Sa-wat-dee Kah!

It’s mid March and I’m on a trip of a lifetime visiting Thailand. I’m on a foodie month long crawl for Thai cuisine (while working and exercising here of course).  Seafood soups are definitely on my hit list!

First stop for soup: Lobster Restaurant at Nai Harn Beach.

For my first morning in the Rawai Beach Area, I decided take the hotels complementary shuttle to Nai Harn Beach, a short 10-15 minute drive along a windy road. When I arrived at the beach I was very surprised to see how many restaurants and outdoor seating there was. Each restaurant had various coolers of fresh fish displayed – it was wonderful to see. After sitting on the beach lounging for 2 hours, the heat was too much for me so I decided to do lunch there just before the shuttle was to pick me up at 1:30pm.

I decided upon the Lobster Restaurant and was seated by a very cheerful Thai lady (everyone seems to be so nice here in Thailand!) and the Tom Kha Soup caught my attention. I ordered it with a bottled water and paid 220 Baht (includes tip), that is approximately only $6.80 Canadian dollars.

The Verdict of Tom Kha Talay soup at the Lobster Restaurant?

Holy seafood batman! For $6.80 Canadian I got myself a party of seafood that any frugal person would die for. For this kind of soup in Vancouver, Canada, I’m sure I’d be paying $22 for it!

Prawns, mussels, squid and clams. Tons of all of them, like a jammed pack party with no sitting room! I counted and there was about 10 mussels and 5 prawns for example. All seemed very fresh and not overcooked nor rubbery what-so-ever!

Great presentation with the leaf under the bowl as well!

The soup had a ton of lemon grass (the green part and also the pieces that looked like baby potato slices were suppose to be lemon grass per the waitress when I asked her). And noticeable ingredients were: Thai basil, whole cloves of garlic, lime juice, tiny whole onions and some spicy oil (perhaps drops of red chile). Normally when it is 94 degrees out I would not order soup nor lap it up, but this soup seemed very light for a coconut based soup – must have been in a seafood broth with coconut milk. I slurped it all up and it was very good.

I would order this soup again in a heart beat.

When I search for Tom Kha Talay soup recipes, it seems as though it should be healthy because the broth is in fact lighter with stock/and or water versus mostly coconut milk. Here’s a recipe that may be close to what I have (except it has mushrooms, scallops and crab): http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/recipes/cocsea.html

Soup Mistress Rating for Tom Kha Talay Soup: