We spent our first two days on Samui in Bophut, on the island’s quiet northern coast. Our hotel was walking distance (including a peaceful night-time stroll along the deserted beach) from a little stretch of shops, hotels, and restaurants called Fisherman’s Village. For our first dinner we went to a homey place called the Hut on the eastern end of the village.
We arrived just in time to snag one of the last tables (granted, there aren’t that many), and sat sipping our young coconuts while we waited patiently for our food. I stress the ‘patiently’ part because it did take some time for even our cold dishes to arrive, and there wasn’t much in the way of pacing to their arrival, but this really was our one gripe of the night.
Because the food was fantastic, exceedingly fresh, well-cooked and -seasoned. We ordered a seafood pad thai, papaya salad, fried fish with Thai spices (fried basil and lemongrass), Massaman beef curry, and a ground pork & veggie soup.
The noodles were sweet and springy, with crisp scallions and bean sprouts, tender squid rings and shrimp, just as one might hope for out of a seafood pad thai after a few squeezes of lime.
Light on sauce, the fish was a nice contrast to the rest of the meal (sweet and soupy), with the oily flavor of fried basil and punch of lemongrass to bolster the succulent meat.
Ever since Lemongrass last year in Bangkok, I’ve been partial to Massaman curries. While this one wasn’t quite as memorable as Lemongrass’ version (it didn’t have the tender chunks of beef or a sedentary layer of spices to spoon over rice), but the potatoes were deliciously waxy, having picked up the mild, almost sweet flavors.
The soup was excellent, hot and savory, but it came at the end of the meal, when I had run out of gastrointestinal capacity to handle a steaming bowl of soup. But I did finish that little topping of fried garlic – don’t worry.
The Hut was a phenomenal meal, a much better alternative to the much larger restaurants up the street with multi-cultural menus and more seats. We had to wait a bit for our food, sure, but we would trade that anytime for food as delicious as this, and a friendly waitress to laugh mockingly my big-stomached fullness.
The Hut
Eastern end of Bo Phut Road (small road closest to the beach)
Across from The Waterfront hotel
House of Hao's 