Midtown Lunch

Recently, there have been a few sad changes to the Thai restaurant scene on 51st between Broadway and 8th. First of all, Siam Inn appears like it’s a goner, which is a shame since they seemed to show a lot of promise. At least there’s that new Pad Thai cart a few boulevards over to help fill some of the Thai void.

More alarmingly, Tom & Toon has done away with their low brow but brilliant AYCE Thai buffet. I called the restaurant, and they confirmed that they stopped the AYCE buffet a few months ago as it wasn’t profitable. They’ve replaced the buffet with a smaller line-up of $8 lunch specials and $3 Chang beers between 12pm and 3pm on weekdays. You can view their full menu after the jump.
Read more »

The best thing about restaurants in New York is that the turnover is high. Such a system lends itself to constant rebirths and many opportunities for us to try new restaurants. What is funny though is that sometimes you get restaurants that just change their name and all of a sudden the food is completely different? I present you restaurant 1 and restaurant 2 on Yelp. Different name. Different ratings. Exact same address and phone number. But at $8 for appetizer and entree as part of the lunch special, this really required some more investigation.

When I asked Zach about this place, he (surprisingly) got a bit excited.  Apparently Siam Inn was one of the first Thai restaurants he ate at when he moved to NYC, about 5 years ago, when they were on 8th Ave. btw. 51+52nd.  About 3 years ago they closed down and opened around the corner as Blue Chili, but the vibe went from homey to neon and glossy. The menu for the new spot says Siam Inn and the website for Blue Chili says it’s Siam Inn @ Bluechili. It’s confusing as hell really. But lets just get to the food because $8 lunch specials are what attracted me to this place in the beginning.

Read more »