KFC - Koh Phangan Fried Chicken

We are in paradise, a great place to stay on a beautiful beach, there is one thing missing though, good food. All the beach-front restaurants catering to Western palates serve up substandard food at inflated prices.

There is one that stands out above the rest and that is 'Nice Beach' , friendly staff and a small Thai menu covering all the basics. Red and green curry, fried rice with cashew nuts and a variety of soups and noodles. We have eaten here everyday for lunch and dinner, along with everyone else that is staying on this beach. In need of a change of scenery and menu Adam & I go in search for some authentic local food to wake-up our jaded palates.

Along the back-streets of Thong Noi Pan Yai we discover a roadside food stall, popular with the locals. Today's special is Fried Chicken Wings and Papaya Salad.




Small, crispy, brown chicken bits are scooped out of a large blackened wok filled with hot oil. They are offered to us for a taste and they are delicious – hot, crunchy and salty. After this the chicken wings are removed from marinating in a batter and placed in the wok.




While the chicken is cooking, the lady asks if we would like a papaya salad and since the last one I ate was in Bangkok, I am keen to try another to see what the regional differences are. We stand there watching the preparation. (see photos)




2 garlic cloves in their skins and 2 chillies are thrown into a large mortar and pestle, pounded, then out comes a small tub of fermented whole baby soft shell crab. I am asked if I would like one of these and I am feeling a little adventurous, so she takes the claws and legs off one and this is added to the mortar and the the rest of the body is thrown in, again this is softly pounded.

Next comes a few long green beans chopped too half a fingers length, more pounding, a heaped teaspoon of palm sugar, a generous splash of fish sauce, a large handful of green papaya (grated into spaghetti length strands), one tomato roughly sliced into wedges, then a pinch of salt and the juice of a lime or two and the rind and tossed well and sprinkled with a few roughly chopped peanuts.

A mound of crunch papaya salad with whole baby soft shell crab comes to our table The first mouthful of salad has a few legs of raw crab. Its salty, tangy, crunchy and there is a slight sea flavour, presumably from the crab. Its fabulous but I can't bring myself to finish the crab purely because its not cooked. I pick it out and the flavour is still in the salad, so no loss there.

The fried chicken arrives piping hot with a golden brown crust, a hint of chilli and tender chicken.
It's all finger-lickin' good here! We take a bag of chicken bits to go. We snack on them later, they are cold, have lost their crunch and it suddenly dawns us that we have been eating chicken giblets...