Back to the Future
Pro Ample portions for the price
Con Conservative spicing
Pay
€€
Per Person 8-dish tasting menu, including a drink and dessert, €21. El tenedor offers may be available.
Find
Website On El Tenedor
Access Minor step to get inside.
In Short
Hopes. 21st century Thai.
Reality. Welcome to 1998.
First Impressions. Lots of decorative touches. A little chilly - it is December, mind.
USP? Thai for the spice-wary?
The offer in three words. Mild-mannered classics.
Service! Very good. Made sure we got value for money.
Friend friendly? Things like fish sauce will always be something to check.
Rating for dating. Location's good, food's not challenging, so some potential.
Tip? Yes.
Change one thing? The chilli factor.
Revisitability. From our point of view, lower than we'd like.
Compare & Contrast
Som Thai and Baiyor.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
There's a generous offer at Siam, but the flavours are staying so far on the safe side it's a bit of a missed opportunity.
Hard to imagine, but not so many years ago, most of Madrid's international cuisine was found in one street. You'd treat yourself, once in a while, with a trip to what was the Indian restaurant in town. Not the best, but the only one. Spin forward in your Tardis 20 years and, tucked behind Plaza De España, some of Madrid's longest-enduring foreign restaurants are still on and around Calle San Bernardino.
We'd not been to Siam in longer than we can remember. At least 10 years, but it could be 15. How has it fared in the no longer new brave world of multicultural Madrid eating? Well, it's busy and obviously popular, but - perhaps because - it's still Madrid of the late 1990s in the mindset of the menu. Stand by Doc, time to power up the DeLorean...
You don't need to posh up thai dishes. Let's be clear in that. The most rewarding places we've eaten in Thailand certainly don't. There's no reason it shouldn't exactly meet expectations on appearance, and all tonight's dishes entirely looked the part. So if we now have great expectations, they're not plate expectations. It's in the flavours we expect to savour that Madrid has changed. All manner of street food, food trucks (yes, we know) and restaurants are now spicing up our lives. Simply, doing Thai without the chilli is not what we're after, or, really, expect.
That said, we had a good time with these starters. Those vegetable spring rolls were huge and satisfyingly fresh and crispy. The satay - never the hottest dish - was excellent and the noodles were also deliciously thai - sweet and savoury at the same time, with some depth to the flavours. Really good. Equally enjoyable was that palate cleansing salad - mango and pepper mostly. It did its job, tastes entirely authentic and delicious at the same time. Effectively costing about €8 per person, it's a good plate of starters.
If we're going to quibble, 8 dishes including rice - lots of it, we should say - is a smidge on the less-than-generous side maybe. But leaving the side aside, there are three very nicely cooked fresh dishes here. Best was the stir fried crunchy vegetables. Another great portion size, they came in a very moreish almost smoky oyster flavoured sauce, which was the most intense flavour of the evening. Coconut was dominant in the creamy, onion-heavy chicken curry, which therefore felt like something was missing. The beef stir fry was fresh, with good quality meat, nice crunchy vegetables but ultimately, the sauce needed so much more bite to match up to what's possible with the ingredients available. We do wonder what had happened to the fresh herbs too. No coriander or basil was served anywhere and they ad so much to this cuisine I felt their absence.
Look, you're not going to go home hungry. You'll be well fed and pretty satisified, but we're left thinking if the kitchen can turn out this...pleasant, what could they do with the training wheels off? There could have been an option, of course. As diners, we could have asked about spice levels. But that's something servers could take from places in Lavapies - ask for preferences, then take the heat and get out to the kitchen.
Service was good, with excellently chilled Thai beer on offer, which came the instant we asked afetr it. Really pleasing, that. We should also add that it seems the €21 menu includes dessert and coffee. When we declined we were treated to - almost had kindly forced on us - a couple of chupitos.
Years ago, Siam was as authentic as you could find in town. But the offer - now - is best for the spicy-averse, conservative, or, maybe, Thai first-timer.
So, to misquote, Time, and Thai green curry wait for no man, so if you're after bite, better buy elsewhere.
Pro Ample portions for the price
Con Conservative spicing
Pay
€€
Per Person 8-dish tasting menu, including a drink and dessert, €21. El tenedor offers may be available.
Find
Website On El Tenedor
Access Minor step to get inside.
In Short
Hopes. 21st century Thai.
Reality. Welcome to 1998.
First Impressions. Lots of decorative touches. A little chilly - it is December, mind.
USP? Thai for the spice-wary?
The offer in three words. Mild-mannered classics.
Service! Very good. Made sure we got value for money.
Friend friendly? Things like fish sauce will always be something to check.
Rating for dating. Location's good, food's not challenging, so some potential.
Tip? Yes.
Change one thing? The chilli factor.
Revisitability. From our point of view, lower than we'd like.
Compare & Contrast
Som Thai and Baiyor.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
There's a generous offer at Siam, but the flavours are staying so far on the safe side it's a bit of a missed opportunity.
Hard to imagine, but not so many years ago, most of Madrid's international cuisine was found in one street. You'd treat yourself, once in a while, with a trip to what was the Indian restaurant in town. Not the best, but the only one. Spin forward in your Tardis 20 years and, tucked behind Plaza De España, some of Madrid's longest-enduring foreign restaurants are still on and around Calle San Bernardino.
We'd not been to Siam in longer than we can remember. At least 10 years, but it could be 15. How has it fared in the no longer new brave world of multicultural Madrid eating? Well, it's busy and obviously popular, but - perhaps because - it's still Madrid of the late 1990s in the mindset of the menu. Stand by Doc, time to power up the DeLorean...
You don't need to posh up thai dishes. Let's be clear in that. The most rewarding places we've eaten in Thailand certainly don't. There's no reason it shouldn't exactly meet expectations on appearance, and all tonight's dishes entirely looked the part. So if we now have great expectations, they're not plate expectations. It's in the flavours we expect to savour that Madrid has changed. All manner of street food, food trucks (yes, we know) and restaurants are now spicing up our lives. Simply, doing Thai without the chilli is not what we're after, or, really, expect.
That said, we had a good time with these starters. Those vegetable spring rolls were huge and satisfyingly fresh and crispy. The satay - never the hottest dish - was excellent and the noodles were also deliciously thai - sweet and savoury at the same time, with some depth to the flavours. Really good. Equally enjoyable was that palate cleansing salad - mango and pepper mostly. It did its job, tastes entirely authentic and delicious at the same time. Effectively costing about €8 per person, it's a good plate of starters.
If we're going to quibble, 8 dishes including rice - lots of it, we should say - is a smidge on the less-than-generous side maybe. But leaving the side aside, there are three very nicely cooked fresh dishes here. Best was the stir fried crunchy vegetables. Another great portion size, they came in a very moreish almost smoky oyster flavoured sauce, which was the most intense flavour of the evening. Coconut was dominant in the creamy, onion-heavy chicken curry, which therefore felt like something was missing. The beef stir fry was fresh, with good quality meat, nice crunchy vegetables but ultimately, the sauce needed so much more bite to match up to what's possible with the ingredients available. We do wonder what had happened to the fresh herbs too. No coriander or basil was served anywhere and they ad so much to this cuisine I felt their absence.
Look, you're not going to go home hungry. You'll be well fed and pretty satisified, but we're left thinking if the kitchen can turn out this...pleasant, what could they do with the training wheels off? There could have been an option, of course. As diners, we could have asked about spice levels. But that's something servers could take from places in Lavapies - ask for preferences, then take the heat and get out to the kitchen.
Service was good, with excellently chilled Thai beer on offer, which came the instant we asked afetr it. Really pleasing, that. We should also add that it seems the €21 menu includes dessert and coffee. When we declined we were treated to - almost had kindly forced on us - a couple of chupitos.
Years ago, Siam was as authentic as you could find in town. But the offer - now - is best for the spicy-averse, conservative, or, maybe, Thai first-timer.
So, to misquote, Time, and Thai green curry wait for no man, so if you're after bite, better buy elsewhere.
