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Chanchao's Chiang Mai Food Review
Reviews of restaurants and Thai food stalls in Chiang Mai, Thailand
By: Chanchao in Chiang Mai
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| Tuesday, 30-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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The Mother of All Thai Buffets, all you can eat at 30 Baht!
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Phitsanuloke "30 Baht" Buffet
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Loads and loads of trays to choose from
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Food is as good or better than many hotel buffets..
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Today even I was surprised. A lot of the places I post on here are re-visits of places that I liked initially, but then didn't visit for a couple of months because they happen to be located half way to Burma. Buffet Phitsanuloke is such a place. It was located near the provincial government offices on the Middle Ring highway, close to the new jail at the intersection with the Mae Rim road. It was packed every day at lunchtime, and for a reason: an incredible variety of pretty much every kind of Thai food, all you can eat for 30 baht. Even drinking water and desert thrown into the price.
But let me rant a little bit about shops selling pre-prepared food in general, often called curry & rice shops. You often see these in small shophouses, where you can point to various dishes in trays and order it over-rice. Often these trays have been around for a while, and no attempt is made to keep food warm. Fair enough, however almost invariably these places charge every bit as much as the 'made to order' (taam sang) food stalls and restaurants, where food is prepared for you while you wait and is of course always hot and fresh. One of the great mysteries of Thai food.. You can find made to order for 15 baht, but your average curry over rice that has been there perhaps for more than a day comes at 20 or 25 baht. [End of rant]
Enter Thai buffet-food style places. These used to be the domain of bigger hotels, that threw breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets where mostly also non-guests can come and eat. Prices are often between 100 and 200 baht per person. But then Phitsanuloke Buffet started.. and charged just 30 baht.. Pretty much the price of a single serving of two dishes over rice plus a bottle of water at all the small rice & curry shops. It became hugely popular, and apparently the business model worked: They moved to a MUCH bigger place!
The new place is still on the Middle Ring Highway, but now in between the Ping River bridge and the Mae Jo Road. If you come from the Mae Jo road, it's on the left hand side before you get to river.
And what a place it is! It's HUGE. And it's STILL full with people! Variety is as good as ever, not just standard Thai favorites but also tables with salad, chilly dip & som tam, khao soi, khanom jeen, sweet deserts, several kinds of fried rice and phad Thai. Just look at the pictures, it's amazing. (9 pictures today, be sure to view all of them.). This is about the greatest intro to Thai food on the planet, and at less than one US dollar! 
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| Monday, 29-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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It's a wrap: Springrolls, Vietnamese Style
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Fresh Spring Roll Food stall
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Preparing spring rolls to-go.
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Comes with chopsticks, chillies and sauce
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Spring rolls come in two basic varieties: the crispy fried one and the 'fresh' one. The latter you usually find in Vietnamese restaurants. And also at this particular roadside food stall which does the dish really well, giving 'proper' Vietnamese restaurants a real run for their money!
Fried spring rolls in Thai are called "po pia thod", the cold variety "po pia sod" (sod=fresh). This turns it into a kind of sandwich-roll / sandwich-wrap with all kinds of ingredients. This stall does a particularly nice variety, using a pancake/burrito like wrap with crab meat on top. Really delicious! They go for 20 baht for two or 30 baht for three, and come with a sweet sauce and disposable chopsticks..
Location: Finally something in a touristy area of town! On Charoen Prathet road, on the left side before you get to the Porn Ping Tower Hotel and Diamond Riverside hotel. This one is on the left side of the road when going in the direction of the one-way traffic, in front of a noodle restaurant.
Looking at the first picture only now do I notice the bottle of French's Mustard on the cart...! Would people actually order fresh spring rolls with mustard?!  It's a highly touristed area so it wouldn't really surprise me.. And it could be worse of course.. could have been tomato ketchup.. 
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| Sunday, 28-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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Phuket Laikhram
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Phuket Laikhram Restaurant
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Southern style khanom jeen and yellow curry over rice
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A couple of days ago I talked about Khanom Jeen, the cold, white spaghetti-like noodles that are popular in pretty much all regions of Thailand, but then with their own particular style of sauces to go with it. Without a doubt this place does the Southern style best, like you find in Phuket and Trang provinces. I also have a feeling that this style would be most favored by Westerners, with a touch of coconut in a curry sauce.
The restaurant is a standard shop house and has been in operation at this location for as long as I can remember. Also the upstairs area has restaurant tables. Phuket Laikhram actually do more than a few dishes really good, including their Phad Thai and Khaa Moo - Khai Phalo combo. (pork meat stew and eggs with Chinese herbs). Also they do Southern curries over rice. Southern curries are usually seriously spicy, but I think Phuket Laikhram is probably among the milder ones. By Southern food standards that is.  We tried the yellow curry over rice which is quite nice, made with fish and sweet-sour pickled bamboo shoots; thought it was pineapple at first. (Don't confuse this Southern yellow curry with Kaeng Karee, the milder Indian chicken curry.) Ordered this 'over rice' with some Moo Wan (sweet pork). With Southern food it's usually a good bet to order a mild, slightly fatty and/or sweet dish along with any curries to help fight the heat.
Phuket Laikhram actually is mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, one of the very few 'places to eat' they list that I too agree are very good. And for Southern style Khanom Jeen, it's the best without a doubt. In Chiang Mai of course I should add, or I will be getting upset e-mails form Trang. 0)
The restaurant is located on Suthep Road near the back-entrance to Chiang Mai University. When driving on Suthep road, go straight at the intersection with the Canal Road and you will find it on the left hand side, just before you get to the first accessible CMU gate (Pratu Kaset I believe it's called).
Prices are a tad higher than usual, with the khanom jeen, which is a small portion by any standard, at a whopping 20 baht and also other 'over rice' dishes going for 30 baht. But then again, even this would be in line with the price level in Phuket.
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| Saturday, 27-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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Spring rolls meet Dim Sum: Tube Noodles (Kuaytiow Lod)
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Kuaytiow Lod Vendor
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Also steamed Khanom Jeeb on offer
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Take-away in a styrofoam box.. Sauce & chopsticks included!
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I'm getting ahead of myself.. The challenge was to try a different place every single day of the year but I'm currently running nearly two a day. This is the entry for Saturday 27th, but am writing this today on Wednesday 23rd and already have the pictures for Sunday and Monday.. Soon the year will run out of days before all the restaurants and food stalls do! 0)
Today's entry is a bit of a first because I actually never had this particular food before. I only stumbled upon it while waiting for the huge crowd at the nearby noodles restaurant (see below) to subside. And I have a weak spot for market women wearing this traditional Thai straw hat.. At first I thought she was selling Vietnamese style cold spring-roles, but they turned out to be something different, very tasty and vegetarian to boot: Tube Noodles (Kuaytiow Lod). These are steamed rolls of wide noodle wrapped around a filling that includes various vegetables, bean sprouts and tofu. Comes take-away in a styrofoam box with two different sauces, a sweet one and a soury one, similar to the sauce served with dim sum. The whole dish is of course more or less a variety on the dim-sum theme, but cheaper and a lot more filling.. 
Location of this particular stall was near the Three Kings Monument, where there are many food stalls and small restaurants operating around lunch time.
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| Friday, 26-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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Noodle shop.. Good business? / Yentafo Sa-Aad
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Yentafo Sa-Aad Restaurant. At lunchtime it's this busy every day
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F A S T food indeed
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Clean, fast, efficient, consistent. Definition of fast food.
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You may be surprised at just how much money noodle shop owners are making. Some small stalls may be struggling and working long hours to make ends meet, but there are also shops, usually quite ordinary looking, who's owners afford the biggest Mercedes Benz's and who can send their kids to top foreign universities. The noodle shops near the Three Kings Monument are in the latter category. Years ago the local government offices were located in this area, which provided guaranteed lunch-time business. These have since moved to the outskirts of town on the Mae Rim road, but the noodle shops remained, and are popular as ever. I got there about 12:15pm yesterday, and almost all restaurants were completely full, apparently even with people waiting for a table to vacate. Keep in mind this is not for some gourmet food, but the most basic of lunch dishes: Noodle soup. It's worth visiting these places if only to watch the lightning speed at which the staff prepare and serve food. This is not fast food, this is hyperspeed express-food. Even with a near full restaurant it took them less time to serve my order than it took me to shoot some pictures of them making it!  Whoever thought of Thai workers as slow and lazy hasn't seen these people at work.
The place pictured today is Raan Sa-Aad ("Clean Shop") often called Yentafo Sa-Aad after their most popular noodle variety: Yentafo which is made with plenty of different kinds of meat and fish-balls and with red/pink sauce, giving the dish it's characteristic pink color. It's next to the Three Kings Monument area, on a stretch of road that has many food shops and food stalls. Can't miss it.
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| Thursday, 25-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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German food without the lederhosen
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Nobody Restaurant
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Crispy pork leg dishes that look like they mean business.. :)
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Trout w. herbs and vegetables and mild horseradish sauce
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When you say German food in Chiang Mai, inevitably two places spring to mind, right next to each other at the Night Bazar in the soi in front of McDonalds: The Hofbrauhaus and Haus Muenchen. The former is the bigger and better of the two, and serves both decent German fare as well as hideous 'hoompa' music. There is however one thing above all that managed to keep me out of there for close to 8 years: The Thai woman staff outside the place, wearing a Bavarian hunters hat and lederhosen.... I am the last person to get fussy about what is proper attire for Thai women, but when I see a lass dressed in said fashion, it makes me itch all over. Which is a shame, because the restaurant isn't half bad and given the ultra-touristy locale, perhaps not even as expensive as you would expect.
Still I don't like the touristyness of the area all that much, which is why I think this out of the way place deserves a plug. It's actually seriously out of the way, no regular tourist is going to just walk past this one: Nobody Restaurant. It's run by a German chef and his Thai wife. I lost track of this place for a while after they moved from their old, and equally 'nowhere' location, behind Payom market off Suthep road.
I'm very happy to have found it again after someone told me on the http://thaivisa.com forum. I like it for it's unpretentiousness and large portions of good old honest German fare. Also 3 kinds of draft beer on tap (!) that are worth checking out. Brand is 'Schwarzer Drachen (Black Dragon)'. Never seen it anywhere except here. Pricing is not ultra cheap, but definitely good value for money. Most main courses cost between 200 and 300 baht.
Directions: When driving on the Superhighway ring road from the Khuang Singh intersection with the Mae Rim road towards the Rincome Intersection with Huay Kaew, you will pass the traffic lights at the U-turn intersection at Wat Jet Yod. Continue straight and then turn left into the soi right after a the big open-air Moo Kata grill restaurant. This is soi Tawan. You will find Nobody restaurant on the right hand side.
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| Wednesday, 24-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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Location, location.. location?
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Ban Khanom Jeen Restaurant
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Serve yourself, buffet style
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Khanom Jeen
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Some commonly accepted 'rules of business' seem to work not quite in the same way in Thailand as they do elsewhere. A common example is law of supply & demand, which you will often find applied in reverse: when business is slower, prices must rise to make ensure that revenue remains the same. Makes sense doesn't it? Or? Here we have another example: the importance of "location" for a restaurant. Is this really as important in Thailand as it is perceived elsewhere? You would doubt it looking at this long running and very popular lunch-time buffet restaurant. It's WAY down a small soi off the Superhighway, and then WAY inside a small housing compound. If you haven't been told where it is then you will NOT run into this one by accident. When it comes to restaurants, 'word of mouth' takes great precedence over location. Perhaps Thais even find enjoyment in finding and telling people about a great little place they found somewhere, or that someone else told them about? I definitely get enjoyment out of it, or I wouldn't be posting all these reviews here on this page..
Back to the food at hand today: Khanom Jeen. Often translated as Chinese Noodle or even Thai Spaghetti! Khanom Jeen you find in every region of the country, it's as popular in the North, North East or South. What differs though are the sauces/curries that are served with it, these vary quite a bit. Some are definitely VERY spicy, others fairly mild, like the common green curry. It's also a very inexpensive dish. Perhaps less so in this distinctly middle-class buffet restaurant, but you also find khanom jeen at little stalls around markets at any time of the day and night. In Chiang Mai, if you ever find yourself in town between midnight and 3am or so, check out the low tables near Kad Luang, the Big Market. Probably the cheapest place for khanom jeen.
At Ban Khanom Jeen (House of Thai Spaghetti) they serve khanom jeen 'buffet style', you can choose from any of the curries/sauces and there's a big supply of fresh herbs and vegetables add as well. Plus they serve a nice little side dish of crispy fried vegetables, leafs and herbs, more or less tempura style. You pay per bunch of noodles you use. So going for lots of curry & veggies with minimal noodles helps to reduce cost. I think they charge 10 baht per bunch of noodles. I had 4, so the bill came to 50 baht including a bottle of drinking water and the crispy vegetables side dish. With two people sharing you will likely pay a bit less per person, figure about 40 baht.
Now then.. how to get there. The place is in a sub-soi of a soi of the Superhighway. When driving on the Superhighway, coming from the Rincome intersection you will pass Wat Jed Yod Temple (worth a visit, seems they're excavating ruins of older structures there at the moment). Turn left into the first proper soi after the temple, this is Soi Putharam, though this is not indicated anywhere. Then Ban Khanom Jeen is in Putharam Soi 4, which is on the right hand side, about 1 kilometer or so from the Superhighway. The sign Putharam Soi 4 is in Thai only, even the number 4 uses the Thai numeral "รด". If all this sounds too complicated then you have a great excuse to be out in town at 3am, sampling the khanom jeen at the big Kad Luang market! 0)
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| Tuesday, 23-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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Khao Man Kai (Rice with Steamed Chicken)
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Khao Man Kai Nantharam
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Rip chickens faster than you can say "Justin Timberlake sucks"
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Khao Man Kai and Moo Sate pork skewers
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Khao Man Kai, steamed chicken with rice cooked in chicken broth, is probably not the most exciting of dishes as far as Thai food goes. It's more like a staple lunch-dish, much like a ham sandwich would be in the West. Still with the right ham and the right bread, some ham sandwiches are distinctly better done than others. It's kind of the same with khao man kai. Rice is fried first in chicken fat and garlic, then broth is added for cooking the rice. This results in a more fragrant and tasty rice than just plan boiled rice. Also the ingredients for the spicy brown sauce that's served with it can set a place apart. Chopped chillies and ginger can be added to this sauce to taste.
One of the most famous and longest running places for khao man kai is Nantharam, named after the nearby temple of the same name. It's been so succesful that several branches opened at other places in town, still called Khao Man Kai Nantharam, even though they're nowhere near the temple from which they derive their name. One of the bigger branches is at Sri Mangalachan Road, which is the road that connects Suthep Road with Huay Kaew road, parallel to Nimmanhaemin Rd. It's the road you take to reach the back-entrance of Central / Kad Suan Kaew department store. Another very famous place for Khao Man Kai is Charoen Kiat, located on Inthawarorot road next to the Three Kings Monument, where there are many restaurants and stalls open for lunch time.
The place pictured here however is the original, in a soi off Wualai Road. When coming from Thapae Gate driving on Wualai Road, take a left just before Wualai Road intersects with Thippanet Road and continues on to the Airport Plaza intersection. Follow this soi and you will find Nantharam restaurant on the left side of the road.
Besides khao man kai, the place also sells other basic meat-over-rice dishes such as khao moo krob (crispy fried pork). It's possible that this is a recent development resulting from the bird flue problem in early 2004. In any case a combination of steamed chicken AND crispy pork over rice is a good idea too. They also sell moo sate, marinated pork skewers with a peanut sate sauce that is pretty nice as well. Chicken over rice goes for 20 baht a plate, or order a small, medium or large sized plate of chicken for 30, 40 and 50 baht respectively. Rice is 5 baht per serving, water is served free of charge.
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| Monday, 22-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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Banana Fritters
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No-name but long running fried banana shop. Cheerful staff too.
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10 baht gets you a lot more than is healthy for you.
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Quicky review today about fried bananas. You can find stalls selling this all over town. The one I highlight is near Sanpakhoi market, the market just South of Charoen Muang road. This little shop/stall is just North from the market on the same soi that passes the market.
Aside from the usual fried bananas and fried sweet-potato, they also do 'Khao Mao', which is fried heaven with coconut in batter. Sadly they were out of it today, which, looking at my waistline, is just as well.
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| Sunday, 21-Mar-2004 00:00 |
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Vegetarian Food
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Mata Restaurant
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The Thai word 'Jay'. Learn to recognize it!
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Interesting combo tray/plate for one..
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The place pictured is now closed (made way for some more development), though of course there are many very similar places around Chiang Mai, serving Buddhist-Vegan food.
Vegetarians who visit Thailand on holiday seem to be either raving about the veggie food, or seriously struggling to find something. For some reason there doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground. The ravers are correct of course, Thai vegetarian food is excellent and very varied. Yet for some reason it takes people a while to recognize the vegetarian places and to get the hang of ordering dishes 'sans-meat' at regular restaurants and food-stalls.
Most Thai vegetarian food is actually Buddhist-vegan food, called "Jay" food in Thai. This is a useful word to learn if you're vegetarian. Jay food is more strict that vegetarian, it doesn't allow for ANY animal produce (dairy, etc.) and even doesn't allow things like garlic or onions! Does it still taste good then you may wonder: hell yea!
Almost any town of some size will have one or more Jay restaurants, learn to recognize the Thai or Chinese word for 'Jay' (see middle picture). Chiang Mai has quite a few of course, today I highlight Mata Restaurant. It is close to Central Department store. When you get to the North Western city corner (Jaeng Hua Rin) you would turn left to go to Central. Instead you continue straight on and find this place on the right hand side. Try some of the meat-like substitutes made from mushrooms and other ingredients. The 'duck' is excellent. Mata is not necessarily better than other places, but it's a bit bigger and has a little garden with a fountain. It also sells vegetarian snacks and groceries. 2 dishes 'over rice' will set you back 20 baht, or order a 'set' as pictured for 35.
Another place worth mentioning that is 'regular' vegetarian is Khun Churn. They do an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet for 59 baht, AND it's open in the evening in really nice semi-outdoors restaurant setting. Khun Churn Restaurant relocated last year to Nimmanhaemin soi 5 (or 7?), down from soi 11 which still shows on many maps.
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this recipe is awesome love 