We expected the one, but not the other.

Yes, it’s perverse to live in Abu Dhabi and fly 3,100 miles to Thailand looking for sun, but we thought we would find it here, and we have not.

We also were confident of some excellent Thai food and that, at least, has come to fruition.

First, the weather. Most of us see “average highs near 90”, in Phuket, and figure some sun must be involved. Especially because Phuket is barely 8 degrees above the equator.

Not so much.

The week we have been here has seen almost nonstop cloud cover, and two days of mostly rain. The sun is a rumor.

One or another of us in the villa made repeated attempts to watch the sun go down over the Andaman Sea … and it never turned out. Because of the clouds.

December is the end of the rainy season, in theory, but it may not be the end of the cloudy season.

So, if you just want to be warm — and that could be enough for the Euros who formed the majority on our plane here and also at the hotel — Phuket is just fine. But if you want actual sun on your exposed (Euros!) and chubby body … maybe wait another month.

However, the food has not disappointed.

We have made some poor choices, which tends to happen at restos you’ve never been to, but in nearly every circumstance — and we’ve eaten nothing but Thai so far — we ordered something very nice, and on several occasions ordered several somethings very nice.

Tonight, we went to one of those fun floor-and-roof-but-no-walls places not far from the hotel, here in the north of the island.

The place is named Kin Dee, and their home page suggests the chef has some experience in top-end hotels. Maybe so, maybe not, but the food was excellent, the help efficient and the setting exotic.

The place is located on a mangrove area, and below the timber-propped restaurant were locals catching crabs scuttling along in the bog.

We were served mostly by the manager, whose English is quite good (contact with U.S. air bases in Thailand, back in the day? — particularly his English in regards to the menu.) He was happy and a little goofy, and not young, and he was patient in describing things — all menus here appear to have about 150 choices on them — and didn’t try to oversell.

We just ordered a bunch of stuff. Duck with passion fruit; massaman curry with beef, yellow curry with chicken and stir-fried prawns recommended by the manager.

The stars of the show, however, were the appetizers. We ordered crab cakes, crispy shrimp on pepper leaves, Phuket chicken wings, tom yum goong soup … and the star of stars, “Shipwreck soup” for two.

The latter is related, I am told, to a soup dish known as tom yum kha — shrimp or fish in a clear, spicy broth, with lemon grass, galangal and kaffir lime.

The “for two” aspect of this produced a bowl with at least a quart of soup, plus lots of shrimp, squid, crab and mussels on the half shell. It turned out to be for four. Delicate flavors, fresh ingredients, zesty without being overpowering.

I assume the notion of “Shipwreck soup” is that you have been thrown up on an island somewhere and whatever was at hand, there on your jungle-covered island, went into the soup.

They also have a pretty good bar, at Kin Dee. I saw six lemongrass mojitos disappear, and unlike some other places we have been, they had a fair amount of alcohol in them.

Oh, and we got a free dessert — banana fritters with honey.

(Side note: I believe honey is massively underrated. Who eats honey anymore? No one. Why? Because it’s messy? Honey was the sugar of the Western World, until sugar cane came along. Honey is wonderful! Why do we eat so little of it, in the 21st century? Too sticky? It has to be better for a human body than processed sugar. Think of all the references to honey. “The land of milk and honey” … “honey bunch” … “sweet as honey”. Anyway, I may present myself to the International Honey Council (I just made up that industry group) and suggest they need a new marketing campaign. We will call it: “I love you, honey!” And will show people in ecstasy while eating honey, and demonstrate the many ways in which it could be used.)

Long before the end of this meal, we agreed we should have gone to Kin Dee on the first night, because it was the best resto we visited — better than the Natural, in Phuket Town; way better than the massive and fairly well-known Lotus, where they serve gigantic lobsters.

Anyway, the foodies with me seemed blissful, at Kin Dee. That happened fairly often, at the table, but the rapture reached another level at this wonderful little family restaurant. “Flavors I’ve never had before … totally fresh ingredients …” Things like that.

Even I will remember the food.