Koh Samui

After bussing from Phuket, J and I caught a ferry to Koh Samui and spent two nights exploring the island. This was the first (and only) place we hired a scooter to look around and it was so much fun, and a great way to really get a feel for the place.

A surprisingly tasty stirfry on the ferry, with a lovely gooey egg:



Dinner at the restaurant in front of our hotel. We chose a 2-person set menu that cost 450 baht total (about $13). It came with fried pork with garlic and black pepper, green chicken curry, Panang chicken curry, tom yam prawns, stir-fried seafood, rice, and finished with banana with coconut milk (which I must have forgotten to photograph).



My plate with the assorted curries. They were delicious and *very* spicy. We discovered that neither of us are fans of the miniature Thai eggplants though.



More snacks! The Shark brand of energy drinks are nice and almost as common as Red Bull.



Some grilled meat from a roadside stall, fish balls on the left and chicken on the right.



A blurry photo of a gorgeous dragonfruit, also purchased from a roadside stall.



The innards. Very refreshing!



A beautifully-prepared pineapple - so sweet and juicy.



Cute penguin icypole:



The incredible range of Pringles in a supermarket:



Some Chinese (I think) buns from the same supermarket:



One had a savoury filling:



And this one was sweet, pandan-flavoured



J's Massaman curry at the hotel restaurant - delicious



I wasn't feeling very hungry and so ordered a chicken salad - but ended up with a huge plate of food!



I developed an addition for seaweed snacks on our holiday, these are some of the types I tried. I've found a limited selection of the same brand at a few places back home, but sadly for about 8 times the price!

Phuket Town

After Tenta Nakara, J and I spent a night in Phuket Town, the capital of Phuket Island.

The city was really hot when we were there, but drinks such as these from the 7/11 are very refreshing:



A noodle dish at a very Western-aimed Thai eatery near our hotel:



Some cereal and juice for breakfast, plus some Pringles snacks:



Opening up one of the cereal bowls:



Mixed together:



We didn't try these, but they looked cute! Doughnuts decorated to look like sushi:



Some strange-looking crustaceans in the window of a seafood restaurant:



Some 'alcopops', none were amazing but they were refreshing enough:



And to finish up, some snacks for our bus trip from Phuket to Surat Thani, where we would be catching a ferry to Koh Samui:

Thailand eating, part 2: Tenta Nakara

J and I spent two nights at Tenta Nakara. It was an amazing place to stay, and a big part of that was due to the food. It was some of the best of the whole trip! It was a little pricier than average though.

The ubiquitous Thai fruit shake, watermelon flavour:



Pina colada!



J enjoyed what we later realised was a bucket - a potent mix of red bull, coke and rum.

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Pineapple fried rice ($6). The fluffy shrimpy stuff on top was fantastic.



The rice came with cucumber or egg soup, we chose the cucumber.



Pad Thai in omelette ($4)



Inside the omelette:



Squid stuffed with minced chicken and glass noodle ($8.50)



Chicken wings stuffed with vegetables and glass noodles ($8.50)



Breakfast - there were a few set options, I chose the chicken rice which was delicious with some chilli mixed in. It came with fruit, iced lemongrass tea and a choice of hot tea, coffee or hot chocolate - I had hot chocolate and it was incredibly bitter!



J went for the fruit option, and it came with what we first thought was yoghurt, but was actually mayonnaise!



Pad Thai



Shrimp paste fried rice, with omelette, beef and other bits and pieces ($8.50). This was fantastic, and the dried prawns on top of the rice were addictive.



It also came with a choice of soup, this time we went for the egg option.



Original fried rice ($5)



A very alcoholic margarita



Chicken satay



Betel leaf wraps. I loved these, but John wasn't so keen. You put whatever combination of fillings you like onto the leaf, then wrap it up and eat it all. Starting from the top-left and going clockwise, the fillings were roasted coconut, red onion, lime, chilli, ? (ginger, maybe?), dried prawns, peanuts and a fishy sauce in the middle.



A (very badly photographed) chilli chicken hotplate.



Another breakfast - this time chicken noodle soup.




Next up: Phuket Town

Thailand eating, part 1: Phuket

J & I spent three weeks in Thailand in March this year, and had a fantastic time. One of the biggest highlights was of course the food! This is the first of a series of posts showing many of the tasty things we ate.

We stayed in Patong Beach, Phuket for the first two nights of our trip. Patong was definitely not a highlight of Thailand - it's an intense, tourist oriented and mildly unpleasant town compared to elsewhere in the country, but it gave us some time to recover from the flight and get our bearings. These pictures are all from Patong. It's been a little while and so I have forgotten most of the prices, but from those I do remember you'll see how ridiculously and wonderfully cheap it is! Prices are approximate based on the exchange rate at the time.

The first thing outside of our hotel that we bought - a refreshing coconut complete with straw and spoon for scooping out the flesh, from a stand right on Patong Beach.



J had a thick and icy fresh mango juice:



Lunch at Pum's Restaurant, which is also a cooking school. We started with nam takrai, a delicious iced lemongrass drink (AU$2).



The Pad Siewe with beef: lightly stir fried noodles and vegetabless in sweet soy sauce with the meat of your choice (AU$3). Pum's food was fairly generic western versions of Thai food, but tasty none the less!



Pum's Dear Lesson: Thai fried noodles topped with a prawn omelette and served with a peanut and lime garnish ($3).



Bruschetta, from our hotel (Club Bamboo Resort). It's pretty great ordering food and cocktails and having them delivered right to your poolside lounge :)



A pineapple 'milkshake' from a restaurant near our hotel. Milkshakes are commonly listed on Thai menus but they rarely come with milk in them, usually they are just blended fruit and ice, such as this one.



Prawn omelette:



A chicken and baby corn stirfry:



Snacks and energy drink. We loved (and survived off) the uncarbonated energy drinks that could be found anywhere. I bought the sweet-bean filled balls entirely because the packaging was gorgeous! They came from a 7-11, which are everywhere.



Inside the balls:



These pictures are making me wish I was back in Thailand, especially considering it's only 4ºC in Hobart at the moment!

Next up: Naka Yai Island