Siam House

Located on 4th street which is famous for all of the world food being served out of restaurants in houses.  The food here is good, but some of the dishes do seem a little bit Americanized.  Definitely go to the lunch buffet to test it out.

Lunch buffet lunch buffet lunch buffet!  Great selection, especially for vegans and vegetarians.  I kept going back for the tapioca pudding with corn and black beans, it sounds disgusting but it was great.  I had been craving a Thai Iced Tea for over a week and I got my fix.

This place isn't bad.  It's an authentic Thai restaurant with some interesting items on the menu, but their version of "spicy" which they call a 5 (on a scale of 1 to 5) was pretty pathetic.  I wonder if they've modified their scale to cater to the locals' palettes.   Spiciness aside, the food was pretty tasty and plentiful (when I finally received it -- more on that later).  It was a soup kind of night for me and I was staring down the Tom Yum and Tom Kha.  At Siam House, you choose your soup and the meats you want added.  I opted for the combination seafood (shrimp, scallops, squid, fish).  It me out in a big steel pot with a lid (to keep it warm) and a big pile of white rice.   The coconut-milky broth had just the right amount of sweetness without being cloying.  I would definitely return to Siam House just to see if they do the Tom Yum justice as well.

As for the service, all I can say is the server quickly took my order and refilled my water often, however the food came out SLOW.  I think I waited at least 20 minutes for my soup.

If you ever find yourself on 4th Street in Bloomington looking for ethnic food, Siam House is definitely worth a trip -- just don't be in any hurry to get out of there.