Originally Posted by AuroythmiX
In the 16 days I was there I got dragged to different places for every meal every day in Patong and doubt I got to 10% of them ... so I dont understand why you'd subsist on Subway Mcdonalds or KFC?? Food there is fantastic, and I dont think youll get sick eating the food. Youd have to be really unlucky or be really sensitive to it IMO. I think the food is pretty good otherwise they wouldnt have business, and so many thais eat mostly everywhere so they tend to do a lot of business and have a lot of competition. Theres obviously more bacteria in their food than in Western countries, but if youre otherwise healthy I think youll be ok. I was eating all sorts of stuff off the street in asia for the first 3 weeks of my holiday and didnt have any digestive system type worries until I showered in yellow water. Dont do that by the way... but do go and try eating the deep fried crickets (grasshoppers), cockroaches etc. They taste great, its kindve like crunchy slightly flavoured potato chips. Just close your eyes and chew. Yum!
Probably way off but thought Id contribute something to the thread. From the eyes of young Aussie tourist who likes asian food (thai, chinese, indian, malaysian etc) and eats lots of it back home ...
Places I'd suggest in the Patong area:
Mostly ate at a gazillion thai hole in the wall and street vendor places but have no idea what any of them were called, but generally everywhere seems good. Helps if you have a thai person taking you there to point out what will be good at each of the places, but when I wasnt accompanied by a thai, ordering the most interesting sounding stuff seemed to work.
The stalls/restaurants at NaNai are good and cheap. That big bunch of places behind Tiger are also good and cheap. One of the places on Bangla in the little side street tucked away between some of the shops had various places, and we ate there once, and it was pretty decent, and cheap.
At the big shopping center JungCeylon the foodcourt is good and very cheap. Also seemed very clean. Can get a few plates of stuff and a drink for about 180baht. Big range of different thai food, and lots of thais eating there. Thai friends said it was popular and of acceptably decent quality/style to be to their liking.
Also in JC, Fuji the Japanese but slightly Chinese place twice. That was pretty decent, and seemed clean and stuff. I think I get better Sushi here in Australia but it was still pretty nice, and quite cheap.
Also in JC, Chinese place that does the steamboat thing in the middle of your table and got various dim-sum style stuff there (like yumcha without the carts) and that was pretty decent. Value was good.
Went to a buffet style Korean BBQ place around Patong somewhere. Got a motorbike taxi from our hotel that was near Patong beach and it was only a few minutes away. You get the big hotpot bbq thing in front of you, similar to chinese steamboat style of cooking, and then you go and get all your meats and noodles and veggies and cook it yourself on the table. It was like 650baht for two including alcohol so it would be very cheap without alcohol. Food was really good, and was fun. Was full of thais - I was on the only westerner there. Very popular apparently w locals.
The fresh produce/seafood markets at the back of JungCeylon are really awesome to go and look at, and you can get stuff cooked there, or even better go there with a thai friend, buy stuff, and convince them to cook it for you ... win! Ultra cheap and quality seemed really good.
In terms of more upmarket/falang-only type places:
Patong Seafood (pretty close to Banana) was really good and thai friend said the food was v good hence took us back a few times. The seafood there was great. We had lobster there a few times and it was some of the best Ive had, better than Ive had at a lot of very expensive restaurants here in Australia, and I eat out at a lot of good/expensive restaurants a lot here in Sydney, so IMO its good. Price was very very reasonable by western standards, and freshness of seafood was outstanding. Tiger prawns were the side of a plate practically. Thai friend said one of the best places for Seafood in Patong.
Baan Rim Paa or something or something like that at one of the hotels (name format is like Xxxx-xxx-xxx) on the hill overhanging the cliff-face at the top of Patong beach was expensive but pretty good. With a bottle of wine that was about half the bill it ran to approximately 6k baht for two. View was really nice. Great place to go for a quiet dinner with a friend or as a couple. Would also be great to take a bunch of mates and crack open a few bottles of wine.
WhiteBox, place further down past the big hill at the top of Patong beach, is an upmarket falang place that does good steak and has a western bar playing loud dance music on the top, and gives free drinks to girls. Food there is like contemporary western food. Expensive but very nice, very western .. but make sure you go early otherwise its ****ing ******edly loud due to music upstairs. Cost a fair bit, cant remember how much.
Went to one of the restaurants on the beach side a bit up from Patong Seafood (about 50m further up when heading direction away from Bangla) that has the big stage with a band consisting of various thai dudes in big shirts and two cute thai girls in cute outfits singing covers of pop ballad type stuff on the beachfront, further up from Patong seafood. Sat in the covered but open air area in the nicely decorated restaurant and had steak. Was something like 3500baht including a bottle of wine which was 1400 baht for two. Steak was nice, not OMG-ORGASM-WAGYU but was like a decent western steak and a reasonably priced restaurant.
Other places in Phuket (but not Patong):
Ate at some place in Phuket Town near the Grand Merlin Hotel / Malaysian Airlines office that only had menus in thai, and had a pretty nice meal for 3 of us, and it was something ******ed like 160 baht. Was told by thai friends that the food in phuket town or places that dont serve falang is ******edly cheap, just like this. Ordering might be pretty impossible though unless you can speak thai or have thai friends order it for you.
Also ate at some beach about 20km's from Phuket down that had tons of fishing boats and at low tide the boats were on the sand with about 20m of sand in front of them before the water. Apparently this was a fresh seafood market but we got there a bit late. Cant remember the name of it but ate at some place near there and got a whole bbq chicken and a huge thing of clams for like 200 baht or something. It was really good. Heaps of thais were eating there sitting on the ground on the beach side on little cushions. Seemed pretty authentic.
Places I would avoid in Patong:
Ate at a place that did seafood further down on the Beachside just past the entry to Bangla, where you could cross the road to sit on the beach-side to be served, but that was over-priced and wasnt as good as other places already mentioned.
Any of the bars or falang places on or near Bangla eg. ate once at Aussie Bar on Bangla because thai friend insisted we go there despite saying to them it was the last place Id imagine ever wanting to go ... anyway had french fries and nachos or something. It was alright, I mean ... whatever. I wouldnt go back.
Had pizza at some Italian place on a side street parallel to bangla and the food was also pretty average. Had bruschetta that was pretty good but the pizza was pretty average and the thai food was distinctly average according to thai friend.
Despite doing my best to avoid having pizza again, friends insisted, so had pizza at this Italian place in the outdoor area at JungCeylon kindve near those little stalls and the indoor shooting range, where all those restaurants are etc. Pizza was crap. Mozarella and tomato thing was crap, nothing near quality of what you get here. Not that cheap, definitely avoid.
In Bangkok: burgers at Hawaiian burger joint Larrys Dive were pretty good and waitresses were cute. Fries were WTF-**** so I dont know wtf various people here were on about :P Food on the street in Bangkok is absolutely fantastic.
Did go eat on at this specific restaurant that the dude here said ran cooking classes, linked to in the Thai Food blog. They no longer run cooking classes, but the food there was omg-awsesome. Very high quality very very good.
One day we went and ate at the little markets/stalls they had inside one of the CarreFour shopping centers and it was fantastic. Tons of thais were buying stuff from them and it was horrendously cheap, and really great food.
Ate at some restaurant on NaNa (Soi 4) further down maybe 100 or 200m past the Nana entertainment center, which was a pool hall. Cant recall the name but maybe it was like the XXXXX #2 pool hall or something. Food was good cheap and apparently acceptably thai.
Cant remember the rest of the places I went to in Bangkok, but went to a bunch. Overall the food is just really good everywhere. Just eat on the street wherever theres pleanty of thais eating and you cant really do wrong.
( there is food delivery straight from restaurant in Pattaya too i don't get why there is none in phuket )
