Farm Poo Nim is a well known restaurant (to Thai people at least) in Chanthaburi Province.
Soft Shelled Crab at Farm Poo Nim
‘Poo Nim’ (or Pu Nim as it is also sometimes written) means soft shelled crab in Thai. The restaurant is named after this famous crab dish. To read more about Poo Nim (soft shelled crab) see my article about soft shelled crab with garlic and pepper.
Farm Poo Nim is Near Chanthaburi Town
Farm Poo Nim is located in Khlung District on the Wan Yao river near the sea. To get there it is a 42 minute (30.7 km) drive along the Sukhumvit Road from Chanthaburi Town. Turn left off the Sukhumvit Road at Thetsaban 3 Alley and then turn right at Thetsaban 2 Alley down to the river and the pier. A trip to Farm Poo Nim can easily be combined with a trip to Koh Chang or Trat. The mainland pier to Koh Chang is only a further 49 minutes (52.4 km) down the road.
You Can Only Reach The Restaurant By Boat
To get to Farm Poo Nim you must take a boat as it is located on the other side of river and there is no connection by road. The restaurant provides a free shuttle boat service. They come back and forth all day long and you should not have to wait more than 10 minutes to get a ride. If the boat is not around you can call them on +66 (0) 834 4523.
Farm Poo Nim is in a Mangrove Forest
The boat trip to the restaurant is part of the experience. Farm Poo Nim is in a beautiful location in a mangrove forest. This part of the river has several shell fish farms and it is full of floating plastic bottles from which ropes hang into the water to farm oysters. In distance are the hills of Cambodia marking the border with Thailand. It is a wonderful, peaceful and unpolluted place.
Restaurant By A River Mouth
Farm Poo Nim is ramshackle wooden building standing on columns set into the river bed. The quality of the food and the ambience more than makes up for what it lacks in elegant appearance. Most of the tables are large and the restaurant typically caters for large groups, like the group of family members I went with.
Crab Is The Most Popular Dish at Farm Poo Nim
The star of the menu is crab. As well as soft shelled crab, they have hard shelled crab, crab with noodles, very good crab rice and pretty much anything else you can imagine you can cook with crab.
Other Seafood Dishes Are Also Available
There are other dishes than crab on the menu. Fish, prawns and oysters are pretty good here as well. Particularly noteworthy dishes are the oysters, raw prawns in fish sauce and the sen chan phad thai (blue crab with noodles).
Food at Farm Poo Nim is Reasonably Priced
The food is very reasonably priced. Expect to pay around 130 THB for fried garlic and pepper soft shelled crab and around 500 THB a kilo for most of the fish and prawn dishes, which is a lot cheaper than you will get in most of Thailand’s tourist areas.
Beer Rather Than Wine
The wine list isn’t very extensive at Farm Poo Nim, it’s not that kind of place. The Singha beer though is cold and plentiful and probably the best thing to drink with the food here anyway.
I thoroughly recommend Farm Poo Nim, my meal there was one of the most memorable that I have ever had.