Dancing fairy lights, bamboo tables and simulated indoor thunderstorms: you’d be forgiven for thinking that Koh Phangan relies on gimmicks.
But the food served at this long-running Thai restaurant is actually not bad, as the crowds of local diners waiting to get a table on Friday and Saturday nights will attest.
Only a limited number of tables are available to book in advance – for the rest of them you’ll have to turn up and wait until one comes free.
In our experience, even the seats out on the street can fill up quickly at the weekend.
The menu at Koh Phangan includes lots of the really well known Thai dishes, watered down for western tastes. It also stretches to dishes like yum talay (seafood salad with a hot lime sauce) and soy-marinated salmon with mushrooms, lemongrass and ginger. If you’re a veggie, then no worries; the restaurant has a good selection of meat-free meals, served with or without tofu.
Put together the kitsch interior, the catchy Thai pop music and the chirruping cicada sounds, and it’s almost enough to have you thinking that you’re on a Thai island. The prices, however, are distinctly Swedish. Last time we visited, mains were around 180 SEK, and a big Chang beer cost more than 90 SEK. Same same but different, as they say in Thailand.
Note that there’s another Koh Phangan restaurant in Östermalm – this review is for the one in Södermalm.
Koh Phangan
Skånegatan 57
Södermalm
Stockholm
+46 864 250 40
kohphangan.se
Mon–Fri 4pm–1am, Sat & Sun noon–1am
Last updated: September 2014
