by Miss Terry Diner
The Dining Out Team went a little further afield this
week, down to Ban Amphur, the next “village” after Jomtien (about 8 km
after Lotus on Sukhumvit Road, heading towards Sattahip). As you come into
Ban Amphur, turn right at the traffic lights and follow your nose, winding
round to your left till you come to the seafront. On the right will be a
large car parking area servicing an even larger covered restaurant. This
is not it! Go past and look for a “Coke” sign on the left and a
“Pepsi” sign on the right and you are there.
There is a small off-street parking lot next to the
road and a walkway into the restaurant, which has its name (in Thai - no
English) carved into the wooden lintel. After walking through and down a
couple of steps there is a bar area on the left and a covered dining area
on the right, but keep on walking down to the sand where there are tables
set up, with oil lamps on bamboo poles on the beach itself. Once you have
settled in you will see the previously mentioned large concrete slab
restaurant 500 metres up the coast-line and another similar edifice
another 500 metres down, neither of them having a patch on the beach-side
character of Hoo Kwang Seafood. The effect is heightened by the lamps on
the palm trees, and even the odd beach fisherman hoping for a bite.
Being a typically Thai restaurant there are no small
bottles of beer, and a large Heineken is 90 baht. The menu (in English)
starts with appetizers, generally around 50-80 baht, and then runs into
salads (crab, pork or chicken) also B. 80. From there, the next section is
called Thai food and includes omelettes and stir-fries (B. 80-120).
Next up are soups, which come as small or large (B. 90
or B. 150) and covers all the usual favourites, including tom kha gai and
tom yum goong. These are followed by fried rice dishes (B. 50-100-150 for
small-medium-large) and then “spicy” salads, generally around B. 80.
The next sections are seafood proper, with most being at seasonal price
and done in the usual steamed, grilled or deep-fried manner of cooking.
They do have oysters and even Phuket lobster on the menu.
We began with a spicy salad (and it was, beware of the
prik kee noo, the small green, very fiery, chillies) and a mixed tempura
seafood, which came with two different dipping sauces. This tempura was
excellent (Miss Terry’s choice of the evening), the batter light with a
great flavour and the end result was not soggy or greasy and oozing oil,
as is presented so many times, even in some of our better hotels.
We also had a crab leg dish, with giant crab claws done
in a choo chee style curry. This is not a dish to be eaten with decorum.
This was one to be attacked by hand, the only problem being a lack of a
finger bowl at the end. I poured the cold drinking water, which was
supplied, over my sticky paws. Next time we go I will take some of those
pre-moistened towelettes for this purpose.
Our final dish was a plakapong steamed with a
lemongrass sauce. A large fish, it was very soft, with the white meat
releasing the bones very easily. This was another very flavoursome dish
and Madame’s choice.
The four of us in the Dining Out (exploration) Team
were unanimous in our verdict on this restaurant. The food was excellent,
and the tempura probably one of the best in this region. The ambience was
superb, and it was nice to wriggle one’s toes in the sand. If you are
going to eat seafood, what better place than beside the sea - on the
beach. Great place, great food and worth the time discovering. By the way,
we were not the first farangs to discover this restaurant, there were
about 20 personnel from the local BMW assembly plant there that evening as
well.
Hoo Kwang Seafood, 34/1 M.4, Na Jomtien, Ban Amphur, telephone 038 235
292.
