I would bring my food-snobbiest food snob friends to Si Lom for this Pad Thai. You can't even see the restaurant from the street... I happened upon it during a walk around the Oak Lawn area (directions below). Everything is freshly made here and it shows. I even got a couple tips from the bartender on where to go when I visit Thailand in a few months. Talk about authentic.
Pad Thai is definitely the order here but I've also had the Pad Kee Mow and it was excellent. If I hadn't ever tried their Pad Thai, I would go back for that. The Pad Thai sauce is savory and coats the chicken, noodles and tofu creating a thick, complex flavor that is difficult to describe. Other than delicious.
At lunch, your meal comes with a crispy, flaky egg roll (or a salad, if you want to be that person). The egg rolls are clearly freshly made for you, crispy and delicate on the outside and steamy, veggie filled on the inside. Yum.
I know this is kind of out of order, but I don't bury the lede. Come for the Pad Thai, stay for the appetizers and Thai tea. These are the shrimp & pork pot stickers served with a soy vinaigrette sauce are they tasted like they were straight from San Francisco's Chinatown.
You can't see the doors from the street; the address is 3300 Oak Lawn Ave.. If you are heading there for the first time though, I would aim for the more visible Goody Goody liquor store next door.
I usually park in the wee back of Goody Goody (the signs say Goody Goody parking only, but the lot is usually pretty empty, so I just assume they won't care about me parked in the back corner)... and walk around the building to Oak Lawn, pass in front of the liquor store and then head down the stairs to Si Lom.
The scent of incense hangs in the air, different colored glass in hanging lanterns throws a romantic light in the cozy room and the murmur of conversation and clicking glasses adds a comfortable air to the restaurant.
Let me just start by saying there it is hard to believe food in actual Morocco is this good. The chef is legitimately from Marrakesh, Morocco and he told me the dishes he is cooking up in the open kitchen at Medina Oven and Bar are his family recipes.
I have had phyllo before, but their Shrimp and Shermoula phyllo had such a perfectly flaky, crisp outside and savory, chunky inside - I was already dreaming about my next visits to try the others listed on their menu... I have my eye on that goat cheese one.
The food is full of complex and rich tastes I've seriously never had before. This is the Ras El Hanout Lamb Chops Tagine with spices, balsamic vinaigrette reduction, herbed potatoes and goat cheese. Every bite was so good, it made me want to savor every second of the flavor. I even found myself avoiding my cocktail so I could taste it longer. That was weird.
When I didn't think it could get any better... This was shockingly just as amazing: Beef Tenderloin Tagine almonds, poached prunes, sesame, roasted potatoes with a honey-ginger-sa ron glaze. The chef came over just to tell me to be sure to eat the prunes with my bites of beef tenderloin and the combination was so unusual, every bite was better than the last. Prunes? Really? Yes. Get on board and trust me. It's hard to describe how amazing the flavors are because they are relatively foreign to me, but that is what made this dinner so fun and delicious.
Their cocktails... or "SEXY DRINKS" as their menu calls them, were also shockingly good. To add a cherry on top, you can watch the chef in the open kitchen finishing off every dish passing through it and stopping by each table to chat for a second. You can feel his passion for the food, and once you try it, you'll understand too.
INSIDER TIP: Make a reservation. If there is an event going on at the American Airlines Center, it'll be hard to get in without one.
There was a shocking amount of culture dancing through the festival, beautiful traditional outfits and, of course, a whole lot of out of this world (or just out of this Dallas world) food.
THIS. Kang Hun Lei (pork belly and tenderloin curry) was one of the best dishes I've ever eaten in my life. And I've eaten some amazing and weird things in my lifetime. I've never had a bite of something that represented the word "savory" more than THIS.
Plastic spooning this $6 mind blowing dish out of a styrofoam cup felt like a serious contradiction. Every bite was an experience in flavor. ANYWAYS you can try it for yourself. The restaurant is called Pandan Thai Kitchen located in Crowley and Keller, and it's worth the drive for that hard to please diner.
I sampled some terrible green tea icecream from WaiWai, BUT it tasted JUST like some of the desserts I didn't like during my trip to Japan so it's probably pretty authentic if bitter desserts is your thing. Their shrimp dumplings were pretty tasty though (the dipping sauce was perfectly sweet and salty).
The festival was held at The Buddhist Center of Dallas, once you walk in the gates, it feels like you've traveled across the world. Slip off your shoes as some monks shuffle by you swathed in traditional robes and step inside the temple to see the beautiful golden, painted walls and shrines.
Once back in the hot Dallas sunlight, a cup of home-made coconut ice-cream scooped on top of a stack of jack fruit was the perfect balance of refreshing and sweet. The creamy ice-cream was from Zato Restaurant, blended with real slivers of coconut served up by the sweetest smiling lady who didn't speak much English. Perfect.
I am a bit of a festival snob, having lived in Louisiana for several years, but this festival was one of the best I've been to in Dallas. The Buddhist Center of Dallas is open to the public, go take a stroll if you're curious. I'll let you know how the coconuts and pork belly measure up to the real thing once I get back from my trip to Thailand in a few months.
