Dairy Hut Seafood Restaurant, Phang Nga

Happy New Year 2013 (or 2556 here in Thailand, we're way ahead)! This is the first blog post of 2013, and it's a restaurant we tried on January 1st. From our house near Phuket Town we can normally drive over the Sarasin bridge in about 45 minutes and over the bridge is Phang Nga province which we are exploring more and more in the last couple of years. I need to make a new blog post about Phang Nga linking to all the posts on the blog that involve a trip over the bridge. On January 1st we headed out for a new year lunch, and Dairy Hut Seafood was the target. We'd seen it opened sometime last year, a new branch of the Dairy Hut restaurant in Phuket Town, which is one of our regular places.

From the bridge, its about 40 minutes to Phang Nga Town and there are places to visit on the way such as Wat Suwan Kuha, a temple built in a cave, and Wat Manee Sri Mahathat, which is right by the road, featuring a huge black statue of a revered monk. Just before Phang Nga town, there's a junction - the road goes straight to town and right towards Krabi, and this is also the way to Surat Thani and the east coast of Thailand. Less than 1km down this road is a PTT gasoline station on the right, and 2km later on the left is Dairy Hut Seafood. Easy to spot.



It certainly looks like a newly opened restaurant - all very clean, freshly painted and with carefully tended grounds. And of course on January 1st it was quite full. A lot of cars parked and I was worried we'd not get a table! But it's bigger than it looks, and there's lots of outdoor (shaded) seating. Great location. Near the road, but it's not noisy, right next to a jungly mountain and a lake, and here's the view on the other side of the road...



I liked the place right away, and I am sure we'll eat there again. Seating was comfortable, and we had a lake view from our table. The menu is big, and it would be easy to over-order! We ended up spending about 900 Baht for 4 people (yeh, 2 of the people are kids, but I tell you our kids eat a lot!). Price will depend what you order of course, as you can get lobster and big prawns or mantis shrimp, these cost more and are priced per kilo. We ordered half a dozen dishes and by the end we were stuffed, the food was not finished and we asked for a doggy bag!

The view from our table. Cheers! Happy New Year!



So, what did we eat? First, I ordered 'Yam Pla Duk Foo' which is fried catfish salad, and a favourite dish of mine. I often head straight for the Thai Spicy Salad section of the menu. I like Yam Tua Pu (wingbean salad), Yam Gung Seab (dried shrimp salad), Yam Ta Krai (lemongrass salad) and more. The plate of Pla Duk Foo here was big. It comes with a mango salad with cashews and chili. Delicious!





I'm hungry just looking at that. Also had a fried fish dish, my daughter had some spaghetti carbonara, we also had some chicken with garlic and a big beef and vegetable hotplate. Everything was tasty though the spaghetti looked more like noodles and my daughter said they do it better at Dairy Hut in Phuket.





This restaurant is certainly aimed at Thai people who want a nice, but not expensive, meal out. You can tell a lot by looking at the other guests, and the licence plates on the cars in the car park .. a lot were from Phuket. I did see 2 other non-Thai customers, both I guess were foreign residents like me, eating out with the family. Now of course a restaurant like this is not a place you're likely to visit for lunch if you stay in Kata beach. It would be a 2 hour drive, and you'd not want to get a taxi for a ride like that, would cost more than the food. If you stayed in the north of Phuket, or rented a car and went exploring in Phang Nga, a great place to stop and eat for sure, or try Tha Sai Seafood, a bit further away from Phuket, or Samchong Seafood, a bit closer. All in Phang Nga province. Just over the bridge from Phuket island ...

Dairy Hut Seafood - Location Map


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