Lotus of Siam - Sahara Ave.
Saipin Chutima has cooked northern Thai food in this Commercial Center strip mall since 1999, and Anthony Bourdain's photograph hangs by the door.
Why go
Emmy Kasten gives the room its history in one line: The beloved, iconic flagship in Commercial Center first opened in 1999 where it earned recognition from the James Beard Foundation and industry titans such as Anthony Bourdain, whose picture hangs alongside other famous faces near the entrance.
1 The cooking is northern Thai, and the Las Vegas Sun lists it: crispy rice and sour sausage salad, beef jerky, country sausages, and fragrant hot pots, food as far from Bangkok stir-fry as the Gulf of Thailand is from Lake Mead.
3 John Curtas rates the wine list nationally: the Riesling-heavy white wine list remains one of the best in America, and twenty four years on, the northern Thai specialties still can take your breath away and make your eyeballs sweat.
2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the crispy garlic prawns and the khao soi with roasted duck. Kasten:
The current menu is abbreviated but cult-favorite dishes like the famously crispy garlic prawns and aromatic khao soi with roasted duck can be savored now.
1 - Order: the crispy rice and sour sausage salad, which is the northern dish that explains the rest of the menu.3
- Order: a Riesling, which is what the list is built on.2
- Avoid: arriving expecting the old card. The menu here is shorter than it was.1
What locals & experts say
- John Curtas, Eating Las Vegas: The 52 Essential Restaurants (2023), and he sends you to a different door:
I like the old one. Not the really old one (the original one in Commercial Center, closed for years now), but the second oldest one on Flamingo Road. The one in Red Rock feels like a copy of a copy — too big and corporate for our tastes.
2 - Pichaya Soontornyanakij of Potong in Bangkok, the World's Best Female Chef in 2025, naming the other door:
Lotus of Siam on Flamingo Road really stuck with me... It's one of those restaurants where you can taste real Thai food outside of Thailand.
5 - Gourmet magazine, before it closed:
the best Thai restaurant in the United States.
3
Good to know
- Three rooms in this city are called Lotus of Siam. The one on this page is the 1999 original at 953 E Sahara Ave in Commercial Center. The second is on Flamingo Road. Curtas names a third at Red Rock.21
- This door is open and serving the prawns and the khao soi. Eater found it cooking in April 2025 and made it their pick.1
- Lunch runs on weekdays, with a buffet alongside it, and dinner runs nightly.3
- Wine Spectator holds it at the Best of Award of Excellence, the middle of the magazine's three wine-list awards, since 2022. Which of the three doors that covers is not something the award page says.4
Verdict
should-visit — Saipin Chutima cooks northern Thai food here and pours a Riesling-heavy list John Curtas called one of the best in America. The menu at this address is shorter than the one the restaurant built its name on, and the crispy garlic prawns and the duck khao soi are still on it. Three rooms in this city carry the name and the critics split over which to use, so check the address on the booking.