Originally Posted by
Kacee
Our personal experience is that it's become very difficult to find really good southern food even in Phuket City, where we tried several of the highly rated supposedly "local" places. Contrast with Krabi, where we've had some incredible local meals.
Originally Posted by
rbAA
Yes. Definitely better places to eat in or near Krabi. We have a couple places we liked near Mai Khao, but such bland offerings in Phuket downtown. My Thai GF is from Isaan so we eat spicy.
That’s just sad to hear. Although both provinces share some common dishes, each also has its own food specialty things that are worth trying. Fortunately, I’ve only ever been taken to places friends and relatives go to in Phuket, so I’ve yet to have a bad meal there. Food is incredible in both provinces though (also along the way in Phang Nga), so you can’t really go wrong with either. Besides food, another reason to visit Phuket old town once is the Sino-Portuguese architecture, but you’ll have seen similar style buildings in Singapore as well.
Since OP has a week in this region, an option could be to arrive into HKT and fly out of KBV (or go further into Hat Yai (HDY), Nakhon …(NST), or down to Trang (TST)). Either by sea over Phang Nga Bay or overland via route 4 is also beautiful, but a long drive (better to have a driver for this). The latter is worthwhile if you also want to get off the beaten path and end up in Patthalung.