Sunday Walking Street, Chaing Mai

Every Sunday one of the greatest things you can attend in Thailand happens, and it's free ....if you have any will power.

Walking streets are the Thai term for a market that's laid out on or beside the road with the road closed off for walking.. the biggest of these happens in Chiang Mai. Starting life as a one street walking street it now forms a giant cross through the old city and spreading down many of the smaller side streets, but this is no ordinary Thai cheap souvenirs, DVDs and football shirt frenzy, here the stalls sell local handicrafts not really seen at the more touristed markets, budding designers and jewelery makers show their stuff and through all of this musicians and performance artists sing, play and dance.



Best of all the temples that line the route of the walking street fill with food vendors, some that only make an appearance once a week here. Stroll through the gate of the temple and you'll find your self in an impromptu food court, it's fantastic! Our favourite of these is located in Wat Muen Lan the closest temple to Tha phae it's here you'll find the best BBQ in Thailand (no exaggeration), some unusual omelets, a man hand making fish balls for soup and a great selection of tasty Thai sweets. It's where we always head first off, straight to the back of the temple looking for the BBQ lady, this time is no exception. She has a half steel drum converted into a BBQ, cooking over coals she grills chunks of marinated pork as well as the northern Thai sausage sai oua. You just pick up the pieces you want with tongs and place them in the front she'll then bag them up for travel. The pork is imbued with a smokey goodness covered with a simple chilli sauce it demands you keep eating and the sausage is one of the finer examples to be had around these parts, to compliment she also offers the traditional side of roasted green chilli relish (nahm prik num), bags of deep fried pork skin and sticky rice. We take our feast to the nearest table and enjoy while watching the crowd.




After this mandatory stop it's off to another, the banana leaf omelet stall where banana leaf boats are filled with an egg mix and goodies before being grilled, an order sees them flipped to set the top before being cut and handed to you straight in the leaf, next to the grill is a range of condiments chilli, soy, fish sauce and such. Our favourite omelet is mushroom, for a little more adventure we also love the bee larvae, a little nutty and squidgy but definitely worth a go.




Then it's off for a wander to see whats still here and whats new, listen to the music and enjoy and probably find a few more snacks.



These were chocolate covered bananas and grapes, beautiful to look at but the chocolate was of a dissapointing taste and texture.

There's such a great vibe with most of the crowd being Thai, like the town has turned out to see and support each other. Very cool!
As we wind up done for the evening we usually return to Wat Muen Lan to pick up some black sticky rice with fresh coconut and roast peanuts for the road, wrapped for travel in folded banana leaf it's beautiful, and environmentally friendly as well as delicious.



The perfect end to an always great afternoon!

Sunday walking street
Every Sunday, Chiang Mai

all along Th Ratchadamnoen and surrounding streets and sois
Starts late afternoon until midnight

Allow some serious hours if you want to see it all

Lamduon Fahrm Khao Soi, Chiang Mai

One of the greatest things about being in Northern Thailand has got to be Khao Soi ....... This Burmese influenced dish is a very popular Chiang Mai lunch dish, and can be found for around 25B. There is also the gourmet version of Khao Soi available at Just Khao Soi which is served on a beautiful wooden artist palette, each condiment like a pot of paint, allowing you to create your own masterpiece. These go for about 150B a bowl, and are good if you're just starting out on this Northern classic, because most of the one's you find on the street pack a fair punch!

Today we're off on the scooter again, Nancy Chandler map in hand ..... we're off to find Lamduon Fahrm Khao Soi. There's a little rundown on the map saying the chef here used to cook for the Royal Thai Family. Awesome! We drive up and down the street, actually driving past it a few times, it's quite easy to drive past, the sign out the front with roman script is tiny and easy to miss.



You walk in past all the cooking to a hustle and bustle so familiar in Thailand at lunch time. We see a lady, who is quite old, sitting on a tiny little stool, with a pot of simmering curry in front of her and everything else to make a beautiful bowl of khao soi within reaching distance. Although there are a few other vendor's within the building, one grilling meat on a stick and another doing ice-cream and drink we observe that everyone has bowls of piping hot khao soi in front of them.



We are seated and offered chicken or pork. We both opt for the not-so-traditional-pork today. Within seconds we are beaming in the company of 2 piping hot bowls of khao soi.



The curry is quite thick and intense with it's spice ... the squiggly egg noodles doing a good job of mopping up all that flavour. Then there's the pork, oh the pork! There is some sort of braised pork meat, as well as muu crop, deep-fried ultra crispy pork belly, that remains crisp even when bathed in the thick stock. Then there's the crispy noodles (so nice and crispy, fried only hours ago) and coriander on top. To the side are little bowls of pickled mustard greens, chunks of shallot and a lime wedge, to add to taste. Our taste, of course, being all of it!



Definitely one of the finest Khao Soi's we have had .... I have no doubt this chef once cooked for the Royal Thai Family.

Thanks again for another great find Nancy Chandler !

Lamduon Fahrm Khao Soi
352/22 Faharn Rd
Opposite the Resort
Chiang Mai

Good View, Chiang Mai

There are few finer ways to pass a rainy afternoon than sitting back grazing on various snacks, drinking, talking and watching the hippo's swim in the grass beside the river. Well the last one only applies if your in Chiang Mai and at the Good View a restaurant situated on the banks of the Mae ping river and before you pack your safari suit and Hippopotamus amphibius spotting guide they're just a couple of terracotta hippo's set into the banks of the river along side the restaurant.. sorry.



The restaurant is one of a few set onto the bank this side of the river and really fills up at night with live music and lots of drink promotions and the like, the crowd though is mostly Thai so good food is to be found if you pick wisely, and like I said it's a great place to while a way an afternoon.

We like the afternoon as it fit's in with our snacking schedule nicely and also the place is usually deserted so you get your pick of seating.

We pick seats right next to the hippo's and start off with some fried nuts and a couple of cold drinks, the nuts are great a mixture of cashews, baby shrimp, kaffir lime leaf, galangal and chilli all fried together and seasoned. Great drinking food and a real this-is-Thailand set of flavors.

Following these we ordered three small plates .. one of fried chicken knuckle one of smoked chicken wing and one of smoked nam. The chicken knuckle is like the bit off the end of the drum stick deep fried till super crispy, not much flavor but that's what the chilli sauce is for, it's all crunch along side a small plate of pickled onion together they're unbelievably moreish and soon disappear.

The smoked wings were something else they had been smoked so long the fat had all rendered for the wing leaving a deep mahogany papery skin and a flesh still pink but cooked, kinda like a ham they were great served with a chilli sauce and a different kind of pickle they also went down a treat.



The nam is the stuff of dreams' ... it's a great nam to start with but then they wrap it in finely sliced bacon and smoke it. You can feel your arteries harden with every mouthful but it's worth it.

We finish up with the northern style tasting plate, these are in most places around Chiang Mai but we like this one as it has not only the sausages, pork skin and grilled green chilli relish but a good selection of veges (any thing to feel like we ate something nutritious) and a small bowl of nahm prik ong as well as some great little fried fish cakes, the only bummer is after the great smoked nahm they use a very so-so commercial brought one one the platter. Still as we sit, drink and watch the rain it's easy to forgive and forget.



When a break in the rain came we started to walk back to the guesthouse only for it to start up again we ducked for cover in a door way and waited till a tuktuk passed by hailing him down we told him where we were going in our best Thai, he started laughing and said OK, we asked how much, he said free. We nearly didn't get in like this has to be a con or something but he dropped us right to the door and when we tried to give him some money he refused, we don't know if it was our stunningly butchered Thai or just sympathy for people stuck in the rain but I think we got the only free tuktuk ride in history. We Love Chiang Mai!!

13 Charoen Raj Rd.,
Watgate, Muang
Chiang Mai 50000

Aroon rai, Northern Thai, Chiang Mai

Photo by: Shostak

One our Favourite things from Thailand is Nancy Chandlers maps.. The first time we arrived in Thailand people had these great looking hand drawn maps, we picked one up and were amazed by how in depth they were not just with tourist things but great stuff to immerse yourself in some good local culture. Being gastrotourists we especially loved the food side of things, so much we would have never found, or at least it would have taken a while. Since then every time we have returned to Thailand we pick up a copy, and every time they seem to be a new edition, so there always seems to be something new for us. This time feeling like some really homegrown Northern (or maybe because it was just around the corner from the guest house) we went for Aroon rai. Like a lot of really good Thai places the decor and setting is a total after thought, the big Aroon rai sign is plastered to the wall inside so you have to walk in to see your here. They let the food do the talking though with a great selection of northern staples as well as a few southern strangers. A good whack of the menu is written in Thai and the English translation is the usual humorous literal word for word (but they write more English than I of Thai) so it helped that we knew the dishes to be able to visualise what they were.

We went for nahm prik ong, dtom yum het, scrambled egg with nam and not very northern but we felt like it, plain steamed rice. The Nahm prik ong is a northern relish of pork and tomato, usually the ones we have had have been almost like a Thai pork bolognaise but this was far more rustic and much better. Almost like a ragu the pork and tomato still in largish chunks surrounded with soft onion and garlic and swimming in a sour savoury stock, This came with a plate of fresh snake beans, cabbage and pork skin with which to scoop up the goodness. Defiantly the best we've ever had and most certainly worth a trip here if just for that.

The dtom yum was a generous portion full of floating mushrooms and aromats with a good hot sour balance.

The scrambled egg with nam was something we had never tried but we both love nam and we both like egg so give it a go we did. Nam is something that never seems to be able to translate very well, always ending up as sour or fermented pork which for some reason put the average farang off but it really deserves your attentions! every mouthful is an unctuous garlicky love affair with the gamble you may have ended up with one of the scud chilli's lurking within it's porky depths. Give it a go, at the least you'll be able to say you don't like it because you know.

The dish came out a great pile of nam and scrambled egg through which was tossed white & spring onion and a few slightly sour Thai tomatoes the did well to cut the richness of the dish which we both thought was a triumph making a note for future ordering at other places.

We had such a great meal we returned later that week, but I am ashamed to say we totally neglected our blogging duties, such was our preoccupation with the food that no photos resulted from that visit. But we can also recommend the gaeng hung lae: a mild spicy braised pork curry from the Burmese border area, the gaeng gari: an ancient yellow curry of braised chicken and potato, and the larp muu: a spicy minced pork and fresh herb salad. mmmmm aroy maak!

They also do a range of pre-packaged spice mixes for various curry's and soups if you're allowed to take them home.

Aroon rai has definitely become one of our Chiang Mai top spots.. thanks Nancy!

Aroon rai
45 Kotchasarn Rd, on the Thapae Gate side
Chiang Mai
Ph: 05327-6947
Open daily, 9am - 10pm