In the third day of our South Thailand trip last month, we went to the other side of South Thailand, some 3 hours drive to the east, from the coast of Andaman Sea to the Gulf of Thailand. On the way, we stopped by the royal fish farm, visited a traditional soap factory and a fabric factory where mangonsteen is used for the smell in soap, and color in the dying process. We also went to Wat Phra Mahathat Woromaha Vihan for a bit and hung out at the silver street of Nakhon Si Thammarat town.
seafood restaurant on stilts
Anyway, you can read Kim here and here for a slightly more detailed report on the trip itself. As for me, I just want to tell you about one of the best seafood dinners I’ve had, thanks to SeeTho’s good taste and willingness to travel far for the best dining experience.
We arrived at this seafood place that is tucked at the end of 4177, a fishing village more familiar with the locals instead of tourists. The name of the restaurant written only in Thai, I can’t tell you what it says, but we went to the middle of the three restaurants at the area.
cheap oysters and really fat clams
Leading to the restaurant is a little market specializing in all sorts of fresh and preserved seafood. There were some huge salted fish, live crabs, fresh prawns, and plenty of cheap live oysters for sale. I don’t know where could you find live oysters for as low as 5 baht each! The really huge ones were only around 20-25 baht ( RM 2.00 to RM 2.50), very tempting.
vegetable, grilled fish, crab, and grilled big prawns
Ordering was left to SeeTho since there’s this little problem of language incompatibilities between the servers and diners. We had seven dishes and some rice to wash everything down. Baked oysters, tomyam seafood, petai, mixed vegetable, grilled fish, Thai style crab, and of course, some huge grilled prawns.
tomyam seafood, petai balacan, and baked oyster
Baked oyster was chosen instead of having them raw for a very good reason, you don’t want to have an upset stomach during a trip where long journey in a van is involved. The oysters were really good though, lightly baked, very fresh and very juicy inside. They were eaten with a combination of sauce and herbs I can’t really name, it was the perfect way to start the meal.
I also really enjoy the petai and the huge prawns. The tomyam, crab, and mixed vegetable didn’t disappoint either. The grilled fish, however, looked really ordinary but turned out to be really smooth with a very soft texture and really sweet taste.
Needless to say, we ended up overfed again. Seafood with that unique Thai style preparation is a winner if you ask me. If you are going to Ko Samui, Surat Thani is actually pretty close by, try to get yourself to this place, you won’t be disappointed. Alternatively, of course, you can always go with SeeTho travels and request to have this seafood meal included.
If I remember correctly, the meal for 8 of us was slightly less than RM 200.
GPS: 9.31031, 99.47774
