Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day. It's mark wiens, i'm in the old town of phuket in southern thailand and today for lunch. I'm going to a restaurant, which is called the charm dining gallery which specializes in peranakan food and peranakan food is a mixture of malay and chinese food. This is a family restaurant, family recipes and one of the dishes that they specialize in is a tamarind fish head.

Curry they're gon na make it with a giant fish head. This fish head, curry is huge, and so we called ahead and arranged to film a little bit of the cooking in the kitchen. It's going to be exciting and i cannot wait to eat and share all of the food with you in this video, and here we are welcome to the restaurant again. The restaurant is called the charm dining gallery and i believe that they include dining gallery in the name of the restaurant, because it's actually you should see the decoration well we'll go on a full tour and see the decoration and the inside, but the decoration, the antiques.

It's a living piece of history: it's a museum at the same time as a restaurant. I love these tiles at the entrance sawadee hub so really quickly. Before we go back to the kitchen and hear more from kunpong, who is the owner and also see some of the cooking, you just got ta walk around this place and just admire the decoration, the originality and then just how how well the interior design is from The peranakan chinese antiques to the original tile floor to the vases to the family photos. I think these are some of the family photos really spectacularly beautiful restaurant and over here on this wall.

Rightfully so the charm has been included in the michelin guide in phuket. Then, if you go further back, there's more tables and actually we we're gon na sit, probably over there in the back near the courtyard there's, even an open-air courtyard come into this next section. Oh, this is almost like a little private, dining room right here with just one table and then finally to the last section, and actually it just started raining as we've come here. Something that you'll notice in a lot of the shop houses is that there is a.

I mean it's a little bit of a courtyard, but it lets natural air in it lets natural light in it lets natural rain in. But i love that because you have a little bit of a piece of the outdoors indoors, another dining room section here with a huge family table and a few other smaller tables head into the kitchen and see some of the cooking. And i think they have a giant fish that they're going to show us. So this is it's a type of grouper yeah grouper local from phuket.

Oh, that fish is huge, it's fresh, it's beautiful and they use the entire fish and they get the entire fish here and they make use of everything, but specifically for one of their signature dishes is the fish head curry, so they're going to be using the head In a malay chinese, a peranakan curry - and i know that it wow they've been prepared all the ingredients. So these are the ingredients for the fish head: curry, yes, okay, so there's shrimp, paste, there's shallots and garlic and dried chilies and ladyfingers or okra tomatoes. The big chilies lemongrass lemongrass - yes, oh - and this is also important right. It's the the torch ginger flour, yeah also tamarind - is also very important too right.

Yes, this is to add the test. Okay, so those are all the fresh ingredients that they neatly arranged and then now these are the ingredients that are already pounded into paste using some of those ingredients like the shallots filament grass, some of those chilies and dried chilies and now chef is gon na get Started on the fish head, curry, so coconut oil goes in first, so we added in some onions and shallots and lemongrass. Some salt is that salt uh yeah a little bit of salt a little bit of salt and then that's the curry. Paste.

That's gon na go down in there yeah that smells incredible yeah already just seconds in, and it already smells incredible. The coconut oil, the crepe is sizzling down. Oh man and kind of like smokes it out a little bit to bring out the flavor and the aroma. I think it's some fried tofu goes in and then in goes the okra.

Ah curry powder yeah, oh nice. Oh this is the tamarind okay and next up the tamarind. Oh palm sugar, all right! Oh that's! Really thick! Really rich, coconut milk! You can see how thick and buttery that is. Oh man, that aroma's insane fish head goes in all i'll, kick out my soy sauce.

What really distinguishes it for me is both the combination of fresh spices like galangal and chilies and lemongrass, but then also powdered, dried curry powder, which is a testament to the history of phuket and the trade along the india, china trade route. This is a curry. This is a fish head that just has so much history and so much uh heritage within one single pan within one single fish head. So, oh wow that just smells unbelievably good.

It's so aromatic so fragrant. You smell the tartness. You smell the coconut milk. All of those spices, the curry powder and scoop it out into the serving pan and just gon na garnish it next i need doctor.

Oh this is torch. Ginger flour, oh one of my favorite ingredients in the world. It's so good, it's so sour and tart and refreshing, and then mint goes on. Oh man that fish head curry is going to be out of control.

I can already tell but they're going to get started on a few more dishes before we go to the table to eat we're gon na start with fried chinese people take from uh original mainland yeah. Our ancestors had taken this dish and passed on especially hokkien yeah food, yes, okay, yes, and it's fried mango, which is uh jicama, fried jicama. Yeah right. Do i squish in it.

So nice have these sweets, the garlic, the dried squid, some pork, a variety of soy sauce, some white pepper and a little bit of palm sugar goes in for seasoning, but yeah that smells wonderful, oh and a few shrimp go in too. Let me pick thai pig. Oh and black pepper, so the first squeeze was white pepper. This is black pepper, my store.

Yes, i love tata, my favorite ingredient. What type of patata will you make yeah with crab meat? Okay, yeah nice stink beans are a highlight of any peronic and meal and they're going to be making stink beans with crab with shrimp paste and curry paste. Curry paste looks wonderful, the crab the showless crab if things could not get better and finish that off with some kaffir lime leaves oh and they just dished out the mohong signature of our strong. It's a ginger fish: oh okay, yeah, oh he's gon na make it now yeah.

Okay. This is one of the signature dishes at the restaurant, so you sear off smoke out that piece of grouper all surrounded by. I think ginger and garlic and coriander roots pick pie. Pepper, goes in salt seasoning with salt a little soy sauce to you.

Okay, oh see you malay chef is just saying that this is malaysian malaysian soy sauce, and this is like the ketchup manis. The sweet soy sauce - and this is thai soy sauce - we found that uh, the malay soy sauce is nice and healthy of umami flavors, oh cool, my grandma. She has been using the malay soy sauce since it was young. This is a closely linked.

There's evidence that we use the ingredient from peanut there's sesame oil from peanut. Ah, okay! Yes, it's have to be this brand. Only so one of the main seasoning ingredients is sesame oil. Oh, that's fragrant immediately, um chinese wine.

Ah, yes, this chef has a spoon trick. If it doesn't stick to the spoon, then you know it's ready so that the fish is going to be cooked perfectly and not overcooked. I just wanted to ask you: where did most of the recipes come from they're all family recipes and it have been taught by my aunties, my grandmothers, okay yeah and some lilith my little chief yeah and is your your family is from phuket? Yes, yes, okay! Yes, this is uh. Actually my grandma one of my respected friend, ma she's from pinang, oh okay, so the fish fumay recipe is from her family.

Yes - and this is my grandfather's in association - a lot of the peranakan families in phuket. Yes, they also have close ties to pinang and to they yes and some of the family that that originated from pinang. They moved from china and settled in pinang and then find better opportunities, and we settled in phuket. What is the story behind this house? Oh, this house is belong to one of the baba families shop house located on tin miners.

They call it tin, miner road, because it's owned by the you know this of fortunes uh, rich guys of the odin phuket, okay and the house is built according to the fashion. In that times, yeah you see the tunnels. This is the original. This is the original house house of day one they started.

This is english house, and then you did some restoration, though um renovating you know, but we resourced on the part of the house, okay, yeah, because it's, i think, it's more than 90 years old, now wow eating within a museum. At the same time, exactly part of the heritage - yeah, that's the main objective is that you are the guest to the cookie people and you are having meals in all right which people have to cook it. I think this is the rice basket. How cool is this? Everything is an antique.

I love the dishes, the setting. Oh, this is the eggplant that you got here. Oh nice, okay, i think that's the complete meal. Now and again, this food is incredibly spectacular, but in addition to the food, the setting, the atmosphere, the charm, that's why it's called the charm, the charm of this old house, as much as the food is a piece of the heritage.

The house is also a part of the experience like a lacquered wooden box kavankar. I have to begin with the main event: the fish head. Curry and again this is the massive grouper head, which is just look at. You have to see the size of this.

This fish head, curry, is huge i'll take a little bit of everything. Oh and you smell the aroma of that, dr la that torch ginger, flour, which has a peppery sour aroma to it. Okay, that's just pure meat, so much meat and then more of that gravy. All the onions in there too, oh i'm, so excited i'm so excited.

I just started using the serving spoon: oh wow, oh yeah, the balance of flavor, the freshness of all the ingredients, the pepper and that fish is cooked perfectly. It just melts in your mouth, the freshness of it, and it just flakes apart in the mouth and you've got the gooeyness of that skin from the grouper. I love how all the ingredients are just perfectly cooked, like the okra is still crisp. The fish is not mushy at all, but so flaky next dish i'll go for the muhong, which is.

This is a one of the very typical, especially phuket town dishes, and especially chinese phuket style, which is a braised pork belly. How jiggly it is, but it's extremely this smells incredible. That looks like a good nugget right there onto my rice. Maybe add a little bit more of that gravy.

You see the dark. We really see the dark soy sauce in there. You smell it's often sweet and peppery and garlicky. You really smell the watch.

We're gon na see how tender this is. Look. It's just spoon spoon flake apart tender, look at the way the fat has just been rendered down in the skin into the skin. The key is to get a little bit of a fat a little bit of the meat all in one bite and the skin.

Oh wow, it's so ultra tender, the fat and skin melt in your mouth. Garlic. That's been just disintegrated into the gravy. It's sweet but not overly sweet that right.

There is one of the best versions of mohong in phuket family recipe. Oh it's really good. Everybody needs some more rice, and so just as kun pon was explaining to us um yeah, the chinese is less spicy, but then the malay is spicy, and so it's a combination of not only in like single dishes. Is it at a combination, but also in the entire plate of food that you have so after eating the less spicy dish like that braised pork, i'm ready to go spicy come to think of it.

I've had stink beans in every form, shape style. I don't know if i've ever had it stir fried with crab, but that's very rare to find okay, oh wow, yeah, nice tasty, the crab melts in your mouth. It's both spicy and sweet. The sweetness of the crab, the crunch of the stink beans, the fragrance oh yeah, okay, this one is a jicama stir-fried, with dried squid and with shrimp in with pork, oh wow, it's so smoky, it's so aromatic it's caramelized.

The texture of the jicama is almost like. A crunchy potato, it's really good, and he said this is specifically a hokian chinese dish, another one of the signature dishes - and this is something yeah you have to come to hear. You have to come to this restaurant, the charm to eat it because it's not available elsewhere. It's just a family recipe, a steak of grouper, which he seared down.

We saw make it with the ginger, with garlic with the broth that includes chinese wine, as well as the sesame oil, which is crucial. I love the immediate burst of sesame oil and then you taste, pepper, and then you taste your set mellow chinese wine in there, which just kind of mellows it out and then just the broth of the fish. Okay. Next up for the tamarind shrimp fried shrimp, i love how there's chunky spices in there whole shallots whole stalks of lemongrass, and then the fried shrimp are in their shells, making them extra fragrant with that dark sauce of tamarind and probably a variety of soy sauce.

So for this one i will peel peel back that kind of shell. Actually, i'm sure you can actually oh yeah, you can eat the whole thing for sure yeah. You can eat the whole thing because it's been fried already deep, fried oh yeah! You can eat right through the shell, it has a sweet tartness. You taste the soy sauce, you taste the tamarind, oh there's crispy shallots on top too, and then we also got an eggplant dish.

Purple eggplant, i think there's minced pork there's dry shrimp in here. That's awesome. I think there might be some shrimp taste in there too. I love how it just all melts together, though, i think this is the final dish that we got, which is uh morning.

Glories, okay - and this is malay style, with shrimp paste and sambal. Oh yeah, that is exactly how i've had it before in malaysia yeah, oh man, the saltiness, the fermented layers of flavor, the sambal, amazingly good. We have completed the circle. The rounds tried everything once now, just gon na repeat and dig right back into that fish head.

Curry and keep going amazing, flavors, amazing food and the variety oh man yeah move back over to the fish head, the fish head, maybe re, rehydrate him a little bit. But again, one of the best things about a fish head is all the different components from the collar to the cheek to the lips. It's all there. It's all whoa, just splashed in my face and it's all a different texture and a different kind of flavor massive amounts of meat on this fish head along with the fish.

I just love all the okra and the veggies and the herbs that make it up even with just a little sprinkle the torch ginger flower on top. That gives the entire dish a fragrance, a peppery sourness. It's amazing how pungent in an amazing way and then also how aromatic torture power is what a stinking dish with crab and back over to the mohong. I really i've had a few versions around phuket.

This is, i think i can safely say this is the best version. I've had it's really really well balanced. Perhaps it's not quite as peppery as some other versions, but then you really taste the garlic and i just like how the balance of flavor is just extraordinary. Goodness yeah - and this is the type of curry you can just keep digging - you - can keep pulling apart pieces of the face and of the head, the crevices, the sunken ingredients, it's just an adventure in a bowl.

I also love this eggplant. That's also a highlight dish and the food is so rich. Oh man, i am full and happy that was an incredible meal. What really stands out to me about eating at the charm is that he's the owner he's so friendly, but it really is his expression of preserving his own family heritage.

The recipes are from his relatives from his family, the memories when you walk around when you look at some of the photographs, some of the antiques everything is from his family and his heritage, and so it really is his his expression of preserving his family history through Their family food i'll have all the information in the description box below, but definitely when you're in phuket. The charm serves amazing, peranakan, food and peronican culture, and that's going to be it for this video. I want to say a huge thank you for watching. Please remember to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, leave a comment below i'd love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed, click subscribe and also click the little bell icon and that way you'll immediately get notified of the next video That i publish thanks again for watching goodbye from phuket, and i will see you on the next video.