You may not know this, but I’m not a celebrity. I know, crazy right? I’m not famous and I’m not a socialite or a major media personality by any means. With that being said, I have no idea what it feels like for strangers to call my name in public. If someone were to ever shout out my name the first thing that would run through mind would be, “Oh shit, they got me!” Then reality would hit and I remember, I’m an upstanding citizen without a record. But when you walk down the streets of Phuket, suddenly everyone who owns a street side business knows your name—or at least some farfetched variation of your name. Walking throughout Phuket, vendors tried to persuade my cousins and I to shop at their stores by saying:

“Come over here Tyra Banks!” How cute, I’m flattered.

“Naomi Campbell, this way!” Oh my word you’re so sweet!

“Oprah! Opra–” Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are we talking The Color Purple Oprah, or 2016 Oprah. Because honestly, that’s a big difference.

It became easy for us to ignore the calls of people trying to get us into their restaurant or shop, but once in a while our ears perked up and we were intrigued. Case in point: Alaha Din Restaurant. Amongst all the traditional Thai food to be found in Phuket, I got excited when I saw an Indian restaurant. I figured we could get Thai for the entire week, why not try something else? And that we did.

The small Indian restaurant was empty when we walked in so we took the best seat in the house. That’s pretty much any seat directly under a fan. We all flipped through the menu to figure out what we wanted and since we were pretty hungry from a busy day, we made our decision fast. We started with a round of smoothies.

I ordered a Pineapple Smoothie (70 baht, $2). In comparison to smoothies we’ve had at Chou Chou or Hello, this smoothie was very thin and watered down. It was more on the sour side and less tart or sweet as you would assume a pineapple smoothie to be. It wasn’t the best start, but I went with it. Hopefully it would all get better once we ordered our side dishes and mains.

For myself, the first dish I ordered was the side of Garlic Naan ($140 baht, $4). When it arrived, I could tell that the naan just came out of the oven because it was piping hot. Plus the waiter said it did, so I kind of just believed him. Hot food (like for anyone) is always a plus in my book even if I’m in an extremely humid area sitting under a fan trying its best to keep me cool. The naan looked nice with the finely cut pieces of garlic and glistening oil, but after a few bites, I realized it was a bit drier and tougher than I would like. I was hoping that since it was fresh that it would be soft, delicate, and would sop up the soup of the biryani but because it was harder than I would like it wasn’t going to be able to do that. As a result, the bread wasn’t as fresh as I hoped. Did I still eat it? Of course, I was starving!

Shortly after testing the naan, my entrée arrived. I ordered the Prawn Madras with Chicken Biryani ($316 baht, $9) . I was starving and my appetite was only growing by the minute especially since the naan didn’t really alleviate much. That being said, the potential of giant shrimp was the only thing on my mind. Once it was placed in front of me, I was disappointed. The picture of the shrimp on the menu made it look like the shrimp were big and that they would live up to their name. Instead they were pretty small and hard to find in the soup. I can only assume that the picture was clearly stock photography—dang it! I was too hungry to argue the dimension of my seafood so I simply dove in. The sauce that the shrimp swam in was a thin consistency so it didn’t hold together the way I would have liked it to. The biryani (rice) was crispier in certain parts so it clearly didn’t cook evenly. I figured if I combined it all together, the totality of the three parts could make one delicious whole meal. That wasn’t the case. As a whole, there wasn’t anything exciting about the dish and it didn’t taste of traditional Indian spices–it was definitely Americanized. It was seasoned fine and it wasn’t too spicy, but there was little in it that made me want to return.

If walked down the same street and the owner of Alaha Din called to me to dine at his restaurant again I would say thanks but keep walking. One occurrence of food that isn’t as delicious is more than enough. There’s no need for me to revisit for a second time if I might run the risk of having the same lackluster experience. I’d rather explore a different restaurant and hopefully fall in love with their food while on my short vacation. Sorry Alaha Din, but you can shout every famous black woman in the world in my direction but I won’t be coming back. Not even if you call me Beyonce.

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Address: 83150, 143/6 Thanon Ratuthit Songroipi Rd, Patong, Kathu District, Phuket 83150, Thailand
Phone: +66 92 073 9932