A couple of weeks ago I touched down in Phuket ready to eat my way around the Vegetarian Festival for the second time. I was last there two years ago and I wrote a couple of pretty substantial posts about the festival food in Phuket and about the vegan eats you can find at convenience stores dotted all over the country. This years fest' was quieter and a lot more chilled (there were very minimal fireworks this time around and no large processions) because the country was still in mourning for the king so my blog post is going to be more laid back too. This year Nick and I met up with our friend Cici (read her post about the festival here) and did a whole lot of eating, drinking, and hanging out. Like her I'm going to focus on my very favourite eats of 2017's festival rather than posting every single thing I ate because that might be a little overwhelming! Without further ado, here are my 2017 Phuket Vegetarian Festival Faves.
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The range of mock meats you can choose from is almost overwhelming and I got three kinds. A black pepper steak, a saucy mock duck, and some red pork. They were all really flavourful and very different texturally. These are up there with the best mock meats I've ever eaten. The faux fishes were all excellent too; one had a great texture but it was really salty so you had to eat it with something else, rice or bread, to stop it being too much, another had a drier texture but the flavour was excellent and lastly, my very favourite of the three, was this yuba faux fish which had both the texture and flavour nailed.
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Favourite Street Food - Takoyaki and pandan custard pancakes
This may be cheating a little as my favourite stall was clearly street food but I couldn't just show you one spot. I'm gonna cheat more and choose one sweet and one savory option for the next two categories because it's my blog and I do what I want. The winner in the savory category were these amazing Takoyaki. I love these Japanese konnyaku filled balls but I'd only ever tried them twice before. I was so excited that they were good, better than good, amazing.
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Favourite Convenience Store Food - Family Mart sandwiches and 7/11 banana muffin
These sandwiches from Family Mart were new to me and took the crown for my favourite convenience store food. I was very excited to see them because I love bread and whenever I travel in Asia I see these cute delicious looking little sandwiches made with white bread in convenience stores and I'm always sad that I can't try them. One was shiitake mushroom and coleslaw and the other was barbecued pork. It's hard to pick a fave here but I'm going with the coleslaw sandwich because that's an unusual thing to find a vegan version of.
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Favourite Stall - The faux meat place on the corner
About halfway up Ranong Road on the left (if you're coming from the roundabout) is a stall in front of a building on a corner which sells mock meats. If you've reached the turnoff towards Jui Tui Shrine you've gone too far. They have so many meats to choose from including three kinds of faux fish, my favourite. Inside the building they have even more faux meats as well as curries and veggies and you can eat there or takeaway. We decided to eat there one lunchtime and we were all very impressed.
About halfway up Ranong Road on the left (if you're coming from the roundabout) is a stall in front of a building on a corner which sells mock meats. If you've reached the turnoff towards Jui Tui Shrine you've gone too far. They have so many meats to choose from including three kinds of faux fish, my favourite. Inside the building they have even more faux meats as well as curries and veggies and you can eat there or takeaway. We decided to eat there one lunchtime and we were all very impressed.
I just noticed that mine and Nick's plates are almost exactly the same!
The range of mock meats you can choose from is almost overwhelming and I got three kinds. A black pepper steak, a saucy mock duck, and some red pork. They were all really flavourful and very different texturally. These are up there with the best mock meats I've ever eaten. The faux fishes were all excellent too; one had a great texture but it was really salty so you had to eat it with something else, rice or bread, to stop it being too much, another had a drier texture but the flavour was excellent and lastly, my very favourite of the three, was this yuba faux fish which had both the texture and flavour nailed.
At 80THB / $2.40 / £1.80 (geeze, this exchange rate) it was more expensive than the other faux meats which put me off trying it for a few days but I'm so glad that I decided to buy it in the end because it was oh so good. I love yuba and I definitely need to cook with it more often. That very same stall also sells these meat sticks which are marinated in a sweet sugary sesame sauce and then barbecued. They taste amazing and make the best snack.
This may be cheating a little as my favourite stall was clearly street food but I couldn't just show you one spot. I'm gonna cheat more and choose one sweet and one savory option for the next two categories because it's my blog and I do what I want. The winner in the savory category were these amazing Takoyaki. I love these Japanese konnyaku filled balls but I'd only ever tried them twice before. I was so excited that they were good, better than good, amazing.
In the sweet category these pandan custard filled pancakes were seriously the best. They were like a little scotch pancake and I was gutted that I was only able to find them twice. They also reheated beautifully in the microwave and made an excellent breakfast snack.
Favourite Convenience Store Food - Family Mart sandwiches and 7/11 banana muffin
These sandwiches from Family Mart were new to me and took the crown for my favourite convenience store food. I was very excited to see them because I love bread and whenever I travel in Asia I see these cute delicious looking little sandwiches made with white bread in convenience stores and I'm always sad that I can't try them. One was shiitake mushroom and coleslaw and the other was barbecued pork. It's hard to pick a fave here but I'm going with the coleslaw sandwich because that's an unusual thing to find a vegan version of.
The 7/11 banana muffin is an absolute festival classic and I always freeze a couple during the first few days so that when the Jay eats have disappeared and I'm getting a bus outa the city I'll still have something delicious to snack on. They're super moist and bursting with banana flavour and I would definitely choose these over the larger banana snack cake every time. Oh and at 10THB / 30¢ / 23p they're a total bargain.
Favourite Drink - Everything at Phuketique!
I would be hard pushed to choose between Phuketique's Thai Iced Tea, the Iced Matcha Latte, or the Iced Latte, because they were all so good. The drinks are all made with soy milk (something that Phuketique serve all year round) and they all come in huge glasses which all three of us were very excited about. I think that the regular latte was probably my absolute favourite but it's kind of a guilty pleasure because coffee and colitis are not good friends and I really shouldn't be drinking coffee if I wanna be a healthy human.
Bonus Fave - Torry's Ice Cream
I wrote about Torry's Ice Cream last time I blogged about the fest' and they've only gotten bigger and better since I was in Phuket two years ago. They have an ice cream cafe now and during the festival they make most of their flavours vegan. My favourite flavour is still the Corn Milk closely followed by the Avocado which I believe is a year round flavour. I was also lucky enough to try their passionfruit sorbet which was really fabulous and tart.
Until next time Phuket!
