Best of

Explore the various aspects of Thailand, from its vibrant cities to its serene beaches, with Thaiger’s Best-of Guides. Covering a wide range of topics including lifestyle, entertainment, travel, and property, these guides will help you discover the hidden gems and top attractions in the country. Whether you are a tourist, expat, or local, our Best-of Guides provide valuable insights and tips to make your Thailand experience truly unforgettable.

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    9 most common health issues covered by insurance for expats in Thailand

    Thailand is a popular destination for expats due to its affordable lifestyle and excellent healthcare system. However, settling in a new country often brings health concerns. To ensure you’re covered for the most common medical needs, understanding what expat health...

  • Sangria’s Bar and Restaurant is an unexpected Spanish oasis on Phuket

    Sangria’s Bar and Restaurant is an unexpected Spanish oasis on Phuket

    PHUKET: With its lively bright green and orange color scheme, Sangria’s Tapas Bar & Restaurant is definitely not the kind of place to go to drown your sorrows. There’s a certain magnetic draw to the warm glow spilling from the huge windows and a definite festive air about the place. The chili tomato meatballs sound simple but surprise with zingy…

  • Donnafugata flies high during Regent Cape Panwa wine dinner

    Donnafugata flies high during Regent Cape Panwa wine dinner

    PHUKET: There is Italy, and then there is Sicily, the country’s most southern region that is, in many ways, closer to Africa than to Europe. There are Sicilian wines, and then there is Donnafugata – the region’s ambassador and symbol of quality. There are wine dinners, and then there are wine dinners at Regent Cape Panwa. The latest, which paired…

  • Celebrity Chef Bobby Chinn brings skills, charisma to Phuket’s Trisara

    Celebrity Chef Bobby Chinn brings skills, charisma to Phuket’s Trisara

    PHUKET: Being stuck in the kitchen might not be your dream way of spending the morning. But if the kitchen is in the lounge of one of Phuket’s premiere resorts, and it’s a celebrity chef that does most of the cooking, things start to look quite different. This morning, it was Trisara resort that opened its doors for a number…

  • Video Report: Simply steak at Phuket’s new La Boucherie

    Video Report: Simply steak at Phuket’s new La Boucherie

    PHUKET: The bold French-style steak house La Boucherie has opened its doors in Chalong and is prepared to take over the island with one successful branch already in Patong and locations in Phuket Town, and possibly Cherng Talay, in the works. However, the international chain La Boucherie, “the butcher” in French, is not attempting to do anything extravagant as it…

  • Food lovers’ meeting place in Chalong

    Food lovers’ meeting place in Chalong

    PHUKET: Wine Lovers restaurant and wine shop presents a huge glass edifice to the bustling Fisherman Way Business Gardens situated next door to the recently opened Makro on the Rawai Road in Chalong. Today’s Wine Lovers is well-known for the quality of its cuisine, broad selection of wines, reasonable pricing and the conviviality of both its indoor areas and its…

  • The thrill of the Grill

    The thrill of the Grill

    PHUKET: Phuket’s very own The Grill at Regent Phuket Cape Panwa has been named one of the nation’s best restaurants by the Thailand Tatler magazine, and will be featured in the prestigious Thailand Tatler Best Restaurant Guide 2014. The guide will feature reviews of 150 fine-dining establishments in Bangkok as well as eateries in some of the major resorts in…

  • Foie gras lollipop steals the spotlight at Trisara six-course dinner

    Foie gras lollipop steals the spotlight at Trisara six-course dinner

    PHUKET: Glancing over the custom menu for a six-course foie gras dinner party one doesn’t expect to be caught up with foie gras gelato. Even less likely to be the culinary star of the evening is the foie gras lollipop hidden at the bottom, next to the coffee selection. However, when anyone sits down for a gastronomic meal at Trisara…

  • JW Marriott Phuket’s Kabuki restaurant entertains all of the senses

    JW Marriott Phuket’s Kabuki restaurant entertains all of the senses

    PHUKET: Let’s be honest – on the scale of things, Japanese cuisine isn’t amongst the most spectacular. Its esthetic appeal, restraint in the use of spices and pure flavors are pleasing, but probably won’t provide you with the hefty injection of endorphins in the way a spicy Indian curry or our daily bowl of tom yum goong does. However, there…

  • Phuket Food: New flavors at Old Time Square

    Phuket Food: New flavors at Old Time Square

    PHUKET: Beneath a fading pastel sunset with the Phuket Town skyline in silhouette, the Phuket Old Time Square drew in the festive crowds for their grand opening celebration on Friday, February 14. It was the confluence of hungry families out to enjoy the dance acts, musical groups and local food stalls, and valentine’s day sweethearts for a night out on…

  • Phuket Dining: Not just another chef

    Phuket Dining: Not just another chef

    PHUKET: “It was quite stressful,” replies Angsana’s Executive Sous Chef Yi-fan Chu when I ask him about his recent appearance on the ever popular “Iron Chef” series on Thai TV. No wonder – with limited time to impress the judges, the special ingredient kept a secret to the very last moment (this time it was a snow crab from Japan)…

  • Phuket Dining: Fired up for the perfect Crust

    Phuket Dining: Fired up for the perfect Crust

    PHUKET: When I got back from a visit to the US recently, a friend asked if I had missed Thai food. I had not. I love it, but what I hankered to eat in Phuket was pizza at “Crust”, a stylish but welcoming little place in the Sino-Portuguese gallery next to Index Living Mall off the Bypass road. Nattanee “Annabelle”…

  • Phuket Food: Danish chef delivers all the delectables

    Phuket Food: Danish chef delivers all the delectables

    PHUKET: With a reputation that precedes them as being one of the finest dining establishments on the island, Mom Tri’s have nearly outdone themselves this time. On January 25, Mom Tri’s Villa Royale showcased a six-course set menu by Danish Chef Per Hallundbaek. After vacationing in Phuket every year since 2000, Chef Hallundbaek finally gave in to the urge to…

  • THINK Design: Art you can eat

    THINK Design: Art you can eat

    PHUKET: We’ve all heard about those elegant and exclusive, more than five star little boutique resort properties hidden away around Phuket but few of us ever get the chance to visit one. It was my good fortune to be invited by Publisher Michael Earle to attend the 40th THINK Design art dinner at Iniala Beach House, tucked away on a…

  • Bodega: The evolution of flavor

    Bodega: The evolution of flavor

    PHUKET: “If you don’t move forward, sooner or later you begin to move backward,” once said former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev in a speech at the Harvard University. He might have been addressing the issue of nuclear disarmament but his words remind us of one of life’s great truths – change is not only unavoidable, it’s necessary and good.Owners…

  • Phuket Vegan Dining: Real food, in the raw

    Phuket Vegan Dining: Real food, in the raw

    PHUKET: If you hear the term “raw food” you might, like I did, take it to mean “food waiting to be cooked”. But in Rawai, in the island’s south, the owner of Atsumi Raw Food Cafe, Anna Wasin is championing the health benefits and sublime, simple flavors of natural, raw, organic, unprocessed and uncooked ingredients by crafting dozens of tasty…

  • Phuket Dining: Eat like a president

    Phuket Dining: Eat like a president

    PHUKET: There are times when you simply can’t turn down an invitation. When the personal chef of the President of the French Republic invites you for a dinner, it is one of those times. Even more so when it’s Bernard Vaussion, a chef who served under six consecutive French presidents, who recently came to Phuket to cook a presidential dinner…

  • Phuket Lifestyle: Climbing to the top of the list

    Phuket Lifestyle: Climbing to the top of the list

    PHUKET: Three establishments from the greater Phuket region found the formula for a perfect wine list and grabbed top spots in the 2013 Wine List of the Year Thailand competition. Over 60 leading food and beverage establishments and media gathered at Crave Wine Bar & Restaurant in Sukhumvit’s Aloft Hotel to witness the 2013 Wine List of the Year Thailand.…

  • Phuket Lifestyle: A breath of fresh O2

    Phuket Lifestyle: A breath of fresh O2

    PHUKET: Most of Phuket’s beach clubs throng the sands of the west coast, but O2 Beach Club is bucking the trend and bringing great food, music and beach-side fun to the southeast coast at its stylish venue near Chalong Pier. Walking through the imposing ancient-style entrance gates, you enter a hidden oasis, the centerpiece of which is a huge jade-green…

  • Phuket’s Iron Chef goes live tonight

    Phuket’s Iron Chef goes live tonight

    PHUKET: Chef Scott Flaxman came all the way from Zimbabwe, via England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Morocco, before he finally landed on Kao Yao Yai, 15 kilometers east of Phuket. There, he became the Chef and F&B Manager of GLOW Elixir Koh Yao Yai Resort – a place he now proudly calls home. Voted one of the best chefs…

  • Phuket Lifestyle: Meals on three wheels

    Phuket Lifestyle: Meals on three wheels

    PHUKET: We love them, we hate them, we can’t live without them (or can we?) – tuk-tuks have been getting a lot of bad press in Phuket recently. But all that is about to change thanks to Tom Somsanuk, better known as Blue Wave Radio’s DJ Tank, and his new business idea – the Tuk-Tuk Diner. “In the States we…

  • A true taste of Phuket

    A true taste of Phuket

    PHUKET: With so many Western-style restaurants and the longstanding popularity of Northeastern-style Thai food in Phuket, it is sometimes easy to forget that the island has its own unique cuisine. You won’t find it in the tourist areas though, for an authentic taste of local food, you have to head to Phuket Town, and in particular, to the famous Lock…

  • A taste of Tokyo in Phuket Town

    A taste of Tokyo in Phuket Town

    PHUKET: GINZA, located on Yaowarat road, is a relatively newcomer to the Phuket culinary scene. But within the space of just four months since it opened, the restaurant has already managed to garner quite a following. The popularity is largely due to the establishment’s strict adherence to the pillars of Japanese cuisine – the freshest and highest quality ingredients. The…

  • The devil is in the detail – Phuket’s Les Diables

    The devil is in the detail – Phuket’s Les Diables

    PHUKET: Walking into Les Diables bakery to interview creator and master pastry chef Peter Webber, I find him hunched over his work bench, meticulously crafting a tiny toilet out of white chocolate. Curious, I ask him what on earth it is for and he replies matter-of-factly: “It’s for a customer, they were having a trailer-trash party and they wanted the…

  • Carnivore’s delight – Phuket Food

    Carnivore’s delight – Phuket Food

    PHUKET: I miss you dearly, my friend. Maybe not at first, not in my first months in Thailand when I was sucked right into the world of lemongrass and coconut milk. When pork (and Thailand is up there with the best of them when it comes to the quality of pork) and poultry became the foundations of my daily diet.…

  • Phuket Lifestyle: Top of the list

    Phuket Lifestyle: Top of the list

    PHUKET: Jon Hyams, founder of the Wine List of the Year Awards, says that one of his biggest aims when starting the competition was education. But this time, it’s not teaching consumers about the wine, but rather teaching the sommeliers and waiters how to present their product to you, and helping them get rid of their inherited, old and often…

  • Phuket Food: Hurry for a curry

    Phuket Food: Hurry for a curry

    PHUKET: Given that Phuket offers very little in terms of flavors from the sub-continent, we pounced on the opportunity to try out one small Indian restaurant recently discovered by a couple of friends way out in Cape Panwa. Only a stone’s throw away from the city center, Cape Panwa seems like a parallel universe compared to the rest of Phuket.…

  • Phuket Food: Go Brazilian at Rodizio

    Phuket Food: Go Brazilian at Rodizio

    PHUKET: Looking at a map of the world, Phuket, Thailand is about as far away as you can possibly get from the soccer-and-samba-crazed nation of Brazil. But don’t buy your ticket to Rio just yet, Patong’s newest restaurant has saved you the trouble of flying halfway around the globe and brought a taste of Brazil right here to Phuket. Rodizio…

  • Phuket Eats: Off Course – The 19th hole

    Phuket Eats: Off Course – The 19th hole

    PHUKET: Finding somewhere to spend a day with the whole family while keeping everyone happy can sometimes be a challenge in Phuket. Often, kid-friendly activities can leave the adults twiddling their thumbs and wishing they could be somewhere else. The owners of Phuket Adventure Mini-Golf in Bang Tao, Pia and Thomas, have solved this problem by creating a family-friendly venue…