Note: Alas, alas. This restaurant is now (2017) a clothing store.

This is a blog about a good restaurant for buying noodles at Pak Bara pier in Satun Province, Thailand. There’s really only one reason to go to Pak Bara pier: it’s to catch a boat to Tarutao National Park. And the reason we go to Tarutao is to snorkel. Ko Lipe, where we stay, used to be a pristine, uncluttered beach; now it is wall-to-wall resorts and bars. If it were not for the snorkeling, we would not go there.

(Click on an image to see a larger version.)

(You can view some of Kasma’s pictures of Tarutao (above and below water) offsite, new window.)

We usually charter a boat to visit the islands and like to get moving reasonably early in the morning. So Kasma piles everyone into the vans and runs us over Pak Bara Pier, the departure point for the boat, and we stop to eat breakfast (or lunch, on our return trip from the islands) at a little restaurant called Maleeya.

As you drive towards the pier, Maleeya is on the left as you approach the end of the street. The first picture above shows the outside view and the second picture shows the bright yellow sign that you can look for.

Kasma always feeds us noodles here: Pad Thai (on the menu as “Padthai Noodles”) for breakfast and Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodles, not on the menu) for lunch on our return. Maleeya is a clean restaurant, run by a friendly Muslim couple. Everything is always cooked fresh to order and they do a very nice job. I’ll include photos of the menus at the bottom of the post — they also make fried rice, green curry, fried chicken and various other dishes.

I took these pictures of Pad Thai the last time we ate at Maleeya in February 2010. As with all noodle dishes, this Pad Thai was served with a condiment sent containing dried chillies, fish sauce, sugar and green chillies in vinegar (the exact contents may differ slightly from place to place) so that you can further season the dish yourself.

Directly above are the Drunken Noodles (Pad Kee Mao). Although they are not on the menu, you can probably order them (as Kasma does) – just tell them you want Guay Dtiow Pad Kee Mao and add gkai for chicken or neua for beef.

Here’s the menu – some basic noodles, fried noodles, stir-fries and Thai dishes. Give the noodles a try. If you click on the menu you’ll see a larger version.

So next time you have occasion to catch a boat to Tarutao, give some noodles from Maleeya a try. [Restaurant is no more, alas.]

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Written by Michael Babcock, October 2010. Updated May 2017.

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