Villa Market - Boat Avenue Phuket (Laguna) — Attraction in Choeng Thale

We stayed in the Laguna area for 2 weeks and this was our (and a lot of expats too) favorite supermarket. It's something oddly comforting to see your favourite UK brands, a Boots do far from home.. They also have local Thai brands mainly in the household items & beauty section.

We used to go to the big Tesco Lotus but we ended up throwing away most of the fruit and veg as they were not same quality.

Yes it's more expensive, some things outrageously so (like my fave Greek yoghurt) but if you are willing to compromise a little, the diversity of choice and quality of produce is unmatched in Phuket. Some soft drinks like Schweppes Lime are actually cheaper than in 7/11.

I did try some awful things like coconut milk ice cream, dried mango, tuna sushi - they were definitely a miss. The prepackaged fruit however pineapple, red melon, yellow mango was lovely. Tried durian also but could not eat more than a mouthful.

If you want a little treat to remind you of home, this is...

Great supermarket with loads of Expat products. Good fresh and frozen food selection with good meats, fish, pies etc.

A lot of your favourites to be found even including Greg’s sausage rolls! ! The prices are higher than home but not by much considering they are imported.

I always find a good test when you have to use customer service and I’m happy to report they supported me well.

What happened was I bought a mango, got the lady to weigh it and put the price sticker on but I didn’t check it and just put it in my trolly.

When I got home I noticed an item on my receipt for ฿440 for a brioche loaf which I didn’t buy. It took me a while to work it out but the mango had been incorrectly weighed under the wrong code.

I went back the next morning, they were incredibly apologetic and gave...

Staff is not really friendly. On their phones or chatting a lot. So many of them they are always blocking an isle. Asked the fresh counter to slice me some ham because I needed an exact amount and she tried to send me to the pre sliced section. What’s the point of offering a fresh section if you don’t seem to want to help people with requests. Drinks section is hard to find and quite warm too, very messy and you cannot walk through it with your cart. Overall good selection of products but the service is bad. Also the bread is not packaged in a way it stays crisp and drag so all crusts go soft and soggy. Also the window doors in the cooling section need replacing, they’re so hard to close again! They always stay open which is bad for the...