How to Eat Well in Chiang Mai
Expectations for a trip to Chiang Mai were high. Its food has been described as "the best I've ever eaten". It's been eulogised on TV by Anthony Bourdain and through the US PokPok restaurants it's been a key influence in the Chang-Bowien-Ricker axis of Asian-inspired food that's been the most exciting in western restaurants of the past decade. It's cheap, delicious and everywhere – not just on every street corner, but on mobile kitchens and food stalls strapped to the side of motorbikes that whizz past you as you cross the road.
Could it possibly live up to the hype? We did have a great week of eating – the food is fresh, full of flavour, well cooked and incredibly cheap. But the articles and research online weren't all 100% helpful in getting the best Chiang Mai food experience, so this post is what we worked out from a week spent there at the end of October.
Do some research before you go: If you really want to get the best out of it, it's worth doing some research to understand some of the key dishes, and even better, learn their names. Although many places will have English menus, not all will (especially market stalls) and some of the menus that do exist will not offer much more than the name of a dish and a bad photo. To help you find the real gems, recognising dishes (and even better, knowing their Thai name so you can ask) will help you enormously.
One of the best ways to get to know the dishes is through Andy Ricker's PokPok book – reading this, and even better, cooking some of the dishes – will give you an understanding of what to look out for, and if you've tried making a few things (as I have with sai ua, the amazing lemongrass spiked pork sausage) you'll really enjoy the subtle variations you find between different versions.
Some of the classic dishes to look out for: pork knuckle stew (khao kha muu), noodle soups, khao soi noodles, sai ua sausage, laap minced meat salads, satay, and those Thai classics of som tum salad (mix it up by trying versions with salted crab) and tom yum soup.
There are three types of food outlet: stalls for takeaway, stalls with tables, restaurants.
Undoubtedly some of the best food is cooked and sold to be taken home and eaten – usually just in a plastic bag sealed with a rubber band. The morning market at Chiang Mai gate and the Warorot market are full of stalls with different dishes of curries, sauces and stir fries which people buy to eat at home or at work, like the one pictured below. While you can buy and immediately eat a curry puff, a spring roll, some barbecued sausage or satay, many of the soups and stir fried dishes unfortunately aren't really practical to buy and eat straightaway. If you were really adventurous you could take a bowl and some cutlery with you.
The next type of food stall are the ones you usually find in the evening, with a few tables where you can sit and eat. The best of these are at the north and south gates of the old city (Chang Phuak Gate and Chiang Mai Gate respectively). Some stalls with specialise in one dish (like satay), some do a few versions on the same theme (noodle soups, for example) and some offer a more extensive menu. You can eat really well at these stalls for hardly any money – paying between 10 and 50 baht (in other words up to £1 or $1.25) for most things except seafood or bigger dishes. Pretty much everything is well cooked, ingredients are fresh, but these are rarely fancy dishes. They're like really good home food.
Finally there are restaurants, whose kitchens are often much the same as food trucks consisting of a charcoal grill and a couple of gas burners, but under a permanent roof. A few bigger ones have extensive menus, but many of the gems specialise in one or two things, like khao soi noodles, or roast chicken. Our favourites are listed below.
Finding places: if you are trying to track places down, Google Maps sometimes works, but it's not infallible. Many places are not listed under their English name. Finding Instagram posts and clicking on the location to follow the pin is often your best bet. Photographer Austin Bush (who lives in Thailand and took all the PokPok photos) keeps a great Google Map full of pins.
Sauces and dips: this is something that Chiang Mai does incredibly well. At a barbecue stand, always say yes to the sauce unless you really can't tolerate spicy food. Look out for naam phrik ong (shown below), a pork and tomato dip which often comes served with raw vegetables to dip into it. Nam Phrik Num is a green chile dip which goes really well with grilled food. You’ll also find red chile sauces, sour sauces, tamarind sauces and others.
Hot food: some dishes you'll get straight from the wok and they'll be piping hot, but many Thai dishes are served closer to room temperature, and particularly with barbecue, most often things have been grilled in advance and will be warmed up for you – often to somewhere below piping hot. This is just how they do it – so don't think something's wrong if you're getting warm rather than hot food.
Seafood: It's far from the coast, but you'll still see prawns and squid at many barbecue places. It's always the most expensive dish – you'll pay 150-200 baht for a dish of grilled prawns, but that's still only £4/$5. Because they usually grill things at the start of the shift and then just reheat them, they're not going to be the best grilled prawns you've ever had, but find a stall with a good sauce and they can still be tasty and make a change to all the grilled pork. You may think that squid that's been grilled and then reheated will be really tough, but it was really tasty when we had it. My girlfriend and I love grilled prawns, so had them a few times – there was only one time where they really weren’t worthwhile (in a seafood restaurant in the Anusarn Night Market).
For something different: stalls for takeaway in the morning markets have way more variety than the food stalls at the night markets, where you will see the same dishes come up again and again. Consider switching your evenings between night markets and restaurants to get variety from day to day.
Drinking and eating: at the night markets your choice of alcohol will be beer or beer. If you're not a beer drinker, like me, then you might need to get over the concept of drinking and eating while you're in Chiang Mai. It actually works pretty well – afternoon drinks by the pool, gin and tonics before heading out, and then water, coconut water or watermelon juice with the spicy food while you eat.
Adjust your timings: some places had unexpected opening hours. SP Chicken is open until 5pm, but often runs out of chickens in the afternoon. A few of the khao soi noodle places are lunchtime only. Don't assume that restaurants will have what you consider 'normal' hours.
Warorot Market during the day – loads of great stalls where you can pick up pancakes, grilled sausage, curry puffs, and in the basement a couple of noodle places.
At night – Chiang Mai Gate and Chang Phuak Gate markets.
SP Chicken was made famous across the world by Andy Ricker, and the rotisserie chicken is great – served with hot, sour and sweet sauces, and with a fantastic garlicky stuffing. The fried chicken is also great. It’s easy to find in the old city.
Krua Phech Doi Ngam is a restaurant with standout food (there’s a pin on my Instagram post) including the mixed appetisers with the three types of sausage in the picture above, great pork laap and an amazing white turmeric and herb salad shown below.
Khao Soi Islam has great noodles – both classic khao soi in a light curry sauce and noodles and wontons in clear soup. The spring rolls are great too. There’s a pin in my Instagram post.
Chiang Mai is a great food city – I hope these notes help you enjoy it as much as we did.