A place called Peppy Thai

The first time I heard of this place was in 2000 and my father and I went there for lunch. I wasn't very impressed with the place back then -- it was nothing more than a nipa hut and several tables and chairs. Even then the place was packed and we waited for a table only to be told that there was no more food.

Recently I saw a tourism advertisement for Iloilo on television. It was produced by one of youngest brother's high school classmates. The advertisement showcases everything Iloilo had to offer, including Peppy Thai.

Apparently it has flourished in the past seven years and now boasts of a concrete structure and a larger area. I was intrigued by its hours -- 10am to 2pm, Mondays to Saturdays. No dinner hours were listed.

One morning, Johann and my sister decided to look for the place -- and they came home with bags full of food.

During that visit, my sister struck up a conversation with one of the servers at Peppy Thai. The place was owned by a Filipino missionary who worked in Thailand for about 10+ years. The missionary is now very old but still insists on preparing all the dishes. You have to get there early enough because once the food is gone, it's gone -- he (she?) doesn't cook anymore. If we wanted bagoong rice, we would have to order it a day ahead.

Last February 3, we decided to bring our Korean friends there. They were amused about having to eat lunch at 10 o'clock in the morning. We arrived at Peppy Thai expecting to be the only people there -- so we were surprised to see that there were already some people eating.



We ordered a small portion of everything they had (since we had just had breakfast and our Korean friends were planning to go to Breakthrough for lunch) and they gave us a hat with a number -- apparently, that's how they know whose order is whose.

While waiting for the food, we took out our cameras and started taking pictures --

This is my favorite feature of the restaurant --



The food came and everything was delicious. I especially love their red curry and their thai fried rice. They also have noodles which are similar to pho noodles and you can order it either wet (with soup) or dry. I liked the dry version better. ^_^



Peppy Thai is located along the highway but when you're inside the restaurant, you would quickly forget this fact -- everything is green and quiet and airy --



... and everything is so damned cheap! The rice is PhP45 and the dry noodles is PhP53. They have delicious pork bbq which goes for PhP25 a stick.