Tag Archives: Koh Samui

Eating Out, Travel

It’s Thailand FFS – try some local food

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Library

Cold weather? It’s all yours, though a flying trip to Queenstown in August is bound to be somewhat chillier than I’ve got now. I’m hoping there will be lamb ragù on the menu. Will keep you posted.

We were passing by and stopped at The Library on Chaweng Saturday for a meal by the beach. It’s not the view we have, or want really, but interesting to see every now and then. When the megayachts come in (it’s the one in the background, below, you may just be able to see it behind the longtail boat) you know it’s the end of the neighbourhood.

Megayacht

There are so many beautiful places to anchor around Samui. I wonder why you’d choose Chaweng? Unless you’re desperate to be seen. Sadly, it’s this sort of tourist the place attracts these days.

There’s a story being told in that picture that is playing out around the island too. No sooner do I mention Khun Play’s seafood fried rice  on the beach than the pace gets taken over by a bunch of Italians who have set up a pizza oven.

Now I like pizza, don’t get me wrong, but in my local Thai village it’s starting to get hard to find Thai food. There’s something deeply, horribly wrong with that. It hasn’t quite happened on our island yet, the one loser French restaurateur notwithstanding. I hope we can resist any further incursions.

But really, it’s Thailand FFS – why don’t you try some local food? Why travel all the way from Europe for what is bound to be a second-rate pizza? What’s wrong with people? Ah well, I did once see a bunch of Singaporeans off to a Chinese restaurant in Rome (I went elsewhere for pizza. ‘When in Rome’, goes the saying) so it cuts both ways.

Naturally, the menu at The Library does have some local dishes, though they’re fancy versions thereof. A pad Thai goong and a khao pad talay (that’s a seafood fried rice – just displaying my superior Thai language skills), were actually pretty good, and not watered-down too much on the spice for those sensitive European palates. Shame the beer is served in flat glasses.

Pad thai

I fear this is the future though. Unless I want French or Italian I’m going to have to go to fancy restaurants in Samui to get a local meal. At least they’re available somewhere. I do wonder why people bother travelling at all if all they want to do is replicate home though. If they’re not willing to actually eat the local food as a bare minimum of experiencing the place what are they gaining by travelling at all?  They could do us all a favour, cut their carbon emissions and make Samui more beautiful to boot if they just stayed at home.

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Attack of the Gastro-Gnomes

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Negrito

Hey Dan,

Russian River does sound interesting. Funny you mention The French Laundry though. I’m not sure why you’d bother going, because it only ranks 44th in the World’s Best 50 Restaurants list released this week. I’m betting you’ve remortgaged the house and been on hold to Copenhagen for 48 hours, trying to get a table at Noma some time in 2017 instead.

Or not.

Having never eaten there, I’m happy to give Noma the benefit of the doubt on the food front, but slapping a ‘world’s best’ label on something like a restaurant is as futile as ranking art – ‘and once again for 2014 the Mona Lisa takes the top prize, though that Da Vinci bloke had better get a bit more avant-garde if he wants to retain the title next year.’ Bollocks.

They’re comparing apples with oranges (with mangoes, durians and grapes too – though grapes win hands-down, because at least you can turn them into wine), and despite the claim that more than 900 industry experts are involved in the voting there are obviously biases involved. Plus, 900 experts sounds a lot like a committee to me, and you know what committees produce.

Still, there are some interesting things to note. Such as 36 of the 50 best being in Europe. That’s right, a mere six in Asia – the world’s most populous continent (though I have two within walking distance. Should I count myself lucky?). There are five for all of Central and South America, and a mere one each for Australia and South Africa.

Okay, so the judges have a thing for Europe, and Spain in particular. I get the Spain thing – I did a trip there a few years back organised by the Spanish tourism people, and the food was incredible. But only one in Australia? Then again, the ranked restaurants all tend to do the expensive degustation menu thing, so that narrows the field.

As a marketing tool this works. You’d push to be on the list too if it meant a waiting list to get a reservation at your restaurant. I met one of the chefs on this year’s list a few years back, and he was young, extremely photogenic, and very eager to be nice to the media – it’s amazing how far a compliment to a journalist will get you, believe me.

The problem is that being on the list means your restaurant will be full of media types and serious foodies – they’ll sit quietly and photograph every plate and analyse every bite and discuss in reverential tones suitable for such a religious experience (Chefs are gods, didn’t you know?).

Give me a busy family-run trattoria in the Italian countryside any day. Nothing sucks the joy out of a dining experience more effectively than a serious foodie.

Clearly it was an oversight that I was not consulted when it came to compiling this list. Frankly we should do one of our own – the 41 Best Restaurants in the World (that should stop them suing us!).

My nomination goes to Cafe Negrito on Koh Samui. Khun Play does a killer seafood fried rice (I don’t want to know what the secret ingredient is, for fear that it’s MSG), the beer is so cold that the condensation freezes on the outside of the bottle, and the view across the water is lovely.

Admittedly the wiring is more creative than the menu, there’s no wine list (we can fix this) and the roof leaks when it rains, but I’ve never had anything buy a joyful experience there. That makes it the best in my books.