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