Samui Favorites - Pee Soon

Ha Ha Ha! – and no it’s not a review of an upcoming Adam Sandler movie. It happens to be one of the best Thai seafood restaurants on Koh Samui – in my humble opinion (and Nadine’s too). While the restaurant’s name looks funny to Westerners, Pee Soon is actually the owner’s name and he’s been serving fabulous seafood dinners for the past 11 years. When my favorite seafood place closed a few years ago, a friend recommended it (Thanks Nigel!) and explained that anyone he knew that had a Thai wife or girlfriend, if she got to pick where to go to dinner, it was to Pee Soon. So, whenever we hunger for good seafood, we make our way there and if anyone is visiting us, a dinner there always happens.

The Selection!

Located right outside Chaweng in a market area off the Lake Road, the restaurant itself is very simple – outside and very minimal facilities – and always an adventure. The last time we had dinner there, it rained and the area flooded, but we just put our feet up and waited till it receded. The surroundings blur, however, when the food reaches the table and doesn’t come back into focus until there’s just scraps and empty plates. 

Pee Soon himelf

Along with oysters, crabs and daily specials, the seafood selection includes squid, red snapper, white snapper and prawns which can be barbequed, steamed or fried. Our favorite evening at Pee Soon has us feasting on barbequed squid served with sweet and hot chili sauces and egg mayonnaise, white snapper steamed with lime, garlic and chili, the not-to-be-missed house specialty, blue crab fried in curry paste, and all accompanied by savory Thai dishes like Chinese kale with crispy pork and Tom Yum Goong, a spicy soup made with shrimp. Pee Soon is only open in the evenings and is easy to find – all you have to do is call Pee Soon himself for directions +66 (0)81 271 4630.

Blue Crabs fried in Curry

Excited about Western food again – Part 1

I’ve been in Asia almost 10 years now and, at this point, realize that yearning for a fully stocked grocery store, the local greasy spoon, a hole-in-the wall bakery or Taco Bell is counterproductive, and all it really does is make me hungry for things I can’t have. Eating the local cuisines in Asia, however, has been fantastic. Before I moved to China, you couldn’t pay me to eat Chinese food in the US. My first real meal in mainland China was at a Hunan restaurant in Shanghai’s French Concession. The restaurant itself was a dive and catered to Westerners. I found out later that no self-respecting local would eat there as the restaurant was always getting fined by the health bureau and at the top of the list of dirtiest kitchens reported in the Shanghai newspapers. For my mouth, it was love at first bite! And I continued to eat there for years. Hunan province is in central China and its cuisine reminds me of Cajun & Creole food from Louisiana. Just thinking about the dry-rubbed braised pork ribs or the sour beans with minced pork and chilies brings to mind some of the best times I had during my six-year stay in Shanghai.

Prior to this first meal, tofu was indeed the devil, put on plates to torment children everywhere – or in one word – YUCK! And then the waiter put a shallow dish full of tofu in a lumpy red sauce near me and, since I had traveled half way around the world, I decided to take a spoon full – and was immediately entranced. The dish, Mapo Doufu, is tofu in a spicy chili & bean sauce, usually thin, oily and bright red, with minced pork or beef - and in no way comparable to the disgusting tofu of my childhood. This began a very happy six years of exploring the various Chinese cuisines available in Shanghai from Xinjiang lamb feasts and Beijing Duck palaces to Sichuan fire pot and steamed buns filled with greens and tofu from a long-gone street stall near my first apartment on Huaihai Road.

On the other hand, when I arrived in Shanghai in 2000, Western food was frightening and also frightfully expensive – especially compared to Chinese food. In those days, most of us ate locally and didn’t really frequent the overpriced Western restaurants that served mediocre food. Even cooking at home was problematic as most kitchens consisted of a sink and a two-ring gas stove. No oven - I didn’t realize how much I used an oven until I tried to cook my first meal. I finally found a small electric oven at Carrefour that I could fit one dish in and finally make some good, old-fashioned comfort food like macaroni and cheese. A further challenge was shopping for ingredients as there was no guarantee things were readily available – even if they had been the week before.  And then to top it all off, when you used ingredients coming from all different countries, dishes you’d slaved over then didn’t taste right. As the years progressed, the shopping did get better and, while never exactly easy, producing home cooked treats made sure you never lacked for friends.

The usual suspects at one of our favorite Hunan places - the private dining rooms were all tricked out with couches and sound systems for Karaoke for after dinner fun -