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This morning we moved locations to Ping Buri Hotel for our AJWS orientation, near Wat Phra Singh. One of the places I remember from the last time we were in Chiang Mai is Si Phen, just across the street from Wat Phra Singh and a short walk from our new hotel. I remembered the pomelo salad being particularly delicious.

We found Si Phen easily, and the open garage setting was just as we remember from last year. However, I must have had my wires crossed on what food we had where since they don’t have a pomelo salad available. We pressed on, and ordered a green papaya salad and khao soi gai (which is probably what we actually ate last time).

The papaya salad was delicious, one of the better ones we’ve had in Thailand. It’s a mix of green papaya, napa cabbage, peanuts and green beans, tossed with a clean lime/fish sauce dressing. There was no hint of the dried shrimp taste usually keeps me away from Thai papaya salad, and I find that peanuts are always a good addition.

Khao soi is a classic northern Thai dish that consists of yellow noodles in a curry soup. The one at Si Phen is topped with crispy noodles and napa cabbage. It was well-spiced and the meat on the chicken leg was tender and fell right off the bone. If you’ve never tried khao soi before, this is a great place to get your introduction.

Overall, a delicious and cheap (~2USD total) meal served by a friendly Thai chef. If you get hungry near Wat Phra Singh you should check out Si Phen to take care of the problem.

UPDATE (2/15/2010): Turns out that my memory isn’t faulty and they used to have pomelo salad. Courtesy of the interwebs, here’s the review from the previous Lonely Planet edition (in our version the pomelo reference has been removed):

This inexpensive stopover specialises in both northern- and northeastern-style dishes. The kitchen prepares some of the best sôm-tam (spicy papaya salad) in the city, including a variation made with pomelo fruit.

Green papaya salad

Khao soi

Thai chef de cuisine

Si Phen
103 Th Inthawarorot
Chiang Mai, Thailand
0 5331 5328

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While in Kampot, the owner of Rikitikitavi gave us a copy of AsiaLIFE Cambodia, a local expat magazine. In it was an article, Cometh the Ice Cream,  about ice cream in Phnom Penh. We hadn’t seen any compelling ice cream since Romy’s in Nha Trang, but there was a good-looking option in the article called Chill. It also happens to be located a few blocks down the street from our hotel.

We first stopped by Chill on the way to dinner yesterday. Originally we were just going to take a look, but looking led to a tasting of chocolate, green tea, vanilla, and passion fruit. Tasting led to a pre-dinner treat of chocolate and coconut. The article had in particular raved about Chill’s chocolate, and with good reason. It had a good, creamy texture and was in the dark chocolate camp, which I love. It also did not taste like cocoa powder as can often be the case. Certainly the best chocolate I’ve had in southeast Asia. The coconut was a nice complement, but it could have been creamier and was inferior to Romy’s coconut.

Tonight we were back for possibly our last ice cream in Southeast Asia (I’m not holding my breath for border town ice cream). After yesterday’s tastes we had already decided that we would have green tea and vanilla tonight. But since we were encouraged to try other flavors, we also tried mint chocolate chip, and cappuccino. The article had called the mint chocolate chip a “standout”, but I thought it was one of Chill’s weaker flavors, as was the cappuccino (not enough coffee flavor for my taste). We went ahead with our original green tea with vanilla plan, and it was a delicious combination. Overall, a good way to start our three month break from ice cream!

Green tea + vanilla = happiness

Chill
219D Sisowath Quay
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
+855 092 547 534

Daily: 11AM-midnight

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Kampot’s local specialties involve pepper and seafood. The best place to sample both is at Ta Eou, on the riverfront near the old bridge. Our first night in town we stopped by for dinner. The restaurant is a like a big covered back porch with an array of red tablecloth covered tables. The menu does not have any prices, and when we asked about this we were told “everything is $4.” Reasonable enough, even surprisingly low given how much seafood was on the menu. Unlimited rice is included with every dish, served out of large silver vessels by roaming wait staff.

While we were flipping through the extensive menu, we were given some lightly sweetened roasted peanuts to munch on. Our first dish was an easy decision: crab with Kampot peppercorns, Ta Eou’s most popular dish. We were served an entire crab which had been pre-cracked in targeted places for us. While it was difficult to get to all of the meat (which we expected), we were in pepper heaven. We dug for every crevice of crabmeat and used our rice to soak up every last drop of green onion/peppercorn sauce.

Our second dish was fried fish with ginger. While the Khmer name was probably more descriptive, ordering such an English description was a bit of a gamble as the “XXX with ginger” dishes can often be bland and boring. I needn’t have worried though. We were served freshly pan fried fish fillet pieces with lots of ginger and onions in a very well spiced sauce. Good thing we love ginger!

Today we returned to Ta Eou for our final lunch in Kampot. This time we ordered the shrimp with Kampot peppercorns along with a repeat of the ginger fish. As with our experience at Coconut Grove, the shrimp were a lot less work and tasty as well, though not as delicious as the crab.

Overall, the food at Ta Eou is fantastic, very cheap, and run by very friendly Cambodians. As a bonus, free extras are thrown in left and right, from the peanuts to the unlimited rice, to a plate of fresh bananas given to you with the check. If you’re near Kampot, definitely stop by Ta Eou!

Crab with Kampot pepper

Stir fried fish with ginger

Shrimp with Kampot pepper

Extra goodies included in each meal

Chilling by the river

Ta Ou
River Road, Riverfront
Kampot, Cambodia
+855 33 932422

Daily: 10:00AM-2:00PM (Lunch), 6:00PM-10:00PM (Dinner)

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Seastar is a resort on Long Beach about a 10-minute walk north along the beach from Mai House. They have a beachfront restaurant with open air seating and a good-sized Vietnamese menu. They also serve the best chili lemongrass shrimp I’ve ever had. We discovered it on our first night in Phu Quoc, and returned just almost every day for another hit. Yesterday we discovered you can order it on top of bun noodles instead of rice, which makes the arrangement very much like Tamarind Tree’s chili-lemongrass chicken bun.

Tonight we squeezed in a second 1/2-dinner just so that we could savor the chili lemongrass shrimp as our last bite of Phu Quoc (never mind that we had eaten at Seastar today already for lunch).

The rest of the food we had at Seastar was enjoyable, though not as mind-blowing. Salads were very fresh, with a spicy fish-sauce and lime dressing. The Seastar spring rolls were crispy and well-textured, though the seafood inside didn’t have much in the way of additional flavor.

Overall, Seastar has a nice view, good prices, friendly wait staff, and chili-lemongrass shrimp to die for. If you’re on Phu Quoc Island, take a stroll along the beach and check it out!

Chili lemongrass shrimp from heaven

Papaya salad with seafood

I had many chances to practice my shrimp de-tailing technique: spear bottom with fork, hold spoon face down, and wedge under the tail. Pull out tasty morsel.

View from the restaurant. We never saw anyone actually playing volleyball here.

Seastar
Ba Keo, 7 ward, Tran Hung Dao Street
Duong Dong town, Phu Quoc, Vietnam
+84 (0)77-3982-161

Lunch, Dinner

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We’ve been on the road for 3.5 weeks now and I have yet to find decent-looking ice cream. To be fair, there’s a Fanny’s in Hanoi, but the one day we were nearby we were hankering for a pear tart instead.

Our first night in Nha Trang, we stopped at Romy’s and checked out their ice cream case. Good visuals, so we had a sample of passion fruit and coconut. Both tastes were good, and we walked out with a scoop of coconut. It was very creamy, with fresh coconut and not too much sugar.

Ice cream on display, just how I like it

Romy’s is named after the owner, Fridtjof Rommeley, a German chef who moved to Nha Trang after running a creamery in Germany for 16 years. He’s done a good job of bringing European skill to local flavors. There were amazing-looking sundaes filled with local tropical fruits and three scoops of ice cream. As we ate kilos of fruit on the beach, the most we indulged at Romy’s was a double scoop of mango and chocolate:

Over the course of our five nights in Nha Trang we managed to at least get a free sample of just about every flavor in the case. My favorite two standouts were almond (I’d never had almond ice cream before but I’m definitely making some with almond milk when we’ve back in Seattle), and coconut. Make Romy’s a part of your Vietnam beach experience, the ice cream will make you happy.

Romy’s Ice Cream and Coffee Bar
1C Biet Thu St
Nha Trang, Vietnam
+84 (058) 3527-677

Daily: 9AM-11PM

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Sometimes the Lonely Planet steers you wrong, most often in the food department. Today’s lunch was one of those cases. We went to a Laos restaurant on the Mekong river, described as serving “the best choice of vegetarian Laos food in town.” Little did we realize how different “best choice of” is from “best". While there were indeed a lot of dishes without meat, the actual food was terrible. The fried yellow noodles with vegetables were only nominally better than cup o’ soup, and the “panang curry” was just coconut oil, coconut milk, chicken, and salt. No one should ever advertise this disappointing bland, white sauce as curry. I was too disappointed with the curry to even snap a photo. At least the view was nice.

Lauren and the Mekong

Fried yellow noodles with vegetables

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Yesterday we went looking for Makphet, described by the Lonely Planet as a “small restaurant that trains homeless youth to cook and wait tables” and whose “modern Lao cuisine is both interesting and tasty.” The description reminded us a lot of the good work by FareStart in Seattle, and we were excited to check it out. Unfortunately (as is too often the case) the address in the Lonely Planet is wrong, so we dined elsewhere for lunch and hoped they had moved rather then shut down.

Indeed, Makphet moved a few blocks away in 2008, to a location that we passed on our way home from our bike adventure. The restaurant was cute, and the menu looked delicious, so in we went for dinner.

The menu has many illustrations, trivia about the restaurant, and an extensive set of enticing options from appetizers to entrees to desserts. A few things we learned:

• Makphet means chili in Lao
• All of the produce used is local to Vientiane
• Half sizes of many of the menu items are available, so we can try more!
• 100% of the profits go back into Peuan Mit’s projects for marginalized children in Lao PDR
• Desserts looked awesome, so we better save room

First up, Laap Tao Hou, a banana flower, tofu, and mushroom salad with galangal and soy dressing. Very fresh, a modern twist on classic Lao laap that I enjoyed much more.

The opener: banana flower salad

For our main course, we chose one from the curry page and one item from the stir fry page. The Curry Gai (Chicken Curry with Pumpkin and Mushrooms) tasted similar to the better Massaman Thai curries I’ve had, and worked really well with pumpkin.

The stir fry was my favorite. Kua Pa Sei Pit Ei On (Mekong fish and green peppercorn in Lao rice wine) was stir fried to perfection. The fish was nicely glazed in the rice wine, giving it a slightly sweet taste to offset the powerful green peppercorns. All served on crisp fresh vegetables.

Stir fried fish and green peppercorns (left) and chicken curry (right)

As promised, we had saved room for dessert. But what to choose? Pandan leaf scented sago with mango and coconut milk? Coconut and lime cake with hibiscus flower syrup? Pineapple in palm sugar caramel with coconut gelato and chili? In the end we decided to go off-menu with the daily special: sweet mango cake with coconut ice cream. In a word, awesome. The cake was moist and the ice cream fresh and creamy. Our waiter told us we’ll have to try the coconut and lime cake next time. If only we were in Vientiane for one more day!

No half portions for dessert. Full-sized tasty mango cake.

Overall, fantastic food and your money is going to a great cause. I could not believe that all of the wait staff had been recently living or working on the street; if I hadn’t known it would have simply felt like a nice meal out with top-notch friendly service. There’s also a small handicrafts shop in the back where most of the products are made of recycled materials by local craftswomen.

Makphet
Behind Wat Ong Teu, parallel to Sethathirat Road and the river front
Vientiane, Laos
+856 020 260587

Daily: Lunch, Dinner

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On our first night after moving to Khlong Dao, we decided to forgo the touristy-looking beachfront restaurants in search of something more authentic. We cased the main road, and came upon a cute little family-run restaurant named Thai Is-San. I’m not sure whether it was the menu with a Winnie the Pooh cover, the plastic chair seating, or the smiles from the family that caused us to choose Thai Is-San for dinner, but I’m glad we did.

Dinner consisted of a spicy mango salad and stir fried fish with vegetables in spicy sauce. The mango salad was fresh, crunchy, and spicy (not Sumalee spicy, though a very enjoyable 4-star spice). The fish was breaded and stir fried with garlic, tomatoes, chilies, vegetables, coriander, and a soy-chili sauce. I think the fish is one of their best sellers, as I saw it on about 60% of the tables around us.

We were hooked. The next night we came back for more and enjoyed an even tastier meal, this time with the camera in tow. We had to get another mango salad, one of our current addictions. This time we paired it with green curry. Outside of Thailand I’m not really a green curry fan, though I’ve heard in Thailand it’s how you can determine the good cooks from the great ones. Thai Is-San’s green curry is possibly the tastiest green curry I’ve ever had. It had a depth of flavor with kaffir lime leaves, coriander, shallots, and other spices that weren’t dominated by coconut milk. Add in crunchy green beans, gobi cauliflower, and a healthy dose of fresh island prawns and you can see why we licked the bowl clean. If we weren’t headed to Laos, we’d be back again tonight!

Spicy mango salad

Green curry prawns

The happy family at work together

Thai Is-san
Khlong Dao Beach
Ko Lanta, Thailand

Daily: Lunch, Dinner

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We had arguably the best Thai food I’ve ever had on Nai Yang beach in Phuket. Among the crowd of beachfront restaurants is a gem of a place: Sumalee Seafood. The owner and chef, Sumalee, is a very sweet lady who turns out amazing curries, salads, and other Thai fare. And when you order “spicy!”, it can knock you out of your seat. Our first meal there was a lunch of spicy mango salad and massaman curry. The mango salad was fresh, crunchy and very spicy. Lauren and I rated it “6 star” spicy as it was spicier than any Thai food we’ve had. We chatted with Sumalee after lunch and she told us she used 3 chilies, and for herself she normally uses 1. The massaman curry was quite tasty, similar to the one served at Jamjuree.

The next day we had panang curry and phad see iw for dinner. The panang was reminiscent of the one we made in our Chiang Mai cooking class last year -  a full-flavored, medium dry curry with overtones of lemongrass. It’s always a good sign when panang is a darker brown/yellow color. This curry was so good we came back for another helping today for our final meal in Phuket (this time with vegetables) .

After each meal Sumalee would bring us a few fresh fruits as a complimentary dessert. I think this tradition started because she was swamped on our first visit and the food took a long time to arrive. Nonetheless, we continued to be treated to mangos, watermelon, bananas, and rambutan on future visits.

Super spicy mango salad, fresh and delicious

Sumalee and Lauren

Panang Goong, as good as it gets

Enjoying a tasty and refreshing coconut+pineapple fruit shake

Alas, we eventually had to take our leave of Nai Yang beach and Sumalee Seafood

Sumalee Seafood
Nai Yang Beach
Phuket, Thailand

Daily: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

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On our first day in Phuket, we were approached by a very friendly man on Nai Yang beach. His name is “Mr. Poon” and he is the man behind Poon Restaurant. He is also a full service beach entrepreneur. He provides beach chairs, beer and other drinks delivered to you in your lounger, and will hook you up with a massage or any other service you need. He runs a tab for you until the end of your vacation. You also get Mr. Poon’s humor thrown in for free. We had two lunches at Poon Restaurant, and they were both quite enjoyable.

The first day we had garlic pepper chicken and prawns in Thai sauce. The garlic pepper chicken was fine, though nothing special (in general garlic+pepper sauce has been a bit of a let down on all but one occasion in my Thailand experiences, but that one time was amazing). The prawns in Thai sauce were phenomenal. Spiced at ~4 stars, it was garlicky, of medium thick consistency, and had a greater depth than most soy/oyster-based sauces. It was somewhat reminiscent of Thai Tom’s “#4”. He also showed us how to carve a pineapple.

The second time, we had a repeat of the prawns in Thai sauce and chicken with cashew nuts. We even got a cooking lesson, so now we can make Poon chicken with cashew nuts at home! It was a tasty mix of garlic, chili sauce, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, onions, chilies, and more.

Mr. Poon’s friendliness, reasonable prices, and big personality have earned him a loyal following. We saw many of the same people hanging out at Poon’s section of the beach day after day. Lauren dubbed this crowd the “Poonatics.”

He told us that next time when we come back, maybe he’ll have a second story where people can hang out and have a view of the ocean. We’ll find out when we return.

Hanging with Mr. Poon

Prawns in Thai sauce

Chicken with cashew nuts

Fruit plate (mangos, pineapple, watermelon) served beachside

Poon Restaurant
Nai Yang Beach
Phuket, Thailand

Daily: Lunch, Dinner