In search of the oldest bakery in Phuket – Kaewjai Bakery
October of 2014 was a time of significance in my food journey- it was my first tryst with Thai cuisine. Thai food is without a doubt- one of the most popular cuisines in the world. Lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic components and a spicy edge- is about this cuisine in a nutshell. Dishes like Tom Yam Goong, Pad Thai, Som Tam, Massaman curry, Green curry and Sticky Rice pudding will most likely feature in any food lover’s culinary bucket list.
While reviewing the places we decided to visit during our trip to Phuket, Herwin came across an eatery that featured in several food and travel blogs. This is a bakery located at Old Phuket town and was supposedly the oldest bakery in the entire Phuket Province. – ร้านแก้วใจ or Kaewjai Bakery has been serving authentic, delicious Thai food and desserts since 1961 at very reasonable prices. Kaewjai Bakery was located about 15 kilometres from our accommodation at Patong and quite frankly GPS did not help. On the other hand, I believe we learnt a good lesson during this trip- to find a way to access GPS since our data services were wiped out the moment we switched it on in Bangkok (no-brainer right, yea, we missed it).
In the end, a printed map got us within a few kilometres of this bakery and then believe it or not, just asking the locals about a ‘certain famous bakery’ finally got us there. I must admit that- the kind of research we did to find this place was in no way close to the one I did to write this post. But, then again- that is how food and travel experiences are- not always planned.
Kaewjai Bakery is quite small for a restaurant- caters to only about 10-20 folks at a time- but the scores of people waiting for a table speaks volumes of its legendary status. Being the oldest bakery in Phuket, I was pretty sure that I wanted to try their specialities- which would obviously be Thai and above all authentic. We ordered their Thai Red curry (with shrimp), Thai Yellow curry (with chicken) and Phad Thai. I’m sure you noticed that the dishes were served with sticky rice and the curries by itself looks more like a stir-fry which otherwise would have a soup-like consistency and is served in a bowl. The curries were truly delicious and had very spicy edge to it- the flavor of lemongrass and shrimp paste was just exquisite. It started to make perfect sense- the legendary status of this bakery.For dessert, we had the Caramel cake and Rice Bun stuffed with chocolate- both, the perfect end to an amazing food and travel diary. I would definitely recommend a visit to this bakery if your holidaying in Phuket.
