Phuket Lifestyle: Let’s lunch at La Moon

PHUKET: On the way to Surin Beach, as you pass through Cherng Talay, if you’re feeling a bit hungry you should make a stop at La Moon restaurant.

La Moon’s owner ‘Khun Ging’ is sitting with some local Thai families, sharing a communal meal and exchanging the latest family news when we arrive.

Ever the perfect hostess, Khun Ging soon joins us and explains why she chose the menu and location of ‘La Moon’.

“The restaurant is off a main road, close to the Laguna complex and I live nearby,” she says. “I own an apartment building called Siwana Place and I often encountered tenants who would complain that there weren’t enough Western restaurants in the [Cherng Talay] area.”

Seeing the opportunity to fill a void in the market, Khun Ging sprang into action, constructing what has become La Moon restaurant in less than a year and serving her first guests in October of 2012.

The food here is affordable and includes most traditional Thai staples such as Pad Thai and Ga Prow, some Isaan food and a variety of Thai/Western fusion dishes.

We decide to try a variety of dishes today and our meal begins with a crisp rocket salad, hydroponically grown in the area, garrnished with pine nuts, cheese and crunchy carrot.

A great start, and the meal moved along with an interesting fusion dish, Spaghetti Pad Key Mao or in English, ‘drunken stir fried spaghetti’, which was delectable.

This spicy dish was named for its restorative powers and the fact that it is easily prepared when drunk. Given the lively night scene here (the restaurant also has a bar and stage) this dish may be one of the most popular.

The main course was mouth watering Australian beef that we devoured shortly upon its arrival. Delicious.

The name La Moon, though it sounds deceptively French to some, is actually derived from a phrase in ancient Thai: ‘hom lamoon’ which translates roughly as ‘sweet aroma’.

The restaurant employs a staff of around 10 people including a talented cook who studied in Italy. There is a house band on Saturdays during the high season though the restaurant frequently holds karaoke-style parties to take advantage of its professional audio equipment in the low season.

La Moon is located on Cherng Talay Road on the way from Laguna to the airport. Open from 11am to 11pm daily, happy hours are from 3-8pm and feature a buy one get one free promotion on glasses of wine. For more information contact tel: 076-615725 or email: info@lamoonphuket.com.

This article appears in the current (May 4-10, 2013) issue of the hard-copy Phuket Gazette newspaper, now on sale at newsstands throughout the island. Digital subscribers may download the full newspaper, this week and every week, by clicking here.

— Chris Hudon