Saratoga News

Photograph by Grant Wernick

Tom Vongampai enjoys some Pad Thai Kung at his restaurant, Siam Thai, in Los Gatos.

Siam Thai brings flavor of Bangkok to Los Gatos

By Suzanne Cristallo

The bright pink-and-white color scheme and the lace curtains of Siam Thai Cuisine give the restaurant on E. Main Street in Los Gatos an inviting, homey look.

For nearly six years, Tom and Linda Vongampai have been serving curry and peanut sauce dishes in the place once occupied by a Foster's Freeze, across the street from Los Gatos High School. The Vongampais transformed the look of the place as well as the appetites of locals, who have discovered that Thai food is a refreshing change for palates riveted on European fare.

Vongampai, 35, whose Thai first name of Wisit became too overwhelming for most Americans to remember on top of his surname, changed it to Tom. Linda, 30, an LGHS graduate, changed her name from Chutima. There have been many changes for the couple, but Tom views it as part of realizing the American dream. "And it's still like a dream," he says, recalling with wonder his arrival here.

"It was kind of scary," he recalls of his travel to Los Angeles from Bangkok when he was just 13. He was alone, having left his parents and sister in Thailand so he could pursue a better education in the United States under the sponsorship of a favorite uncle. "I was afraid I would never have Thai food again," he says.

Food and the preparing of it were the mainstays of his family. He had grown up with the little sidewalk tables his grandmother set up outside her house for serving hot meals to passersby. His mother had her own restaurant in the city.

Now he was in a huge, strange place, but as the newness wore off, he saw he lived in a large Thai community within the city of Los Angeles. More and more Thai grocery stores were opening up on every block, along with family restaurants.

After high school, Vongampai studied electronics at Pasadena Community College. He transferred to San Jose City College in business when he was offered a job as assistant manager in an import/export company supplying dry and canned Thai food to Bay Area restaurants. It was during a sales call on a Palo Alto restaurant that he met Linda, also a native of Bangkok and a cost-accounting student at San Jose State University, whose mother owned the place. They were married after she graduated.

"Our food is very good," Tom says of the dishes created by his mother, Wanna. There are the popular "Satay" entrees--chicken or pork marinated in curry and coconut milk, grilled on a stick and ready for dipping in peanut sauce--or the chicken wings stuffed with seasoned ground pork, steamed, then fried crispy on the outside and served with shrimp over noodles. Sweet curry and coconut dishes are designed to go with steamed rice. The many soups and vegetarian, seafood and noodle dishes can all can be crowned with a dessert of fried banana covered with homemade coconut ice cream mixed with chunks of jackfruit.

Customers can savor it all with beer and wine, but only indoors. A hard-won liquor license granted by the town came with the condition that alcoholic beverages be served only where it is not possible for passing students to be handed a drink over the low patio wall. Thus, for those who wonder why, there is no outdoor seating on the long front patio.

Siam Thai Cuisine, 220 E. Main St., Los Gatos. Open for lunch Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.- 2 p.m., dinner Sun.-Thu. 5-9:30 p.m., Fri. and Sat. 5-10 p.m. Parking in rear. 354-1019.

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