Eating on the road guarantees some of the best food you can get, that is, if you are on your way from Bangkok to the east coast resort island Koh Chang.
This is judging by the two places my van stopped going and coming from the island. Both were in Chanthaburi Province.
One restaurant turned out beautiful fresh seafood. The other offered regional dishes. Both were charmingly local, not tourist places that water down food to please foreigners.
At the first stop, Pooja Thachaleb, I could look into the open kitchen, where women were cutting up vegetables and frying freshly caught seabass that would come to the table with a spicy shredded green mango sauce.
Pooja means crab, and the restaurant logo is a smiling cross-eyed crab wearing a chef's hat. Perhaps he's smiling because he's the only one who escaped the cookpot.
My table was almost overwhelmed with big platters of cracked crab and crab cakes with plum sauce that showed how well the restaurant cooks its signature dishes.
More platters held huge whole prawns, prawns stir-fried with very fresh crisp peapods and jumbo-sized prawn cakes that could have passed for donuts.
The restaurant sent out big bowls of fried rice too and, for dessert, chunks of watermelon, pineapple and green mango to dip into a mixture of sugar, salt and red chile.
I don't imagine there are many roadside restaurants where you can eat your fill of such luxury dishes for about $8 a person.
Pooja Thachaleb Restaurant, 136/2 Moo 9, Thachaleb Bangkaja, Muang Chanthaburi, Chanthaburi, Thailand. Tel: (039) 391129.
After a couple of days in Koh Chang, it was time to move on to Pattaya. The first stop after getting off the ferry was the town of Chanthaburi, which is known for gems. Few shops in the wholesale jewelry district were open that day, and I only bought a stuffed cloth cat from a sidewalk stand.
But Chanthorn Phochana was open, and my group went in to try such local dishes as fried Chanthaburi style noodles with crab.
The noodles were soft but chewy, and the tiny fresh water crabs had been deep-fried in their shells. The sauce was spicy and slightly sweet.
Deep-fried Vietnamese spring rolls had been prepared Chanthaburi style, hardly an exotic dish because Vietnam is so close to Thailand.
What stood out was an extraordinary crab dip flavored with kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass and shallots.
Set around the bowl were the dippers--not carrots, celery and broccoli, but bitter melon, okra, winged beans, corn, cabbage and an intensely bitter herb, maera kaenuk (that's only a guess at the spelling) that Thais think can prevent cancer and HIV.
Bai cha muang, another herb that I hadn't seen before, appeared in a soup and in a pork curry that was so good I was delighted to learn that the restaurant sells it canned.
As soon as I had the tempting can in my hand, ready to impress my friends back home with this unusual dish, I remembered that meats aren't allowed into the United States. I put it back and bought instead a crisp durian snack with coconut and Thai herbs to eat on the road.
Drinks and desserts were limited. We ordered canned mangosteen juice and sala in syrup. Sala, a small tropical palm fruit, is fairly common, but the rest of our lunch was not. To find food of this type, you have to get off the tourist track, and Chanthaburi is a good place to do that.
Chanthorn Phochana, 98/2 Benjamarachuthit Road Watmai, Muang Chanthaburi, Chanthaburi, Thailand. Tel: (039) 02350.
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