What to Eat in Phuket
12 Baba-Hokkien & southern Thai dishes

The dish that tells you instantly you're in Phuket — plump yellow noodles stir-fried in a thick broth with prawns, pork, squid and vegetables, savoury and full of wok aroma. It came with the Hokkien Chinese who carried their noodle recipe when they arrived to mine tin, then made it their own here, different from the dry or dark-fried Hokkien mee elsewhere. Some shops serve it wet, the broth clinging to the noodles; others offer a dry version. Locals eat it for both breakfast and lunch, and you won't easily find this exact taste off the island.

In Phuket, dim sum is breakfast — not the late-morning Cantonese affair you find elsewhere. It's an inheritance from the Hokkien Chinese who put down roots here. Dim sum shops open before dawn and people eat dumplings, har gow, buns, braised vegetables and chive cakes with hot tea before the day starts. It comes in little steamers or dishes you pick one at a time, prices are easy, and you order several to share. The round-table buzz from 7 to 9 in the morning is the most Phuket breakfast there is.

A Baba dish that's been on Phuket tables for generations — pork belly braised in sweet soy with black pepper, garlic and braising spices until the meat falls apart and the skin turns springy. It's savoury-sweet and fragrant with pepper, and what sets it apart from Thai-Chinese five-spice stew is its heavier hand with pepper and garlic. Eaten with hot steamed rice, it's a home-style staple for Phuket's Chinese-descended families. You'll find it in local and Baba restaurants across town; order it alongside a southern curry and vegetables for the fullest spread.

A dessert that is pure Phuket and hard to find elsewhere — o-aew jelly made from o-aew seeds blended with banana into a clear, soft jelly, served in cold red syrup over shaved ice, sometimes with red beans, grass jelly or job's tears added. It's sweet, cold and refreshing, perfect against the island's tropical heat. It's a Baba dessert handed down from the Hokkien Chinese, and even the name comes from Hokkien. The well-known stalls are in the Old Town and at Kathu market — anyone visiting Phuket should try a bowl.

A Baba snack Phuket locals love — pork offal, pork belly, tofu and five-spice rolls battered and fried, cut into bite-size pieces and dipped in a thick sweet-sour sauce spiced the Hokkien way. Some stalls add oyster fritters and fried tofu to the same plate. It's the kind of food you graze on all day. The name "lo bak" is Hokkien for braised meat, but the Phuket version leans on fried pieces with that dip. Find it in Old Town food courts and markets; order a mixed plate and share it around with friends.

The other half of Phuket's flavour is fierce southern Thai food, because the island sits in the south — gaeng tai pla, a deep, fiery fish-innards curry; yellow curry, sour and hot with fish or prawns; shrimp-paste relish (nam phrik kung siap) eaten with fresh and fried vegetables; and stir-fried stink beans with prawns for those who love the pungent kick. Southern food in Phuket comes with a pile of fresh vegetables on the side to cut the heat. It's far punchier than central Thai cooking — a treat if you eat spicy, and you can ask for it milder or pick the non-spicy dishes if you don't.

Khanom jeen is a favourite breakfast and lunch in Phuket, and the island has its own take — soft rice vermicelli under your choice of fish-curry sauce, nam phrik or gaeng tai pla, eaten with fish cake, a boiled egg and a spread of fresh vegetables you help yourself to freely. Some shops add fried fish and fried chicken on the side. The curry is rich and southern-style, hotter than the central Thai version. It's filling, good value, and a clean shot of real southern flavour — find it at morning khanom jeen shops in town and in the markets.

Another Hokkien dish Phuket loves — small oysters fried with egg and a starchy batter into a sheet that's crisp outside and soft inside, scattered with spring onion and coriander, served hot with a chilli or sriracha dip. It goes by two names here — "or-suan" (Hokkien) for the softer, juicier style, and "hoy tod" for the version fried until crisp — and some shops do both. It's an evening snack you'll find in Old Town food courts and night markets, full of wok aroma and the brininess of fresh oysters.

Beyond o-aew, Phuket has a whole family of Baba sweets handed down from the Peranakan kitchen — a-pong, a sweet, fragrant rice-flour cup pancake with crisp edges and a soft centre; kosui, a soft steamed cake eaten with coconut; tao so, a flaky pastry with mung-bean filling; and a range of coconut-milk sweets. They reflect the Chinese-Malay-Thai blend that defines Phuket's Baba identity. Find them at sweet stalls in the Old Town, the morning markets, and the Lard Yai walking street every Sunday evening — buy a few kinds and taste them side by side.

The island's other star is fresh seafood from the Andaman Sea — lobster, sea crab, blue swimmer crab, mantis shrimp, shellfish and grouper. At Rawai beach in the south, fresh-seafood stalls line the beachfront: you pick live creatures, then carry them to the restaurants next door to cook to order — steamed with lime, fried in black pepper, or grilled. Chalong has waterfront seafood spots like Kan Eang @ Pier, and there's Laem Hin for eating by the water. Be straight with yourself: ask the price per kilo and watch the scale before you buy, since seafood is sold by weight, and agree the cooking fee clearly for the best value and peace of mind.

Phuket's coffee culture starts with kopi — Hokkien-style traditional coffee, dark-roasted and brewed through a cloth sock, drunk hot with sweet condensed milk or black with sugar, rich and sweet. It's served in old floral ceramic cups. The old kopi shops sit in the Sino-Portuguese shophouses of the Old Town and have been open for decades, where people sip kopi over kaya toast or fried dough in the morning — a scene that captures the Baba way of life. If you prefer specialty coffee, the Old Town also has plenty of newer cafés set in the old buildings.

Phuket has an old Muslim community, so roti is easy to find and good — the dough is pan-fried until crisp outside and soft inside, eaten two ways: savoury, dipped in beef, chicken or massaman curry, or sweet, drizzled with condensed milk and sugar or filled with banana and egg. Some shops make murtabak (mataba), a thick roti stuffed with minced meat and egg that fills you up. Phuket roti is a breakfast and an evening snack alike — find it at roti-and-tea shops in town and the Muslim neighbourhoods, buttery and crisp.