Naowarat Restaurant in Phuket Town

Update: Naowarat is gone now. The owner passed away. RIP. I think the blog makes it clear that I prefer good local food, local style rather than fancy food with descriptions in French and drizzles of sauce. I like food. Good, simple food. Now, partly this may be due to my upbringing, and I am happy that my wife totally agrees .. she knows what she likes and likes what she knows! While my tastes do change and I have temporary favourite dishes, I try to find restaurants that serve Thai food without fancy embellishments and don't ask me about "fusion" food, please. I also prefer to eat good local food that does not cost an arm and a leg. In Phuket you can find lots of fancy restaurants, the same ones seem to be listed on many websites. The kind of places where you are likely to spend 1000 - 1500 Baht per person, and yeh, I know some people have loads of money and like to eat fancy food, but is that food really better than what you can get at a much simpler restaurant? Certainly for Thai food... I have seen restaurants which have something on the menu like green curry, priced at 600 Baht! Would that be better than a 90 Baht green curry? Ha!

So anyway, we're not rich or fancy or even pretend-fancy. We like good food at a good price, preferably a restaurant with some style or history, friendly staff and hopefully a nice location! If our bill for 4 people approaches 1000 Baht, that's expensive. Sure, we don't order lobster and tiger prawns, but just about anything else goes and we often over-order and leave stuffed full having spent 600-800 Baht for the family. Those are the kind of restaurants you get on this blog. I often don't blog the really cheap local places that we kind of use as back-up when we can't be bothered to cook at home. In non-touristy areas you'll find plenty of small roadside restaurants or noodle shops where a family of 4 can eat for 200-300 Baht, and there are several of these that we often use within a couple of km of our house. The Naowarat restaurant is one that has become a favourite recently. We first ate there just a few months ago, as they were doing good vegetarian food during the Phuket Vegetarian Festival. Many restaurants in town are either closed or serve only vegetarian food during the festival, as most are owned by locals who will observe the correct diet during the festival. We have been back to Naowarat half a dozen times since, and now they serve all kinds of tasty food.



It's a "ready food" restaurant, like the Thai equivalent of fast food. You see a lot of this kind of restaurant around, but some do look a bit lacking in the hygiene department, and I leave it up to my wife to decide which ones are clean enough! Naowarat is a good one, and has a great choice of meat dishes, fish, curries, vegetable dishes, some spicy, some not. We just ask for this and that (whatever looks good to you), along with a plate of rice per person, then find a table. I'm not sure of opening hours. We only ever go in the evening for dinner.



(above) Ordering dinner. I'll have one of those and one of those, please. And rice.

By the way, no beer or coke here, just iced water with your food. Plates will all be on the table in a couple of minutes. If anyone does actually read this and eat here, order a few things, test your taste buds! It's going to cost you 35 - 60 Baht per plate depending what you order and 10 Baht for rice. I love "Pla Pad Pet", a spicy fish dish, and my wife says the "Gaeng Som" is great - that's a really typical south Thai style curry. Our daughter is now eating the spicy stuff too, she's also on the gaeng som, and our son loves Kai Palo, a dish made of eggs and pork with a non-spicy sauce.



(above) Some of our food - we were with another family on that day, altogether 4 adults and 5 kids and the bill was just over 600 Baht. My favourite fish is in the middle of the table there next to some tasty fried veg that was so good our friend's healthy son asked for another plate. The restaurant is built into an old shophouse with all kind of decorations around, a display case full of amulets, Buddha images, photos of kings, it's a bit of a treasure trove in there!



The ladies who run the place are always smiling and always seem to have friends round for a chat. It's an old local restaurant which has plenty of regulars, the food has always been tasty and as you can judge the food from the photo below .. all the plates are empty as we are leaving! All finished! And the owner always has time for a laugh and a chat. Phuket Town is the place to be for good local food!



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