Cambodia and Thailand - February 2011
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
Only Noodles... Only noodles. This is the name of a tiny restaurant that we loved in Koh Phi Phi. On the menu, noodles, exclusively: the famous Thai fried noodles, called Pad-Thai. In my humble opinion, this is the best place to eat a Pad-Thai to Koh Phi Phi!
Only Noodles, the restaurant of pad-thai
It's the other girl, my travel companion, who crashed in front of the restaurant. It must be said that we can't miss it.
The small room is lined with thousands of loose sheets of paper, where customers have left messages, compliments and drawings, in felt-tip pen. Just for that, we want to settle down!
The room itself, like all the small street restaurants, doesn't look like much. Four rough wooden tables, small plastic chairs, chopsticks and spoons in pots, fans in the corners. A lady stirs noodles in the adjoining kitchen, hidden behind her steaming wok. No plates, the Pad-Thai are served in vulgar plastic trays.
It's full. I hesitate. I ate a Pad-Thai the day before, already. But the other girl has never tried it before.
There's a guy by himself at the first table. Seeing us dithering, he invites us to sit with him. That's nice. All right, well, let's go!
Yummy yummy!
The time that our order arrives (a Pad-Thai chicken and a Pad-Thai shrimps), we read the little words, left by the customers who preceded us, in all languages... What good recommendations!
We are not disappointed, when our pad-thaï arrive. In the tourist restaurants, the noodles are often too fatty, a bit bland. Here, everything is perfect: the aspect, the consistency, the flavors. We enjoy it.
Our portions, washed down with a Singha, the Thai beer, are quickly swallowed.
Once full, we sigh of ease, in spite of the heat, vaguely stirred by the ventilators.
"To try it is to adopt it
Then, we appropriate the felt-tips and sheets placed at disposal to leave a word, us too. We hang our message well in sight, on the left side of the entrance.
We didn't break our heads too much: "Excellent pad thai!!! Trying it is adopting it!" The logo below, which I've been working hard to draw, is a wink to the readers of a big daily newspaper in the West of France who might pass by... 😀
Today, four months later, we wonder if it is still there, our piece of paper...
And also: the best mango-shake from Koh Phi Phi
The nice thing is that the noodle lady works with the lady across the street, who runs a small street bar.
The cocktails are famous there. But it's also where I had the best mango-shake of the island. And I know about mango shakes. I even take pictures of them.
The little bar has become our evening HQ. The welcome is charming, the shakes always fantastic.
Local food market
The restaurant and bar are easy to find. Both are in the nicest street of the island to eat, the street of "local food market, marked in blue on the map below.
This is one of the few streets on the island where you can find a small semblance of authenticity, in the middle of the tourist village of Ton Sai.
There are a lot of small shops and bouibouis, Asian style, where they serve everything: skewers, fish, fresh fruits, rice plates, noodle soups, pancakes, etc.
Yummy yummy!
🙄