Every foodie should take a food tour in Phuket, Thailand. Photo / Getty Images
Every foodie should take a food tour in Phuket, Thailand. Photo / Getty Images
Travelling to Phuket? Don’t bother packing a belt, all you’ll need is an extra stomach, writes Brett Atkinson
Sheltering from an impetuous morning shower in Phuket Town, I’m wishing I was a camel. Or a llama. Really, anything with a second (or third) stomach. Ignoring my own oft-repeated mantra when joining a street food tour – pace yourself – I’m already in danger of peaking too early at a Burmese breakfast restaurant.
Burmese-style flat bread in Phuket.
Photo / Brett Atkinson
Our guide for the morning is Pema, an effervescent Thai local who seems to know all the vendors at Phuket Town’s Central Market. It’s aunty this and cousin that as our group is steered past mini-mountains of fragrant curry paste and carefully-stacked pyramids of tropical fruit. At the nearby Mingalar tea shop, we’re soon slurping on cardamom-laced tea, feasting on lahpet thoke (tea leaf salad), and dimpled Burmese flatbreads are emerging from a simple wood-fired oven that’s been glowing since well before dawn.
Thai local Pema seems to know all the vendors at Phuket Town’s Central Market.
Photo / Brett Atkinson
Kitted out in rain ponchos, an essential but last-minute purchase just an hour earlier, Pema leads us to the next stop. Bereft of an English-language menu and familiar signage, I ask her to translate the painted sign out the front. She shrugs “Coffee Shop?”, but it’s unlike any cafe back home. Featuring Straits Chinese flavours – Phuket Town’s multicultural population is drawn from its history as a southeast Asian trading hub – mantou (steamed buns) are served with a hearty beef curry. Locals sheltering from the rain devour dumplings after paying their respects at the scarlet-and-gold shrine dominating the dining room, and outside, wall-covering street art offers a fine likeness of the cafe’s owner and her cat. Before we leave, there’s time for a bowl of Hokkien-style noodles studded with a single delicate wonton.
The street art offers a fine likeness of the cafe’s owner and her cat. Photo / Brett Atkinson
After detouring to the Jui Tui Shrine, a century-old Chinese temple that hosts the annual Phuket Vegetarian Festival, we turn on to quiet back streets to the island’s best Isaan eatery. Many workers at Phuket’s resorts come from Isaan, Thailand’s northeastern province near Laos, and Pema confirms Tum Zaa offers them authentic flavours from home. Again, there’s no English menu, but we’re soon feasting on gai yang (grilled chicken) with a dipping sauce infused with the funky flavour of nam pla (fish sauce). and the cooling alternative of just maybe the planet’s best fresh sweetcorn salad. Grilled beef – served thinly-sliced and imperceptibly rare – goes well with sticky rice and the fiery papaya salad giving the simple eatery its Lao and Isaan name.
A Pong Mae Sunee turns out the best khanom apong (rice-flour crepes) in town.
Photo / Brett Atkinson
Soon we’re back into more familiar territory, meandering past the hip cafes and artisan bakeries filling the colourful Sino-Portuguese shophouses lining the pastel-hued thoroughfare of Dibuk St. A sneaky detour through a hidden garden and an abandoned colonial mansion leads to a street food favourite that’s been recognised by the Michelin dining guide. For more than 30 years, the corner of Yaowarat Rd and Soo Utis Lane has been the location of A Pong Mae Sunee, a simple stall turning out the best khanom apong (rice-flour crepes) in town. Juggling six charcoal-fired braziers, Pui, son of the original owner, the eponymous Sunee, carefully pours rice-flour batter into small woks before covering them for just a few seconds. Gossamer-light crepes emerge, still warm from the heat of the wok, and infused with coconut flavours from the batter. Both a Phuket speciality and reminiscent of Sri Lankan hoppers, khanom apong are more evidence of the culinary influences washing over Thailand’s most popular tourist island. They’re great on their own, but even better when we load the khanom apong up with scoops of icecream served from the back of a motorcycle. After a few trials – including zingy durian icecream - the combination of motorbike man’s coffee and coconut flavours definitely hits the spot.
Loading up your khanom apong (rice-flour crepes) with icecream is highly recommended. Photo / Brett Atkinson
We’ve now arrived on Thalang St, crammed with tourists for Phuket’s popular night market on a Sunday, but much quieter on a Tuesday morning. Coincidentally, our last stop is somewhere we’ve already been, crossing the street from our apartment the previous day for breakfast. The team at the Malay-influenced Aroon Po Chana smile back in recognition, but it’s soon Pema running the show, ferrying multiple dishes back from the kitchen on a one-woman mission to ensure we try a huge range of local flavours. Indigo-meets-black plates of charcoal roti, topped with ribbons of sweet coconut sambal, are balanced by DIY snacks of betel leaves, chilli, dried shrimp and lime, while frosty mugs of Thai-style iced tea, crowned with fluffy, aerated peaks of foam, offer refreshing balance to bowls of the sour and often challenging curries southern Thailand is renowned for.
After just one more slice of crunchy egg roti, I now start to wish I was a cow or a giraffe.
