Siam Samrarn, West End, Brisbane

July 13, 2016

Known for its authentic Thai cuisine with hand carved teak furniture, stylish interior and their loyal customers who just keeps coming back over the years. Being located at The Markets in West End, diners are able to have easy access to parking as well as dessert restaurants and bars in the neighbourhood after finishing their meals. The menu consists of more of the traditional as well as combining a variety of unique dishes that represents the past and future of Thai gastronomic culture.

'Deep Fried Crispy Pork with Garlic' ($17.9) is simply as what the dish is called, deep fried crispy pork topped with fried crispy garlic. We had quite a high expectation for this dish but sadly it wasn't as delicious as we thought it would be. The fried crispy garlic was well done allowing all of the deep fried crispy pork be able to infuse the garlic flavour. However, the deep fried crispy pork was sliced very small and the batter was just not bland but not flavoursome either. Some of the deep fried crispy pork also didn't taste like it had any pork in it and just seemed to be the deep fried crispy batter by itself so that was a let down. Once or twice is fine, but not when many were like that and only some had pork inside it whilst alot more of it were just deep fried batter.

It would have been better if the pork was sliced in a chunkier piece or just slightly bigger than how it was, allowing diners to actually see that there is meat inside as well as being able to chew it instead of just eating simply crispy and crunchy batter. Do be careful when you bite some because some may hurt your teeth as it was just simply too crunchy and hard. Although there were a side salad placed on the side, it didn't help at all with the dish but maybe asian greens may have been a more suitable choice. Overall, although we both love our garlic, the dish was sadly a let down for us as it had many hard and tough pieces, lack of actual pork meat, too thinly sliced pork in the batter as well as having only deep fried batter and no pork.

'Gang Keaw Wham aka Green Curry' (Chicken: $17.9) is a Thai green curry with coconut milk, green beans and bamboo shoot as well as a choice of your own meat, may it be beef or chicken, tofu or vegetables. I do have to say that although the green curry may seem abit small but it actually is an efficient amount where you can share it with another. The amount of green beans, bamboo shoot and chicken breast pieces has never let us down as the whole green curry is always filled with it. The spices and herbs is just right, not too mild and not too spicy either which was good for me although bear in mind when you do get to the bottom of the bowl, that's where it tends to get spicier.