It's not often that I have a life changing experience whilst eating at a restaurant, but on this occasion I was literally blown away by the whole experience! I arrived soaking wet and out of sorts after getting stuck riding my scooter through torrential monsoon rains. When the rain starts in Thailand I've learned its best to find cover and fast, and yesterday I did just that and discovered this jewel of a restaurant called Vegan Phuket. I was pleasantly surprised on arrival to see a beautiful front garden with several tables and chairs laid out, and even a fan outside to help counter the hot humid air. I had to sit outside due to the fact that I was dripping wet, but did have a quick peek in the restaurant itself before i took my seat. It was spotless inside, the atmosphere was very welcoming and i was quite excited to eat here after reading so many 5* reviews on google maps.

The service was so special, even before any food arrived it was plain to see that the waiter was not only here to serve me, but to make me feel as happy and comfortable as he could! Since i was so wet and even a little cold I ordered a hot coffee to start. I usually drink my coffee black, but since its a vegan restaurant and the waiter offered me a few types of milk i decided to try the cappuccino. I chose oat milk and waited a few minutes whilst enjoying the garden and good vibes. The coffee was presented better than ive ever had a coffee brought to me, with the obligatory heart pattern on the top with white milk, as well as small glass of water and a spoon. It came on a nice rustic wooden plate with the name of the restaurant burned onto it. Beautiful! Im sure that presentation helps things taste better, and i must say that this coffee was first class! Normally i don’t find vegan milk works well in coffee, but somehow they had nailed it and I had one of the best coffees ive had in my life. The taste, strength and flavours were truly delicious, not a hint of any burned taste. Clearly they knew exactly how to make a cup of coffee and I drank it slowly whilst checking out their expansive menu.

I was impressed with the range of foods offered by this menu, it was huge and covered most of my favourite dishes including the one and only vegan pizza! I always appreciate it when there are pictures of each dish as you really get to know what the dish is and how it i will look on the plate when served. It was a great challenge to choose from this vast array of amazing looking dishes, and i noticed that they referred to the dishes as meat names rather than vegan ones. I think there is some disapproval by some people for using the same names as meat in a vegan dish, but i personally totally approve of this! As someone who does eat meat sometimes, it makes it easier to understand what the dish may taste like when we have it. IT may not be bacon, or chicken or whatever, but it shows me what to expect, and i think makes it more exciting since we psychologically do think we are still having the foods we love. Not all vegans ate plant based foods all their lives, and these days more and more people are turning to vegan food, and I think this helps them to feel like they are not missing out.

So i noticed that the prices were not only reasonable but also very cheap here, despite the quality of the food and establishment. I was also feeling very hungry as i skipped breakfast and I REALLY wanted to try more than one dish as everything looked amazing. I haven’t yet tried a vegan pizza on my tour so i decided to go for a small pizza just to see what it would be like. I also chose the jade noodles with grilled duck as those green noodles looked amazing, and i also really enjoy the taste of real duck and was curious how this would compare. Then i ordered the stir fried hokien noodles since i love noodles and these were thicker, more like a chow mein from a Chinese restaurant. Finally i ordered the stir fried holy basil. I think that is four dishes and my intention was to take home anything i didn’t finish, which i told the waiter as i ordered.

I waited around 15 minutes and then the waiter arrived, with my entire order parcelled up in bags and ready to take home! OOppppps! I take full responsibility for this mistake as im sure he assumed one man would never eat all this, and i did use the words take home as i tried to explain that i may not finish all this. I was a bit embarrassed to be ordering so much. So the waiter took it all back and returned just moments later with everything plated up. I mention this because i think its possible this may have negatively effected the presentation on my plate, which was very good even after the dishes being unpacked.

So i started with the Jade noodles and grilled duck since those noodles were calling my name! OOhhhh my god, what perfection! Firstly those noodles.. I don’t know how the chef did it but everything about them was perfection!

Visually they looked amazing, but they also tasted so good even all on their own with no sauce or duck. The texture was also perfection as they had that amazing bouncy or chewy feel to them as you ate. There’s nothing i dislike more than overcooked or flaccid noodles! I simply demolished this dish, the duck also tasted amazing, especially with the hoisin type sauce that it came with. It did of course lack that certain something that duck has, but I enjoyed it just as much if not more as i didn’t have to contend with any weird fatty bits etc. Amazing start, clearly this dish was cooked with love and expertise.

I could wait no longer to check the pizza out as for me pizza needs to be eaten fresh! It looked everything that a good pizza should be, and you could not tell it was vegan just by looking at it.

The cheese is a hard part to get right on a vegan dish, but it looked all creamy and shiny rather than grainy or coarse in texture which can be the case with some vegan pizzas. It has a good thickness to it, but also had all the puffs and raised round air holes that i new meant that the dough was well made. In went the first piece, and to my delight it was incredibly good! Yes, the cheese did lack that stringy stretchy element, but im OK with that as i find it annoying when im trying to eat pizza and the cheese is about to slap me back on the face! Also a good mozzarella cheese does not do that, it more like melts in the mouth which i find a much more pleasurable experience. The most important part of a pizza is the dough in my book.

A pizza with a well made dough makes or breaks the dish. In fact ive had amazing pizza with almost no sauce or cheese on it, but it tasted the best just because the dough was prepared and cooked to perfection. I ate three of the four slices in a few moments of culinary heaven, and fully enjoyed the tomato sauce, cheese and veggies that it came with. It was amazing, and i had to stop myself eating the last slice so i didn’t fill myself up too much. That pizza was better than many if not most non vegan pizzas i ve had, and ive had a few here just in the last two weeks, and from VERY good real pizza establishments!

Next i went on to the stir fried Hokien noodles. They were nicely swimming in a sauce which i appreciated as im not really into dry noodles on a plate, very boring indeed. This dish was also amazing, delicious and a kind of perfection really. The sauce was SO good, not too salty, and i should add that nothing i was served tasted oily or in any way heavy.

I again devoured this dish and enjoyed the round firm balls of i don’t know what they were very much! I finished the plate and i think if you had been watching me that my face must have been quite amusing to watch. I broad smile im sure!

I was starting to get full, and still had the last dish to accomplish. Before I started it that last slice of pizza was staring at me and asking to be eaten, so i finished that off quickly before i got into this final dish of stir fried holy basil.

This was the only dish i could not finish, and so i made sure to eat all the beans and about half of the soya protein.. which did resemble a kind of minced meat. Again the tastes were very good, all the sauces in all the dishes were very well made. It looked like, to my great surprise i would be taking nothing home! Ooops, bad Alex such a greedy man :)

Once i had finished i was quite relieved and also surprised to notice that i felt pleasantly full, and not at all sicky or bloated or any of the feelings we may have if we ate, for example, a large Chinese meal. I can clearly remember promising myself never to eat Chinese again almost every time in the UK once i had finished eating. Ugh! That is testimony to the chef, and also how much better plant based foods and balanced dish are for us!

I was elated really, and simply HAD to go inside to meet and thank the chef. I am amazed that the kitchen was so small, and SO spotless.

It was just one woman who was there cooking, and i just thanked her profusely for this amazing meal(s), and she received it well. I have no idea how she learned to cook everything so well, and i can see that she really is a very special woman indeed. To be able to cook that many different dishes that well and with so much care and attention meant that she must have studied and worked hard for a very long time. Clearly she cares deeply about pleasing her guests, and i send her as much gratitude as i can muster!

Finally the bill was presented to me, and i had to take a second look at it. I was dumbfounded to see that this entire meal, which consisted of four entire main course dishes came to only 558 Bhat ($15).

Incredible value, i have paid that for just a pizza in many places. I smiled and tipped her way over the odds, she deserved it and there was just two other guests eating at the time which is not very many at all. Things are quiet in Phuket as the pandemic as slowed things down a lot and this place needs to keep going!

This is a place i would walk a very long way to eat at, and indeed the one couple who were eating there told me that they lived 6 hours away and would only eat there when they were in the area. The husband of the couple also shared a few great insights into Thai culture and i learned a lot from him in just those few minutes of chatting about what makes the Thai people tick, and their great attitude and desire to please each other. I was humbled and transformed in ways i can not yet explain, as i said this truly was a life changing experience!