Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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THIS ISSUE: PACIFIC RIM Desert Flower LEFT: Lotus of Siam's wine wall offers nearly limitless pairing possibilities. RIGHT: Charbroiled tamarind prawns. IT'S BEEN DISCOVERED—AND REDISCOVERED—BUT LOTUS OF SIAM IS JUST GETTING STARTED. BY DAVID LANDSEL PHOTOGRAPHY BY SABIN ORR E ntering Lotus of Siam, you notice that the hostess area is as compact as ever. The restaurant's décor was never likely to win any awards, and that's still true. But the food is why you're here, and that's been the case from day one, ever since Saipin and Bill Chutima arrived in Las Vegas in 1999 with a stash of coveted recipes and a trunkload of sunny optimism. It would take the most stubborn of optimists to look at the Sahara Avenue side of the Commercial 82 Center's windswept interior courtyard and see anything but defeat, but the Chutimas were hardly new to a challenge. They'd operated Thai restaurants on the grim fringes of Los Angeles, most recently Renu Nakorn, in the industrial suburb of Norwalk, where their cooking—hearty but delicate, Northern-influenced fare—received serious acclaim. But would anyone find them out here in a desert strip mall? Attracting business—and keeping it—in a loca- tion like this was tricky, says Penny Chutima, Saipin's daughter and one of the restaurant's two wine directors. "It was worse than an ant rolling a grain of rice up a mountain." But fans of their cooking back in Southern California began to trickle in, among them Pulitzer Prize – winning food writer Jonathan Gold, responsible for shining the first spotlight on that lonely strip mall in Norwalk. "I had been continued on page 84 VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 082-084_V_ST_Opener_Dec13.indd 82 11/19/13 10:02 AM