Food at the Villa in Koh Samui

Continuing with my food fixation, here are some of the dishes and spreads that we enjoyed while at the villa.  We had our own chef and housekeeper to do our grocery shopping and cook our breakfast.  Lunch and dinner were extra meals that we had to pay for - but it was all about the convenience. I'm not ashamed to admit that some of the days we never or barely ventured out of the villa.

This is one of our lunches:

 These crabs were delicious.  They were steamed without any extra sauce or spices but that's kind of how I like it.  They were fresh and tender and, despite their deceptive size, quite meaty (though their legs were pretty inconsequential).

 

One of our dinners:

There was pomelo salad, larb salad, pad see euw, morning glory, tom yum soup, grilled vegetables, papaya salad, and a huge plate of shrimp... all at one meal!  Overall it was really nice to have so much variety of food prepared for us, however, I had two complaints. 

 

One, the staff was crazy with portion size.  The chef constantly cooked like she was cooking for ten or fifteen people.  At one of the dinners we finished eating and we still had enough left over for an entire lunch (with additional leftovers!) the next day.

 

Two, the staff cooked with a ton of sugar.  I could not stand how sweet they made everything - the morning glory, the noodle dishes, the salads... they were all really sweet.  We suspected it was because they did not know how to cook "mild", so rather than just toning down the chili they just dumped in the sugar.  Or maybe they've been taught to cook that way to appease the "pharang" appetite.  Either way, it took a lot of hand gesturing, slow explanation, and some Thai (thanks to one of the girls who lived in Bangkok growing up and had a handy arsenal of Thai phrases) to finally get across that we liked the food the way the Thais ate it, not the way they think foreigners like it!

This is the kitchen area and breakfast bar where every morning we would drink our fresh coconuts, eat our fresh fruit, and have eggs made to order and banana pancakes:

I mean, check this place out - would you want to leave?  The living room and kitchen looked out onto the pool and water with floor to ceiling glass doors.  The doors could also be opened completely, so that the house was essentially open to the elements.

The view almost looks fake, right?  They were smart to use all glass dividers along the top and bottom balconies at the villa.

 

These fresh flowers were strewn all over my bed the first night.  They burned citronella oil in all of the rooms to keep out the pesky mosquitoes.