Saturday 13 December 2008

Food in Koh Samui

A year ago or so, I was in Thailand, and the last pasrt of my trip was Koh Samui.
The breakfasts were taken at the hotel for convenience, but also because we were litterally by the sea... However, ever other meal was taken at street food stalls, which we much preferred to hotel restaurants.
Food is everywhere in Thailand, and it's very difficult to get a bad meal... all day long we were teased by food passing in front of us... including the beach of course, where I have had my best mango to date...

Temptation was everywhere....

In the evenings, gorgeous swanky restaurants were flaunting their superb settings:

But we preferred the street stalls, planted in the mud, where the Thai lived, not the tourists. The latter were rare in that area, afraid to be poisoned by the gorgeous food (we had no problem whatsoever eating at these stalls, nor any other for the matter!). The lively area had shops of all sort, and the locals were going about their business. There was a celebration at the time, and the park was taking an air of fun fair...

But one shop got our attention (and our tastebuds!) from the first evening. There was inumerable food stalls and we tried a few, but this stall had a large range of great curries, the owner was from Chiang Mai, where we'd just been, and we established contact very quickly as John (the owner, he gave us the name of John since his real name was much longer) could speak reasonnable English (Japanese and Iraqi too we found out as he worked abroad!) and was pleased to share his thought with us. The food was delicious, and we came back many time to his shop. So much so that we ended up making acquaintance to the whole family(the picture only shows the 'cooks' (John and his parents), but we got to know the brother and the cousins too..), and John's brother lead us around the island for a day's discovery.The generosity and welcome from the family was very humbling. It was wonderful to be able to talk to locals and have an insight into their lives, quite a hard working life really. The mum cooked a soup especially for us for the last night.
Everyday we were getting some rice sausages that were superbly tasty, served with pickled ginger.


If you go to Samui, stray off Chaweng Road : you'll find a road that goes West , 15/20 min walk from the North of Chaweng, you'll find wonders, including this little shop, full of great food!
You'll also witness great street scenes...



1 comment:

Unknown said...

When you're intending to go back there,let me know, we could chartered a flight for the many Thai food 's lovers ...:o))
Marjolaine