy. The udon was super, fried just right (a bit chaotar on one side, which most people like) and it came with chilli, peanuts (like those u get on your ice kacang) and some other condiments (I forgot, but it's just excellent lah!!) However, the prawns (for other dishes) and pineapple rice seemed uncooked (for some parts).

Oh, the service was great too, our orders were attended to by the manager, and I was impressed when I saw those serving food - only the waiters I guess, wearing plastic gloves on both hands. However, strangely, the tea we ordered for 2 people only came with 1 tea bag. But the ice blended sour plum drink was nice!

Oh, there's also an option for a $19.99 buffet for selected dishes. I tried this before the other time and some dishes were really great, although this means we could not try others. However, note that they'll serve everything in the buffet menu to you all at once (and we had only 2 people!) and thus had a hard time finishing it, because there were at least 15 items? lol!