Sorry, you need to change the restaurant name!

A few weeks ago, we got an unexpected letter sent to Phuket. There was a small piece of paper with the following note:

“Sorry, but you need to change the name of your restaurant. I know that in your country it is pronounced “Poo Ket”, but here it is pronounced “F_ck it” which a gross obscenity. You are not in Thailand any more. When you are a guest in another country, you must follow its customs.”

We posted it on our Facebook page on last Sunday and we got almost 40 comments. You can read them here. We read all the comments and we feel glad that we don’t need to change our name!

This is not the first time that we got this kind of letter. Every month, someone calls us and asks us how to say our restaurant name. We’re always happy to tell them how to say it correctly. We realize that it can be pronounced differently. But in Thai, it is the name of a resort island.

People always ask us why we name our restaurant “Phuket”. We are never tired to tell them that we name the restaurant after the Phuket island in Thailand. When we first opened the restaurant, it was right after Tsunami hit Southeast Asia. Phuket was one of the spots in Asia that got hit pretty hard. We thought that it will remind them of Thailand when they see “Phuket”. Well, apparently not. They think about something else!!

I remember that when I renewed my car tag at the DMV a few years ago , I tried to get my vanity car tag with the word “Phuket” on it. A lady at the counter looked at me and looked at what I wrote. She went to talk to her supervisor, came back and said “No, you can’t have it. It’s offensive” I tried to explain to her that it was my restaurant name. She refused to give me the Phuket car tag, no matter how hard I tried. So I ended up putting a big sticker at the back of my car with “Phuket” on it (to get even!)

Well, actually, Phuket is a very appropriate name for us. Phuket island was our honeymoon place that my wife and I went eleven years ago.

We name our restaurant “Phuket” so that we can live our honeymoon life everyday!

Deliciously Yours,

Mr.Phuket

We know we are not perfect!

A couple of weeks ago, we had a customer posted a negative feedback on a traveling website. Basically what he tried to say is he did not like anything at all that we offered!!

He did not like the drinks, complaining that too much alcohol, not enough tonic. He ordered the same drink again without telling our server that he needed more mixer. Of course again it was too strong for him.

He complained that his Phuket lettuce wraps was not good, not in comparison with P.F.Chang’s. The Masaman Chicken Curry had a weird taste. Our seafood madness was not fresh. His wife could not eat it, etc.

Why did I bring this up to our email newsletter? Wasn’t it embarrassing?

In fact, we do not feel embarrassed at all if the comments based on the real experience and without any biases. The negative feedback usually gives us the idea how we can improve our food and our service. It helps us to better serve you, our customers.

We definitely love and appreciate all the positive and nice comments, especially your emails or comments on Phuket facebook fan page. (Our facebook fans are super nice. Their comments always make us smile.)

However, I think it’s not fair for us or for any businesses when we got negative comments without having a chance to fix the situations.

Leaving a nasty comment on the public website is easy and anonymous. The worst part is that people tend to believe anything that were posted on the web!!

My point is that whenever you have a bad food or bad experience, please let us know. As you may know, we cook every dish by order. It is possible that our chefs may slip and the food may not be as good as usual.

If the food is too salty, too sweet, too bland, or whatever, just let your server know. We either make a new dish for you or take it out from your bill.

But please don’t eat half of the dish, then all of a sudden you found out that you don’t like the food. (Well, if that’s the case, we still change it for you or take it out of your bill. And we still love you!)

I don’t want you to leave us with a bad feeling. Let us know and we’ll do everything we can to correct it.

My philosophy is that we don’t want your money if you don’t like our food. Period!

So I sent out an email to him to apologize for his bad experience. He gracefully took out his comment. I really appreciate him for doing that.

He is a big fan of another Thai restaurant in town. No wonder he did not like our food at all.

Well, we still love him and appreciate him for trying us. Our food is not meant for him, I guess.

I hope our food is good enough for you to keep coming back to Phuket. If not, let us know before you leave any comments on the web.

If it’s a good comment, please go ahead and post it.

We love to smile when we see your nice feedback!!

Deal that you can’t miss!!

It has been a long while that I haven’t updated Phuket’s blog (Notes) at all. It’s always on my mind that I need to update it regularly. But as always, some things or some excuses came up and updating blog was pushed back to the end of the to-do list.

However, this time, I make up my mind and definitely need to brush off the dust over our blog!!  This coming Monday (Dec 6^th), we are selected to be the first restaurant featured on Groupon, the biggest group buying deals site. (It was reported that Google wanted to buy Groupon for 6 Billions, but Groupon denied it!).  We are really in a wrong business, aren’t we!??

Not sure if it is an honor or what? But the Groupon sales rep keeps bugging me and insisted that they want us to be an inaugural deal in Huntsville.  Even though we had done with the local group buying site, TheLocalDot, and we had a success with them. I decided that we need to take a shot at it with the Groupon again.

Our customers often asked me why we do not run a coupon in the newspaper or in the mail any more. Well, the answer is that now people tend to get news through the web, email, twitter, or the facebook newsfeed (like you are reading it, right now) more and more. So we move our coupons and deals to the online world, like facebook, emails, and the site like groupon. 

It’s a way to giving deals to our Phuket fans and loyal customers. At the same time, hopefully we can win new fans that fall in love with our food at Phuket.

 So here it is. The deal is on Monday Dec 5^th.

We’ll  see how it goes!!

Thai food? Try it, please.

One of my goals for this blog is to help my friends and my customers to learn more about Thai food. I have been asked several times “Is it Thai food hot and spicy?  I can’t eat spicy food.”

I must say that this might have been the most misperception about Thai food. Somehow, for most people, they think that ALL of Thai food is hot and spicy and it is not comfort food!!   

For those who love Thai food may know what I am talking about.  When you asked your friends, who never had Thai food before, to have a lunch or a dinner at Phuket, you may have been asked “Is it spicy? I can’t eat spicy food.”  How many times that you have to change your mind and go somewhere else because Thai food, in your friend’s opinion, is too exotic and too SPICY!

In fact, 80% of our dishes on menu are not spicy at all. In Thai cuisine, each dish usually has more than one flavor, not just spicy. Thai food is mainly comprised of four different flavors:  sweet, salty, spicy, and sour. Each dish will allow one leading flavor and have other flavors followed. It does not have to have all four flavors. It could be just two or three. But it always has at least two. 

For example, our spring rolls sauce, sweet is the leading flavor, followed by spicy and sour. Larb Chicken, you will feel it salty, spicy, and sour. Any dish, you name it. It never has only one flavor.

Larb Chicken

Next time when you eat at Phuket, order any food either appetizer or entrée.  Put the first bite in your mouth and let your tasting buds feel the flavors of the food. You’ll know exactly what I mean!!

Also, when you eat Thai food, you should not really eat the food by itself.  Thai people always eat food with steamed rice. Rice will help to tone down the flavors of the food. With a little sweetness of the rice, it actually makes your food taste better.  It fills you up too.

In Thai language, we call the food that you eat in regular meals “Gub Kao”. Literally, it means “With Rice”. Because you never eat food by itself, you always eat with rice.    

I remember one of my American friends asked me “Don’t you get bored that you eat rice every day?” At first, I thought it’s a trick question. I looked at her and knew that she was not joking. I told her that we won’t get bored eating rice because we change our food that we eat with rice every day. I almost asked her back “Don’t you get bored that you eat burgers every day?” I’m sure her answer would be “No, today I eat chicken burger. Tomorrow I’ll eat Fish burger.”

It’s the same concept, right? Just switch bun to rice!!

On diet?

Are you on diet? We always have been asked by a lot of people: what dishes are non-fat and good for the diet? Generally, Thai food is healthy and good for your heath. However, there are some dishes that absolutely have no oil or fat. Here is the list of non-fat dish that we offer on our menu.

Appetizer:
1. Larb Chicken
2. Fresh Basil Rolls
3. Bangkok Rolls

 

Bangkok Roll

Soup:
1. Miso Soup
2. Pacific Seafood Soup
3. Tom Yum Shrimp

Salad
1. Phuket Garden Salad
2. Fiery Grilled Beef Salad
3. Shrimp Lemon Grass Salad

 

 

 

 

Fiery Grilled Beef Salad

Entree:
1. Thai BBQ Chicken
2. Grilled Rib Eye
3. Nam Tok Beef
4. Red Snapper Basil
5. Spicy Beef

Nam Tok Beef

Lunch:
1. Chicken Teriyaki
2. Beef Teriyaki
3. Grilled Chicken Salad

Sushi
Almost all of them, nigiri or rolls! You name it. Well, except “Providence Roll”

Wasabi Maki

It’s summer. Time to be active outdoor, shred some weight, and eat healthy again.

Eat Healthy, Live Happy.

Deliciously Yours,
Mr.Phuket

 

Why Phuket

One of our customers had told me jokingly “I know how to say ‘Phone’ and I know how to say ‘Bucket”. So I know how to say ‘Phuket’.  (OOPS!!)

I have heard so many versions of calling “Phuket”. For example, Fooh-Kay, Fooh-Ket.  The most popular one probably is the one that combines “Phone and Bucket” together. 

It is actually pronounced “Pooh-Get“

 I know that a lot of you already knew how to say “Phuket” correctly, but you still love to intentionally say it differently with your friends, right?!?

Well, however you say it, as long as you come and eat here, we’re happy.

In fact, we have quite a story behind “Phuket” name. Back in 2005, when we first came up with the idea of having a Thai restaurant. We try to find a good name that can represent Thai food or Thai culture for the restaurant. We had come up with a few names, like Sukothai (the ancient capital of Thailand), Baan Thai (Baan means house in thai), and of course Phuket.

At first, we decided to go with “Phuket”. We told the landlord about the name of restaurant and he disagreed with the name. His reason is “A lot of folks down here would think that it’s obscene and it has a bad ring to it.”

Well, believe it or not, we almost changed the name to something else because we felt like if we set out a wrong foot, we would not get it back to the right track. After a long and serious consideration, we decided to keep “Phuket”  name alive. Our reason is that it is the name of the Phuket Island in Thailand. And back in 2004, Phuket Island had been hit with the Tsunami that brought  devastation to the island. A lot of news coverage were all over in CNN, Fox News, and all of the news agency.

We thought that people would remember “Phuket” and think about Thailand.  It turned out that no one can remember anything about Phuket or Thailand by the name “Phuket” at all.

They thought that we play with the word!

We have actually have a lot of stories, well, I’d say, a lot of hassles with the name “Phuket” in the first few years that we opened.  I can write about it in another blog!!  

Not only that, we also have the romantic side of the story about “Phuket” name too.  Phuket is actually the honeymoon place for Mr and Mrs. Phuket when we married in 2000.  We name the restaurant “Phuket” purposefully. So we can live and work in the honeymoon every day!

Love just told us to name our restaurant “Phuket”. Isn’t that romantic?!?

Share your thoughts about Phuket name. I love to hear from you.

Deliciously Yours,
Mr.Phuket