Samui Seafood Restaurant

My wife not being accustomed to spicy food but had a strange thing for Thai food. She actually liked it. On our previous trip to Bangkok in the days or yore, she actually could stomach the foodcourt at MBK. So this experience to Koh Samui helped me see how much she could take.

We entered Samui Seafood Restaurant full of hope and ambition. Like many other seafood stalls along the Chaweng stretch, the restaurants would parade their fresh seafood at the entrance of the restaurant so that they can entice customers to enter the restaurant and you can have the seafood cooked any way you want.

Honestly, I entered the restaurant because I thought it was pretty. Okay? I am the food-critic. I am shallow. Little did I know that the restaurant, if I believe my failing memory correctly, is actually opened by one of the maid servants that took care of the Thai King and actually cooked for him. In Thailand, its a big deal. To me, I was like, if the King liked her food, I would too! (See, shallow.)

I wanted my wife to feel like she knew what she was doing and so I asked her to order something she thought looked good, my wife ordered the cashew chicken. I would normally laugh at her because cashew chicken isn't exactly Thai, but you know for her first time in a pretty authentic (I am using pretty authentic because there is also a huge western menu in the restaurants for the FARANG) Thai restaurant and she was trying her best. I chipped in by ordering the tourist favorites, my tom yum soup, pineapple fried rice, pad thai and my fantastic lime juice.

The verdict: I loved the pineapple seafood fried rice. It was actually served in a pineapple, so it was a plus! There was a good blend of sweetness and the texturing was tangy and perfect. The pad thai was good. It wasn't outstanding like the pineapple fried rice but the key was to mix everything up. The nuts, the sprouts, the noodles and the shrimp, we didn't really do that and I think that's why it was quite disappointing. My tom yum soup was fantastic. Its not the clear broth that I prefer but the amount of seafood and bite in it, took all my other reservations away. Tom yum soup is the type of soup that is flavored by lemongrass and the spiciness only kicks in 30 seconds after you swallow the soup, that's the brilliance of it. The cashew chicken, well, was bad.

I would just like to add again how pretty the restaurant was. The restaurant is located at the end of the busy Chaweng stretch and it was fun to ride the local "bus," i.e. the back of a truck there.

In the end, not the most authentic Thai food but almost there!