Playing Favourites

Location: Malacca, Malaysia

NP: Sash! - Encore Une Fois

Mood: Cheerful

One custom has arisen from the chaotic non-routine of lengthy travelling. This is playing favourites with some place that we've found pleasant for some reason. Restaurants are the most typical of such places. When you find one you like, it's hard to justify not coming back for a second time. And a third.

You call this macaroni with shrooms?! We spent too little time in Istanbul to find a favourite.

I've been wondering if it's good or bad to keep going back to the same place instead of trying a new one every time. I used to hate it when my parents stuck to a single place over and over again, never exploring what else is out there. Yet, we try new spots every day despite playing favourites, so perhaps this can be forgiven.

On the third visit a place becomes a local favourite. This is the official rule that can be bent but only a little. On this trip we've had several places like this.

In Bangkok our favourite was a place called The Flow. It's a small, family-run restaurant in Banglamphou, next to a bridge on Thanon Samsen, a few blocks north of Khao San Road. They serve several nice dishes of fried rice, though you can find cheaper street food nearby. Service was appealing every time.

The heart-shaped plates of The Flow.

In Cha-Am swimming was the thing to do, so it's not unnatural that our favourite place was Nirandorn 3's swimming pool. Perhaps the sea would've been fine for a swim as well, but there were many stray dogs there, the pool was so near and you could enjoy it by yourself at this low-season. Though small and mostly shallow, it was good exercise too.

On Koh Tao the place to eat at was Mo Nat Thai Food & Sea Food. The elderly lady there is extremely friendly and has travelled the world. Though the restaurant is just off the street and built in a hovel with decaying cardboard floors (that's what they feel like, anyway), their food is very good and inexpensive, and you'll seldom experience friendlier service. This may just be my favourite place of all so far on this trip.

In Koh Pha Ngan our favourite place would probably have to be the beach of Haad Rin in general. It was the place to relax at by day and drink at by night. We didn't manage to find a particular restaurant we liked that much, perhaps apart from a small, cheap roadside eatery on one of the side roads we visited twice.

Sunset at Haad Rin.

Drinking Chang at Haad Rin.

In Trang it was Wunderbar Restaurant for its friendly service and the tourist info it offered rather than the decent but not spectacular dishes. And in Hat Yai it was perhaps the bar Post Laser Disc or The Pubb, but it's hard to distinguish between the two.

Jumping on the Malaysian side, in Kuala Lumpur our favourite was a little roadside eatery in Cheras called Nr Hayati Seafood. This was mainly because of its low prices, but the dishes weren't bad either.

And finally I have to mention my home city of Oulu, because of a single restaurant I've enjoyed more than the others. Though it has good competition from the Greek restaurant Crecian and the excellent pizzas of Pannu, my best experiences are from a little Chinese restaurant called Sheng Long, located on Post Square. The food's tasty and inexpensive (in Finland - in Thailand or Malaysia you'll eat several dishes for the price). A recommended place to check out when travelling in the cold north.