Oak Lawn’s newest eatery, Si Lom, serves reliable Thai cuisine
CURRYING FLAVOR | Yellow noodles provide a colorful, filling take on traditional curry, with rice noodles replacing the typical rice. (Arnold Wayne Jones/Dallas Voice)
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES
Life+Style Editor
When it moved into the grotto-like quasi-underground Oak Lawn space long occupied by Daniele, Si Lom wasn’t just trying something new — it was changing the tone in several respects.
When it was Daniele, the space in the lower terrace of 3300 Oak Lawn Ave. oozed a kind of New York East Village hideaway, with Old World style and culinary sophistication. Si Lom goes for a much more casual vibe. There’s still a bar, but the venue feels more open, more accessible; light cascades in, though direct sunlight doesn’t blind you. It more resembles a Lower East Side sushi bar, with clean lines and bright surfaces.
Another major change is the flavor profile, moving from Italian to what they call “Thai Asian fusion.” I’m not sure what the “fusion” is, but the Thai elements shine through.
Thai cuisine has always blended a variety of Asian foods, with an emphasis on spices, stir-fried vegetables and noodles. (Arguably its signature dish, pad Thai — made of rice noodles, eggs, peanuts and sprouts in a tamarind sauce — originated in Vietnam.) Si Lom offers most of the usual suspects you’d find in Thai cooking: pad see ew, pad kee mow, glass noodles, assorted curries. Sometimes, they deliver something unexpected.
The salad roll ($5.95) is an example. We’ve had this style of roll before: thin, elastic rice paper stretched around greens tighter than a Joan Rivers facelift, enclosing free vegetables with a side dish of peanut sauce. This one — which is also available with shrimp for an extra dollar — had a fresh, vegetal flavor, but something seemed missing. It truly was a salad inside a translucent wrap. It mattered little: Ultimately, the dish is best enjoyed as a peanut-sauce delivery device.
We also enjoyed the syrupy drizzle that accompanied the corn patties ($6.95), adding sweetness and moisture to the well-fried disc of corn. (There were five patties, easy to share with a large group or filling and reasonably priced on their own.)
The tom kha soup was also a great deal: $3.95 for a good-sized bowl. Creamy and colorful, with a tang from lemongrass and Chinese parsley, it might seem too warm a dish with summer here, but really, it just proved soothing.
Prices are excellent any time of day on all the dishes. The yellow noodles ($9.95 at lunch, $11.95 at dinner) is similar to pad see ew, with yellow curry replacing the traditional soy glaze. The addition of beef made for a hearty, enjoyable portion, but the curry was comparatively mild compared to what we came prepared for at a Thai restaurant. The so-called “ginger ginger” stir fry had a noticeable though not definite ginger aroma (despite its name), and the fried tofu was too chewy.
Service was pleasant if not entirely spot-on. We asked if we could substitute one item for another and were initially told yes; when it came down to ordering, though, we couldn’t. Miscommunication aside, the staff is pleasant and efficient.
Si Lom isn’t the heat-monster that Thai-Riffic can be, but it turns out reliable Southeast Asian specialties with care if not fanfare.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 5, 2013.