Thai's always seem to be eating but not at home. In the small houses I walk past here there are no kitchens, any cooking appears to be done on a makeshift BBQ arrangement outside and the rest of the kitchen is a plastic bowl to wash and store the dishes and a hose pipe. I think most eating is done out as the main road is lined with small stalls some with BBQ satay, fish and chicken balls on sticks that look more like the sort of thing a drug smuggler would swallow whole... There are Pad Thai stalls and fried rice stalls and green curry stalls. And stalls with steaming pots of lovely smelling things and sounds of popping, hot fat. These are going all times of the day and people are always picking up food and carrying away their sauces in little plastic bags like we used to carry goldfish home from the fair, festooned from their motorbike handlebars. But the smell as you wander along is pretty good!
But we tourists like things a bit more the way we are used to and Mae Nam's one Main Street between the ring road and the beach has everything you need. It can't be more than 200 metres long but it sure packs in a lot. As well as the huge choice of eateries there are travel agents, private houses, laundries, motor cycle hire shops, ships chandlers, three jeweller's shops, an Internet/fax shop, a barbers, massage and beauty parlours, a fish spa and a fantastic old grocery and pharmacy full of dusty items but with a pharmacist who can apparently cure all ills. Most of the restaurants are only one shophouse front wide and some are even open air. The choice is:
Austrian Corner - err...Austrian!
Pat Thai - this is the typo, not an Irish Thai place
Jordan's - Sports Bar, Aussie run and my local for a pre dinner why why
Mathis cafe - quite posh now, international food, was the old Firestation Bar
Well Done - European/Thai. Last year you couldn't get a table. It changed hands a few months ago and now on one ever goes there....
San Remo Lounge - Italian and Thai
Vegetarian tapas - run by the guy who used to have a bar on the beach
About Cafe - she does a mean porridge and decent bread for toast
Juice and ice cream stall
Anjuli's - sort of bad French but with a good sea view
Seaview - my choice for my lunchtime Diet Coke - honest!
Cupid - Thai seafood
Thai restaurant
Corner bar - Aussie run by a couple who regularly drink the profits I'm told.
Beach way - light French and decent coffee
Archetto's - a new Italian
Japanese
Korean BBQ
Ma yom - the most popular joint on the street. Great Thai food, really cheap. One dish and stee rye with a glass of why why for under £4.
Tommy - Swiss - run by Tommy who has the biggest beer gut you have ever seen. He never wears a top, just carries all before him in all its sweaty glory, not a place I frequent as it really puts you off your food although loads of others do...
Bavaria Road - German
La Bonne Franquette - French
There are no big hotels here so the restaurants cater to people from smaller beach hut type places and small family hotels like the Florist so no need to dress up! Apart from Thursday's that is, when Walking Street attracts people from miles around. Then you can get anything, insects, cake, fruit stalls, sushi, fried octopus, spare ribs, fried seafood, barbecue bananas, sticky rice in banana leaf, and so much else. If you add to that even more places in the village and places on the main road, you see why you never need get the munchies here.
My favourite is Ma Yom and a standard sort of meal and wine is £4 which obviously to us is a major bargain. Hold the wine and you're talking £2.... The bill in many of the other places can vary but you would be hard pushed to spend a tenner in most of them. But I still can't reconcile that with daily minimum wage here. In the news today new set rates for some skilled jobs were announced and even for skilled supervisory jobs is only around 400 baht (£8), but with unskilled people on 300 (£6), suddenly £4 for a simple meal seems a lot and explains why the only locals you ever see near these restaurants are younger girls with new European men friends... I think for locals living in a tourist area things can be difficult as tourists push the prices up but their wages don't follow.
There are a few things I haven't tried though. The first is from this stall. She has a couple of boiled chickens in her plastic case first thing in the morning and bits get used up as the very warm day goes on - her plastic case is not refrigerated.... but I am attracted by her display of golden chicken - the new Golden Arches perhaps? They are also there every day and look as if she used a tin of gloss...
And talking of food, who could choose between these two delicious offerings - "fried rice with shrimps and squit" or "Coffee with Apple Cack"? Mmmmmmm!
