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Penang Chicken with Prendchaw

Posted by Clay on July 1, 2005 at 12:39 am |

La Muan Seafood
Situated conveniently across the street from the La Own Plaza (where Alexis and I currently reside) is one of the two juggernauts of Khao Lak cusine, La Muan. Like many area restaurants, the seating is located on a covered porch which is a mere extention of the front porch of the home of the family that runs the restaurant. La Muan herself represents the middle generation of the nuclear family that runs the restaurant. Her mother, known to us as ‘Granny,’ makes the meanest watermelon shake in the Phang Nga province. She’s an adorable woman who enjoys sitting at the table offering impromptu Thai lessons while taking orders. While she’s usually the hardest worker at the restaurant, you may find her napping on the floor if you arrive for a meal at an off-peak time. ‘Gramps’ hangs around sometimes, chopping garlic on occassion and delivering orders to the wrong table. La Muan’s daughter (?) is a late riser, but usually remains in the kitchen where she’ll sometimes prepare breakfast in her bathrobe. The rumor is that long-term customers are brought into the kitchen to learn how to prepare their own food. Free fruit commonly follows lunch and dinner, though this can be a gut-wrenching experience when one’s appetite for durian conflicts with the obligation to eat the fruit. Be warned that ordering yogurt can mean ‘corn and kidney bean yogurt.’
Food Rating: 7/10
Diarrhea Rating: 5/10 (I must be allergic to one of their curry ingredients…)
Nausea Rating: 0/10
Best Dishes
1. Granny’s Watermelon Shake (may turn an otherwise healthy person into a diabetic)
2. Penang Chicken with Prendchaw (no, we haven’t figured out what ‘Prendchaw’ is supposed to be)
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Khao Lak Seafood
Khao Lak Seafood, known as KLS, is easily the most popular restaurant in the town of Ban Bang La On. While breakfast is quiet after 8 in the morning, the restaurant is packed during dinner prime time. Yet, despite the crowds, the service is usually courteous and prompt. KLS used to be located on Nang Thong Beach, which was devestated by the recent tsunami. Luckily, the government forced them to close their restaurant and move inland about 4 years ago. Ultimately, this saved the family and their restaurant, which served as an impromptu aid-station immediately following the tsunami. Chai, the brother of the business manager, runs a reasonably-priced taxi service offering rides to places as far away as Surathani and Krabi. His command of the English language is respectable, allowing for a level of communication surpassing many local taxi services. The kitchen at KLS is consistently inconsistent, yet remains within a range that rarely makes a meal there an unpleasant one. Ordering a shake during peak hours might lead to a slightly nauseating lukewarm sugarbomb of a drink. The kitchen stays busy enough to not custom-tailor the spice level of individual dishes, leading one to rely on the nam plad (fish sauce with chili) to kick it up a notch.
Food Rating: 6/10
Diarrhea Rating: 3/10
Nausea Rating: 6/10 (I barfed once after eating the fried rice with curry paste and chicken)
Best Dishes
1. Som Tam (Spicy Green Papaya Salad)
2. Penane Curry with Chicken maak pet
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Weerapat’s Kitchen
Tucked into an unassuming building next door to Khao Lak Seafood, Weerapat’s Kitchen is a favorite among long-term volunteers. When the weather is bad, there are only 4 tables available. Short-term volunteers who claim a table may receive discouraging glances from long-term volunteers who arrive too late to get their own table. On such occassions, tables are combined by the long-term mafia, socially isolating the short-termers. Yet, do not let the social isolation discourage you: Alexis once claimed that this is the best restaurant in Thailand. I would have agreed until yesterday, when she picked some unexplained crab leg shells out of her Som Tam. The scene was slightly reminiscent of our luch at Bobos in Railay, where she picked a metal staple out of her (non-)spicy shrimp salad. (I was still recovering from the KLS-induced vomiting and diarrhea.) However, if the social isolation doesn’t scare you away, Weerapat’s ability to deliver a drink and then chastise for ordering it is unparalleled in Khao Lak. It was only after she delivered my lime shake that she pointed at me, laughed, and told me it was a girly drink. Humiliated, I ordered an orange Fanta the next time. Upon delivery, she pointed at the rust around the bottle opening (from the bottle cap) and told me that she didn’t understand why I would want to drink such a gross dirty drink when she makes hand-squeezed-orange drinks that are superior. Thanks, Weerapat… why didn’t you tell me before bringing the Fanta to the table? The food is good, but I’m slightly embarrased to return.
Food Rating: 9/10 (what up with the random crab legs, Weerapat?)
Diarrhea Rating: 2/10
Nausea Rating: 1/10
Best Dishes
1. Som Tam (Spicy Green Papaya Salad)
2. Pad Thai with Chicken
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Krathom Khao Lak Resort Restaurant
Of the best restaurants in Khao Lak, this is the most difficult to find and the least busy. It is not uncommon to be the only customers there when we go for dinner. This is slighly difficult to explain because the Krathom Khao Lak Resort has a number of nice bungalows right next to the restaurant. In fact, it is where Alexis and I stayed our first two nights. The room was nice, cheap, air conditioned, and had a refrigerator. Yet, when when enquired about staying for a month, we were told (in very poor English) that the room was taken! What?? Turns out that it was Aaron and his girlfriend, so that’s ok. The restaurant is quite delightful, despite the fact that it has more red-ants per square inch of table than any of the other restaurants in town (except when La Muan leaves the sugar and crushed peanuts on the table). The service is not the fastest in town, but the order is so neatly transcribed onto the receipt pad that there are never mistakes made by the waitress. This is a great place to go with a bunch of friends when dinner is the only activity of the evening. The Singha comes in two sizes here and it’s fun to keep ordering them while waiting for food. While all Thai restaurants lack the ability to deliver everybody’s food at the same time, the lag between dish delivery here can be severe, resulting in some being finished with dinner before others receive their meal. Since that’s what leads to the increased Singha consumption, it makes me suspect that the staggered meal delivery is exaggerated on purpose. Hmmm… The worst thing about the restaurant is the TV on the bar that constantly blares Thai talk shows on a spotty sattelite connection that cuts in and out. Turn off the TV and walk away, people… you’re giving me indigestion.
Food Rating: 9/10
Diarrhea Rating: 1/10
Nausea Rating: 1/10
Best Dishes
1. Red Curry with Chicken maak pet
2. Penang Curry with Chicken (why doens’t this come served in a bowl like the other curries?)
3. Singha
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Khao Lak Restaurant
It happens that the best and strongest of your friends/family in Thailand get tired of Thai food. It was at one of these times that our friends Annu and Hemesh convinced us that the pizza at Khao Lak Restaurant was some of the best pizza that they had ever had anywhere. Their story started with a competition between an African Indian American and an Indian American eating uber-spicy chili pizza and it ended with mention of a cranky old German lady whispering to Hemesh, as if it were a matter of national security, that her son had married a Thai woman. Nevertheless, the prospect of something with cheese on it lulled us into ignoring the low points of this story and we went to try Khao Lak Restaurant. I am now convinced that Khao Lak Restaurant is run by a large American tobacco company as a facility for testing the effects of second hand smoke on unsuspecting tourists. It all started with the second page of the menu, which points out in two languages that KL Restaurant is not McDonalds, and that if you’ve come there looking for a quick meal, you might as well leave before getting to the food items on the menu. Fair enough. We settled in for our meal, determined to smile as the minutes ticked by. After all, Thailand is the land of smiles. It was only after we placed our order (to the same cranky old German lady) that Crusty German #1 started smoking a pipe at the next table. I looked at him. He looked at me and squinted his eyes like Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. He knew I didn’t like it, and as he took a long puff on his pipe and exhaled in my direction, several other Germans joined him at the table adjacent to ours. It was then that Matt and Chandra joined our party, bringing our number to 6. The table on the other side of us had 12 Americans from a church group, all wearing T-shirts proclaming Jesus as their lord. Crusty German #1 stared at me — I could see him out of the corner of my eye. His pipe ran empty, he put it down, and looked away. I was prepared to start enjoying dinner. The minutes turned into hours as we waited for our food. A bell rang and the cranky old German lady got up from the table full of Germans and went to the kitchen. It was a single small pizza for the church group. Our garlic bread followed shortly thereafter. Crusty German #2 was wall-eyed, with a different crazy look in each eye. He was talking loudly as he lit his cigarette. The wind was blowing our direction. He exhaled a cloud of smoke that hit the back of Chandra’s neck, swirled around her face, and created eddys that went up her nose, out her mouth, and towards the rest of us at the table. As she wretched from the smoke, Crusty Germans number 3 and 4 lit cigarettes. Crusty German #1 lit his pipe again and the cranky old German lady sat down and lit a cigarette of her own. The air around our table was 73.9% smoke. We all choked and wretched, waiting more minutes for our pizza. Finally, after we were all addicted to nicotene, there was a bell from the kitchen, and the cranky old German lady went to the kitchen, returning with our pizza. I glanced at the pipe-smoking German and his head snapped to the side, locking into eye contact with me. He scowled as he took another deep puff on his pipe. I began to feel nauseous from the smoke. Alexis was starving before dinner. We had waited so long that she was weakening — hypoglycemic, yet giddy from the cloud of smoke. We scarfed down our pizza, barely aware that the church group next to us had left. I felt my skin turning yellow from the smoke. I began to shake as if consumed with nicotene withdrawal. Things were turning ugly, and Crusty German #1 had just lit his pipe again. I was going to vomit. I could no longer make eye contact. He was Clint and I was a dead outlaw. We had to leave… The sign advertising Khao Lak Restaurant had an ostrich on it that says ‘Eat Me.’ Maybe I would, Mr. Ostrich — if only you came to the table before we became a smoky afterthought to the crusty Germans at the next table. Auf Wiedersehen Khao Lak Restaurant. May we never meet again.
Food Rating: 3/10
Diarrhea Rating: 0/10
Nausea Rating: 10/10
Best Dishes
1. Garlic Bread with Cheese
2. Chili Pizza