I’m not ready to go out for dinner yet, but I am very ready for someone else to cook for me. Takeout and curbside pickup are the only options I feel are safe for me and my family right now. I am still happy to support local businesses and restaurants, but I’m not ready to jump back in to onsite dining. The other day, I had a craving for pad thai, and none of the ingredients — and no motivation to acquire the ingredients or a recipe — so I knew I needed to place an order somewhere to get my pad thai fix.
We reviewed Siam Terrace back in 2016, and I wrote in May about how Siam Terrace was giving out masks (for free!) to their customers with their takeout orders. I hadn’t even tried Siam Terrace before which is wild, so it was time. This is my Siam Terrace experience with ordering online, picking up curbside, and trying some dishes from their extensive menu.
Siam Terrace’s menu is large. It was hard to choose what dishes to order for dinner, but we surveyed the online menu, put our order in for pickup, and within 20 minutes, we were picking it up and hurrying home to eat it. Siam Terrace has a user-friendly online menu with descriptions of each dish and options to customize. The wait time was less than I expected, and the staff was friendly when we picked it up inside the restaurant.
The appetizers range from classics like pot stickers, spring rolls, and crab rangoons to unique options like dragon shrimp which is five marinated tiger shrimp wrapped in egg noodles and deep fried served with a special orange sauce.
Photo by Alyssa Buckley.
We ordered the egg rolls ($4.50) which came with two rolls. Inside the roll, there were glassy noodles, minced chicken, and mixed vegetables. It was served with a sweet and sour sauce. They were some of the best egg rolls I’ve ever had. The outside was crunchy, but it didn’t crumble; it held its shape and all the filling. The filling had a great flavor, but the best part was the perfectly crispy, flaky outside of the roll. These are must-have on your order.
After the appetizers, the menu has a selection of soups: vegetable, miso, Tom Kha Gai, Tom Yum Goon, and Poh Taek (which is a soup with shrimp, squid, scallops, mussels, and imitation crab meat with mushrooms, scallions, and cilantro). There were a lot of salad options, as well. Some salads on the menu include papaya salad, Thai chicken salad, duck salad, and Nuau Namtok salad (tender grilled beef with red onion, green onion, and cilantro with a lime dressing).
My favorite part of any restaurant’s menu is the House Specials section, and Siam Terrace had a lot from which to choose. I ordered the Mongolian beef for $14.99.
Mongolian Beef. Photo by Alyssa Buckley.
The dish was stir-fried beef with onions, broccoli, and green onions in what the menu called a “special brown sauce.” The beef was tender but chewy. I think that the pieces may have been a bit too big for my preference, but the flavor was delicious. That sauce was a special brown sauce, indeed. The broccoli absorbed so much of the special sauce flavor that I found myself fighting my husband for the broccoli instead of the meat.
Siam Terrace’s menu has eight Thai pasta dish options including pad see you, pad kee mao, and (my favorite) pad thai. Everything about pad thai is my jam: the spices, the noodles, and the way it pairs perfectly with a dry cabernet.
Pad Thai, Photo by Alyssa Buckley.
So, of course, I ordered Siam Terrace’s pad thai ($11.99). This pad thai had the classic thin rice noodles with eggs, crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, and green onion. I chose chicken for my protein, but the other options included beef, pork, tofu, vegetable, shrimp, seafood, or mock duck. You can select what level of spice you prefer in a rating of one to four. I chose spice level two, and it wasn’t that spicy. I would choose a higher spice level for my next order. If you like spicy, you should definitely go for three or four.
The chicken in this dish did not disappoint. Sliced thin and full of flavor, the chicken was plentiful, in almost every bite. The dish was a huge portion, and there was about half leftover (which I gladly ate the next day). The flavors were mild and savory. The sauce was light, and the chicken and veggies were expertly cooked. The diversity of textures from the soft noodles, crunchy veggies, and tender chicken are just a delicious combination that I love in pad thai.
There’s also a whole section of the menu devoted to fried rice. If you thought fried rice only had one kind that you switched up the protein, well then, you are mistaken. Siam Terrace offers spicy fried rice, red curry fried rice, pineapple fried rice, president fried rice (stir-fried rice with chicken and shrimp, carrots, eggs, and green peas in hot and sour spicy sauce), and Siam Terrace fried rice.
Siam Terrace fried rice. Photo by Alyssa Buckley.
I’m a sucker for namesake dishes (ahem, ahem: the Sakanaya roll at Sakanaya), so I ordered the Siam Terrace fried rice ($14.99). This dish included stir-fried rice with egg, onion, tomato, and scallions with three kinds of meat: chicken, beef, and shrimp. You can also adjust spice from level one to level four for the dish.
This fried rice was such a treat. The flavor was well-balanced with savory notes from the fry oil and fresh crunch from the scallions. The beef in this dish was cut into bite-sized pieces, and I enjoyed it. The chicken and shrimp were also delicious. The egg was chopped small and packed with flavor. There were a lot of onions in this rice, but I am a fan of onions, so I liked it.
As far as the rest of the menu, I was pleasantly surprised to see a sushi section, and while I didn’t order any this time, I would be down for one of the many sashimi options. There was also a section on the menu for stir fry dishes. Some offerings from the stir fry section include a sweet basil dish, garlic and pepper dish, sweet and sour stir fry, spicy catfish, and more. There’s also a vegetarian section of the menu which has many options with tofu, eggplant, mushrooms, and seitan.
Photo by Alyssa Buckley.
Next time, I want to order something from the Thai curry section. There’s so many curries to choose from: red curry, yellow curry, green curry, panang curry, mussamun curry, and jungle curry, which is an extremely spicy curry without coconut milk but with bamboo shoots, baby corn, green beans, eggplant, carrots, mushrooms, and basil leaves. Lastly, the menu offers a small selection of desserts. You can order desserts like sticky rice with mango, sticky rice with Thai custard, fried banana with honey, homemade coconut ice cream, and special cake.
Photo by Alyssa Buckley.
All in all, it was a delicious dinner with ample leftovers. The prices are excellent for the portions provided. I like that the online ordering offers so many ways to make sure the meal is exactly as you like: with the protein you prefer and the spice level you desire. The menu offers so many options that everyone in your family will be able to find something they like. Just know, if you want to feel some heat, you need to pick spice level three or four.
Siam Terrace
212 W Main St
Urbana
M-F 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Sa 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Su noon to 9 p.m.
Top image by Alyssa Buckley.
