World Traveller June 2019

THAILAND
Blazing curries, festivals sizzling with street life,
buildings as pretty as patisserie — who said Phuket was all beaches
and revelry? Nick Redman tries an authentic Thai
omewhere I stopped in at a café
laced with bougainvillea and
open to a street that smelt of
washing powder and incense.
I was heading to fill my face at Naka
night market, beyond Phuket Town, but
the server wiping the laminated pink
tablecloths pulled me in with her grin.
Her doughnuts, just shaken from the
pan and billowing steam, sealed the
deal: puffs of hot, sweet, delicious air.
With a tankard of sugar-laced iced tea,
I must have consumed 2,000 calories
— and I still hadn't had dinner.
When I eventually located it, Naka
market was a welcome sight. Sweetpotato
balls skittered around deep pans
of oil, trailing bubbles, while skewered
squids the colour of tangerines spat
in lines over orange coals. Roe-topped
sushi glistened like fat pink brooches,
drawing Thai families and backpackers
alike into a mild scrum. And that,
as they say, was just for starters.
I'd come to Phuket, essentially, for
a beach holiday, despite knowing that
Thai purists often roll their eyes at the
mention of the name: overdeveloped,
overpriced, basically just over, as tinier
idylls tempt more intrepid travellers.
Sure, in places, it's all gone a bit Patong,
the brazen resort of R-rated stage shows.
And yet, in a week, I found an island of
rare, delicious flavours: magnificent
wildlife, surreal landscapes and blissful
solitude. All that and great food.
It was Aunt Yai and Uncle Nun who'd
whetted my appetite, a Thai couple who
welcomed me into their kitchen in the
shadow of a massive banyan tree by the
sea. It looked reassuringly traditional
‘
I FOUND AN
ISLAND OF RARE,
DELICIOUS
FLAVOURS:
MAGNIFICENT
WILDLIFE,
SURREAL
LANDSCAPES
AND BLISSFUL
SOLITUDE
’
— even the roof was tin, the kind you
see in so many fishing villages. But
enjoying their authentic southern Thai
cooking hadn't entailed a showerless,
sleepless week in a hammock on some
Alex-Garland-scary remote sands.
Quite the opposite — they were inhouse
at Rosewood Phuket, the recently
opened resort I was staying in.
Wanting to have a foot in the real world,
not a perimeter fence between, the hotel
had talent-scouted around and found
their future chefs stirring up a storm in a
casual joint loved by the neighbourhood.
And now here they were, working their
magic for a global guest list. It was so
much more credible than importing
some highly paid international type
with an eye for culinary appropriation.
I liked the setting, Emerald Bay, and
I also liked the Rosewood: a jumble of
Modernist-cubic pavilion residences
knee-deep in jasmine and hibiscus,
smartly furnished with standing mirrors
in ebony-tone frames, drum lampshades
and stained dark floorboards.
This was, of course, a globally
recognisable canvas, which only served
to counterpoint the appeal of Uncle
Nun and Aunt Yai's homegrown cuisine.
Gesturing enthusiastically, they singled
out ingredients for their dishes —
currently lurking in the slate-green
stillness of their pond. Here a grouper,
there a sea bass and behind, in the corner,
a few scuttling blue crabs. A least one of
these would soon reappear in my gaeng
poo: a blazing regional curry speciality
with gossamer-fine noodles brought
steaming to my table under a hazy moon.
Their tour de force was moo hong, a
southern Thai favourite you might call the
signature dish of Phuket. After hours of
simmering in a treacly mix of coriander
root, star anise, soy sauce, palm sugar
and peppercorn, it was cinnamon-sweet
and sludgy-soft, a tinglingly delicious
experience I don't recall from the menu
at my nearest Thai back home. Some
have linked its flavour, soy in particular,
to Chinese influences — most likely
imparted by settlers, who arrived in
droves in the 19th-century, when the
Phuket tin industry was growing to
meet American canning demands.
I'd tried the curry already, in Phuket
Town, my first port of call after landing,
checking in at 2 Rooms, a charming
'30s-style side-alley lodge with a
gramophone and teak-look bed. Woven
with multicultural threads, the island's
informal capital is surely its most
underrated attraction. Despite exuding a
modern, urban feel in places, at its historic
heart it was good enough to eat, in every
respect. Raya restaurant was the kind of
place you wish would open up on your
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