Continued from
Part I - Grand Deluxe Sea View Room at Akyra Chura Samui
Part II - Akyra Chura Samui Resort
I'm really excited about sharing this restaurant, a gem that we discovered only during this trip. It's first recommended by a staff at Pullman Arcadia Phuket who happens to be a native of Koh Samui. She told us that Krao Chao Ban Restaurant is well-loved by locals; and when I did a search on the internet, this authentic thai restaurant has indeed received many worthy reviews. In fact, it's located very near (about 5-6 minutes further) to Sabieng Lae Restaurant, our favourite thai restaurant in Samui.
As usual, we rented a bike for our food ventures and took a leisurely ride from Chaweng towards Lamai Beach. Krao Chao Ban is located south of Lamai Beach, precisely at Rocky's Beach (the next town will be Hua Thanon). If you are coming from the direction of Lamai, you will pass by Rocky's Resort and Wat Sila Ngu (temple) and very soon reach Krao Chao Ban.
We were really surprised by the outlook of the restaurant with it's beautiful landscape and sweet decorations. It could pass off as a chic cafe for afternoon tea.
After getting a table and ordering food, I spared no time in going around to take photos of the lovely garden.
I think this place is quite family oriented as well, with swings for kids. Or as a romantic dining place for couples.
Cheery and colourful clay figurines dotted all over the restaurant.
Really brightened one's spirit.
The restaurant is located right next to the beach.
How nice it feels to dine right by the beach, enjoying cool breeze and listening to waves crashing gently.
There are two sections of the restaurant. This section looks more rustic.
Our section looked more modern.
I wanted to try the papaya salad. It was very appetising, spicy and tangy with a slight tinge of fish sauce to accentuate the taste.
Hubby's must-order dish, the Tom Yum seafood. It was very spicy and tangy! But not the best we've tasted, lacked a bit of depth. Very generous serving though, with lots of local straw mushroom.
This was the STAR of the meal!! Deep fried fish in tamarind sauce. The fish was deboned and fried to a crisp yet the fish meat was very tender and sweet. And the sauce was like OMG, tangy and sweet and perfect with the fish! We LOVE this fish sooooo much! If not for the notoriously expensive air fare to Samui, we would fly there every other month just to eat this fish! Yes, it was this good.
We've since tried similar renditions of deep fried fish elsewhere and in Singapore but we just couldn't find anything close. Most restaurants either slit the fish across the body or cut checkers for deep frying but they turned out to be too dry and tasteless. Ok, the closest we came across was Tawandang at Dempsey which did a commendable job of deboning the fish just like this but the sauce is not tamarind. Alas.
We miss this fish so much :((((
My must-order dish, prawn cake. It was so-so, not as good as others I've tried. Good thing it was served with both plum sauce and thai chilli sauce.
Best of all, this meal was under 1000 baht inclusive of drinks. If we were to dine at thai restaurants in Singapore and ordered the same quantity of food, it would have cost 40-50% more. Service quality was also excellent, friendly and prompt.
We would definitely be back again!
Next post, onwards to our favourite restaurant Sabieng Lae Restaurant (it may have fallen grace in lieu of Krao Chao Ban!). Stay tuned!
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