Crunchy, spicy fish - Thailand

I've been jet setting about a bit lately and have finally taken the time to go through the huge amount of photos I have on both my camera and iPhone - as I suspected 80% of them are of food!

One of the photos I was excited to find was this fish we ate at a beach front restaurant on Phi Phi Island, Thailand. We loved it so much we went back two days later and had it again.

The fish is what they were locally calling 'seabass'. The delicate white flesh was filleted on one side away from the bone frame, yet still attached, then fried until crunchy on the outside yet translucently perfect in the middle.

The proverbial icing on the cake was the spicy salad on top; prawn pieces, shredded carrot, chinese celery, cashew nuts, green apple (to our surprise!), shallot, coriander and chilli. Dressed in your typical Thai hot, salty, sweet and sour flavours.

This was complimented with what is a more Chinese inspired dish of fresh shiitake mushrooms with choi sum and lots of garlic.

I wish I could eat both these dishes again now. Right now.

Reflecting on these and many other photos, I can't help but notice the beautiful and complimentary plates the dishes were served on. Often, the casual places we ate at the plates would be more perfunctionary bordering on ugly and chipped, this type of thoughtfulness you only usually find at the best of places, not were lunch and drinks for two costs $30 Aussie.

It was evident that there was love in that kitchen and we could taste, and see it.

Perfect beach lunch

We spent the last four days at Railay in coastal Thailand. After 2 days of patchy rain and one hell of a storm (as we should expect, as it is rainy season in the region) the sun came out and I had the opportunity to tan my Melbourne-winter pale legs.

Altering between the beach, our beautiful pool and the bar we managed to find what I thought was the perfect beach goer lunch.


A spicy som tam salad (green papaya bashed with dried prawns, fish sauce, chilli, lime, garlic, peanuts, snake beans and tomato... no doubt more and more as well), served on the same plate with some marinated and fried chicken thigh and some of my favourite sticky rice. Lengths of more snake beans and cucumber where the textural garnish.

Pretty healthy, really speedy and bloody amazing flavours. No doubt I will be recreating this at home in Melbourne come summer.

Lazy, beautiful breakfast

I can’t apologise enough to readers at home, keeping warm in what I read has been the coldest winter for some time, but I’d love to share my breakfast experience of the last five days at the Muang Kulay Pan Hotel in Koh Samui.

Lets start with the setting, just beautiful, have a look for yourself… above is the bell that you ring for service, if a smiling face is not to be seen.
Pretty little raised tables and seating. Elegant, yet simple. We were served to start, freshly squeezed orange juice from green skinned, mandarin tasting oranges, individual fruit platters and green tea for me and strong black coffee in a small thermos for PDC.

Breakfast was a choice of ‘American breakfast’ – eggs with sausage, bacon and ham, ‘Continental’ -chocolate croissant, yoghurt and more fruit or rice congee and curry dishes that we did not explore.
Eggs it was, most mornings, as I was a little scared of the croissant and yoghurt option (how good it could possibly be -I usually err on the side of some thing that I know I will enjoy, especially at breakfast), yet I should not have been afraid; the yoghurt was rich and tangy as it should be and the croissant better than some from fancy French bakeries in Melbourne.
Breakfast was also served with some grain toast wrapped in a thick linen napkin with a selection of housemade jams, the caramelised pineapple was a highlight nearly as bright as the banana, lime and palm sugar jam in Laos. PDC was so ravenous from an early run along the beach (I know, sorry!! ) to also order the banana pancakes in addition to all of this. Stretched out on a lounge, being served breakfast from fun, friendly, yet careful staff it makes it hard to leave but that was what we have done today. The staff were sad to hear that it was our last day with them, “have a safe trip and we will see you next year”, a mutal wish, but with our penchant for travel to new places, I’m not sure it will happen, but it is a nice way to bid farewell – see you next time!