Phuket Food
Thai Food
Thai food is a true international cuisine
and enjoyed by multitude of millions around the world.
Thai food in Phuket, and throughout southern
Thailand, is heavily influenced by the bountiful harvest
of fresh seafood from the Andaman Sea. Seafood served southern
style is unique, likely to be barbecued, and employs numerous
herbs and spices, garlic, lemon grass, chilies, mint, cumin,
basil, coriander, and shrimp paste.
Phuket has an abundance of great places
to eat. To write about or try to critique every one of them
would make this book the size of a large city telephone
directory. includes are a few, but not all, of the good
places in Phuket to eat. We will start with a few general
observations about Thai Food and introduce you to some of
the more unusual dishes of Thai food to be found in Phuket.
We apologize in advance to the hundreds of good places to
eat that for the sake of brevity have not been includes,
and we invite them to contact us for inclusion in future
editions.
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Thais love to eat, and you will rarely
be more than five minutes from a place serving food.
The most common Thai eating place is a roadside hawker
food stall. A local Thai will have a favorite
hawker food stall for just about every different type
of Thai food. Some may look a little shabby by western
standards, but a visitor with a little sense of adventure
will discover some of the tastiest and most inexpensive
food ever eaten. To locate a good hawker stall watch
where the Thais eat and join them.
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• It is a quirk of nature; but the most consistent
method of ensuring that a restaurant, particularly a small
restaurant, will either go out of business or serve the
next customer a mediocre meal is to recommend it to a friend.
• During your stay in Thailand it is recommended that
you eat Thai food as often as possible. Thais are justifiably
proud of their food. It is always made from fresh ingredients,
usually purchased from the market that day and is sure be
well prepared. Most Thais rarely eat or have an interest
in Western food (except fast food like McDonalds or Kentucky
Fried Chicken). This lack of experience is apparent in some
of the Western food you will be served. Outside of major
hotels and restaurants you may encounter some rather bizarre
and expensive attempts at Western food.
• Most Thai food is not spicy or hot. The condiments
and sauces served with your meal (mostly for dipping food
into) can be very hot and spicy. Simply control the use
of these and you will generally be able to enjoy a wide
array of Thai food and not have an unpleasant experience.
• Phuket Town is a gourmet food lovers delight. Food
is generally both considerably better and cheaper in Phuket
Town than in the tourist areas. Going into Phuket Town for
a few meals during your stay will be well worth the taxi
fare (150 baht each way), and the time and effort.
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Most Famous Thai Dishes
The following list is of Thai dishes that are worth going
out of your way to experience during your stay. For the
most part you will not find them served in Thai restaurants
overseas.
Khanom Cheen
Is arguably Phuket’s most famous dish. This popular
Chinese breakfast is a plate of rice noodles covered with
a spicy fish flake curry and served with plate of fresh
vegetables, herbs, and fruit.
Som Tam (papaya salad)
A northeastern Thailand specialty that many consider the
national dish of Thailand. Thin slivers of green papaya
combined with peanuts, dried seafood, and vegetables all
mixed into one spicy salad that is eaten with sticky rice
and fresh grilled chicken. It’s very tasty but can
be very spicy. Ask the cook to make it my pet (not
hot) if you are concerned about the chili content.
Khao Mok Khai
fragrant yellow rice served with chicken. It is a Muslim
specialty usually served for lunch, consisting of roasted
chicken on a bed of saffron rice, mixed with ginger which
has been fried lightly to make it crispy. Khao Mok Khai
is not spicy unless you dip the chicken into the sweet hot
sauce provided.
Nam Prik Kung Siap
Dried prawn on a stick. It is grilled and served with chilies,
kapi (a pounded shrimp paste) and lime. This is a very popular
dish and must be tried to be appreciated. The Tung-Ka Café
in Phuket and the Kang Eng Restaurant both serve excellent
examples of this specialty.
Khao Yam
Rice with kapi (shrimp paste) is another example of a dish
you just have to try to appreciate. The Kaw Tyam Restaurant
in Phuket town specializes in this dish.
Hokkien Mee
Yellow noodle soup served with shrimps, a Chinese specialty.
Can be served as a dry noodle dish or as a soup. Also served
as Hokkien Mee Phat or fried noodles.
Po Pia Tot (Spring roll)
A regional variation found only in Phuket Town.
Can be found in several of the small Chinese restaurants
you will encounter if you take the Phuket Town walk-about,
and also at the Night Market.
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Thai Fruit
Phuket Island is a tropical fruit version
of heaven. Every day all year long a variety of sweet succulent
delicious fruits are in season and ready for you to enjoy.
Thais traditionally finish a meal with a serving of fruit
and save the sweeter Thai desserts for snacking between
meals. Many tropical fruits are grown right here on Phuket
Island. Pineapple grown here is famous throughout Thailand
for being particularly sweet and crunchy and is a major
export product.
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Rambutan is a cute, small
red oval fruit with hair. On your first encounter
you may not know if you should eat it or pet it; but
inside is a sweet taste treat that is unfortunately
too fragile for export.
Bananas are small and sweet
and are available all year.
Papaya – has a sweet
orange flesh is a favorite dessert. Like many tropical
fruits, it is also eaten green, served in the famous
Som Tam (papaya salad).
Durian is perhaps the king
of tropical fruits. It has a bit of an odor problem,
but definitely is a taste treat you don’t want
to miss. Available in the spring months only.
Rose Apples are a bell-shaped,
green, waxy-looking fruit available most of the year,
the flesh is sweet and crunchy -- a favorite with
children.
Guava is a round yellowish-green
fruit taste somewhat like an apple, it can be eaten
with salt and dried chilies as a snack.
Mango the national fruit is
delicious, sweet and juicy when ripe, but can also
eaten green -- dipped into a blend of sugar, salt
and chili. Eating fruit is not only delicious but
helps take out the fire of some of the more spicy
dishes of Thai food.
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Water
Tap water is not safe for drinking. Drink only bottled
water or from a flask supplied by the hotel. Water provided
in restaurants is safe for drinking, but avoid all shaved
or crushed ice particularly from roadside fruit venders.
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