On the day of our arrival, we drove aimlessly around Phuket city and then decided to proceed to Patong where our hotel was. Patong is THE place to be in Phuket. It has a long stretch of beautiful white beach and along it are rows of shops catering to tourists. Every other shop was a makan place. Almost all the makan places in Patong are fusion - offering the combination of Thai and western cuisines. We did not leave Patong until the day of our departure.
Our culinary experience in Phuket was thus concentrated around Patong. Arriving at Patong, we parked our car and headed to the beach to look for food. Our first meal there was in a small beach restaurant which was most pleasant and relaxing.
This bowl of glass noodles in soup was from the beach restaurant. It was with chicken and some seafood. The soup was simple and sweet. It was delicious.
The Prad Thai is equivalent to our Penang char koay teow. Looked and tasted quite the same. It was served with some raw taugeh and ground peanuts but was without see hum (鲜蚶, cockles). I particularly liked the noodles they used. It was not koay teow. It was a finer noodle which had a nice springy texture.
This tempura prawn was great. The pieces were so crunchy, yet soft to the bite. Delicious.
Later we had a Thai dinner in a small restaurant known as Arroi while watching the Netherlands played Japan. Guess what? The live telecast was by Astro Super Sports.
The fish we had was recommended by the waitress. She said it was a good Thai fish. Turned out to be a tilapia. It was deep fried and cooked in a Thai sauce. It was not bad but not great.
The green chicken curry was not of that color at all. It was white as milk. But it did taste like green curry. It was very santan rich. Not bad with rice.
The papaya salad was not particular good. I just liked the cashew nuts in it.
We also had a glass noodle salad. It was better than the papaya. At least the glass noodles were quite palatable. Again, it was the cashew nuts that I liked most.
We visited the Jungceylon shopping mall a couple of times. It was a big modern set up. It wasn't too crowded and was actually quite relaxing to walk around. All 3 of us in the family had nice Thai massages there. Absolutely wonderful and relaxing. Cheap. Only 300 bahts (RM30) per person for one full hour.
We had lunch in a cafe in Jungceylon. I cannot even remember the name of the place. Like all other makan outlets, it was a Thai-Western fusion place.
I had a roast beef sandwich. It was served some salad and french fries. They used a lot of fresh basil in the sandwich and I found it a little overwhelming.
My wife had a seafood glass noodle dish. She seemed to have opted for a lot of glass noodles in Phuket. Anyway, the dish was way too spicy. They use a lot of red-hot chili padi. It was simply over-powering.
Our daughter had a salmon quiche. I did not have a taste of it and can only show how it looked like.
We also had a plate of gyoza. It was unlike any gyoza I have ever seen. Instead of being pan-fried, the gyoza they made was deep fried.
On our last evening in Phuket, we dined in a nice restaurant known as the Orchid along Rut-U-Thit Songroi Pi Road in Patong.
We had a lobster. It was pretty expensive - 1100 baht (RM110) just for the lobster. But heck, we were on holidays. We were weighing our options on how to have it cooked. I wanted it steamed with butter and garlic but I was vetoed by my 2 ladies. They were not eager about the butter. We finally had it grilled, at the suggestion of the waitress. I think it was a bad choice. It turned rather dry and we did not taste the full succulence of the lobster meat.
The Panang curry pork was quite delicious. Panang is a Thai-Laotian dish. I enjoyed the rich curry flavor.
The squid we had was steamed in butter and garlic - the way that I wanted the lobster done. I liked it very much. It was rich and the flavor of the butter was really good.
We also had a beef with mushroom, which was rather ordinary...
And a dish of asparagus, which was even more ordinary.
Desserts were fried ice cream which encased in flour and deep fried in a ball, served with cream, chocolate and strewberry syrup...
And deep fried banana and ice cream which I liked more. The fried banana was very well done. It was quite unlike our goreng pisang. It was soft, creamy and very nice in the mouth.
There are more food stories from Phuket. In my next posting, I will focus on the street foods there.
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