bex77

We tried Lady Siam tonight, the new Thai/Vietnamese restaurant in Arlington. It was a revelation - cheap, fast and great food! All the entrees we tried were under $10.

My folks had tried it last week for one of the Arlington List monthly dinners, and recommended we go back, so we met them there.

It's on Mass Ave. in the same block as Toraya, just before you get to Blue Ribbon or Stop & Shop. It has lots of parking in the back. After a couple of random Chinese places in that spot, a real winner has taken over. It's a small place, with six tables. They were doing a brisk take out business tonight, but there were also several tables taken at all times. The staff is very friendly and efficient, answered questions about the menu with ease.

They are already on Foodler.com for online ordering and delivery - check out their menu at http://www.foodler.com/MA/Arlington/Thai/Lady-Siam/3974.html

If you are going there, go to http://www.geocities.com/dnkknd/LadySiam/index.html and print out a 15% off (for $30 or more) coupon. They are open for lunch and dinner every day until 10 pm.

There were too many choices...about half Thai and half Vietnamese, with a little Japanese here and there.

Special drinks - I love a place that has fancy non-alcohol drinks! They had a great assortment of boba smoothies, teas, Thai Iced Tea, and fresh lemonade. We got two smoothies, which were not as sweet as other places (a good thing in my book) and the Thai iced tea. Yum.

We tried these dishes:

Appetizers
Golden bags - $4.95 for 4 bags of ground chicken, onion & corn in a deep-fried wonton wrapper. Similar to the Golden Crowns that come in the little cups, only tied up in little bundles for a nice crunch.

Crab rangoon - $4.95 for six, the little version, looked more like fried wontons, but lots of filling with a nice flavor

Larb gai - $7.95 for a heaping plate of minced chicken with red onion, scallion and lime juice over lettuce with sticky rice

Entrees
Beef Macademia - $9.95 for a platter of stir-fried beef, nuts and fresh veggies

Crispy pad thai - $8.95 for a platter of crispy yellow noodles with shrimp, chicken, egg, bean sprouts, scallion and peanuts

Mango fried rice - $8.95 for as huge serving of curried fried rice with mango, shrimp, chicken, egg, onions, peas, tomato and scallion.

Vermicelli "bun" - $7.95 for a bowl of gleaming white rice vermicelli, with grilled chicken, shredded lettuce, cucumber, mint, bean sprouts and peanuts.

They also have Vietnamese Pho noodle soups - I hope someone (I'm looking at you

derspatchel) will try it and let me know how they compare.

Everyone had leftovers and the bill for four (foofy drinks, appetizers and entrees) was less than $70. Wow. A success! We'll definitely go back.