Nooror Somany Steppe, an unofficial ambassador for Thai cuisine and the founder of Blue Elephant restaurants, has a keen set of eyes when it comes to selecting a location for each of her restaurants. Just like her Bangkok restaurant, which has become a landmark in Sathorn, the latest Blue Elephant outpost in Phuket is elegantly set in a refurbished Sino-Portuguese mansion that was once was the residence of Phra Pitak Chinpracha, a Chinese merchant who was in charge of the province’s tin mining industry during the reign of King Rama V. A leafy courtyard leads to a sophisticated dining room that combines Western-style dining tables with antique artifacts.
Apart from serving the signature dishes offered at all Blue Elephant restaurants worldwide, the Phuket outpost of Blue Elephant has perhaps the most impressive list of Peranakan staples (cuisine with Chinese and Malay influences) in all of Phuket, courtesy of a collaboration with a Peranakan association and Rajabhat Phuket University. Offering both a la carte dishes and set menus, the restaurant churns out widely known southern Thai dishes like yellow curry with crabmeat, as well as lesser known items like jui-ji-pao (Peranakan dumplings with tiger prawn and jicama), tumis (red and spicy, coconut cream-based curry) with Andaman seabass, and sambal goreng (stir-fried tiger prawns with shrimp paste).