Ruen Pae II

After working so hard the past several weeks, I thought I'd have a treat and went to a normally reliable restaurant, Ruan Pae II. The food is usually great (and cheap!), service OK and being one of the many open air restaurants in Chiang Mai, ambience quite relaxing.

This time we were served by a sour-faced waiter who literally threw the menus at us. May be he had a bad day? Mai-pen-rai (never mind), we thought as we scanned the menu.

Alice: Can you please recommend something for us?

Waiter: They are on the first two pages of the menu.

Hmm..OK.

After some deliberation of the very extensive menu looking for something "different". My favourite at Ruen Pae II is the Gang Som Pla Chon (Deep-fried Serpent Head Fish in Sour Curry). This is a sweet, sour and explosively spicy soup - yum!

Well, anyway, we decided to go for something different this time.

We ended up having:

Steamed Serpent Head Fish with Sour Plum. Doesn't it look fabulous? It came, however, suspiciously quickly, much too fast for steamed fish - perhaps pre-prepared? Our suspicions proved correct when we found that the fish was not hot!! To be fair, the Pla Chon was very fresh, and the dish tasted great, but it would have been even better if it was hot.

Second dish - Deep fried Morning Glory leaves Salad. This is one of the dishes I like to try in different restaurants (if I happen to see it on the menu). Not everyone does this well, and the vegie usually end up too oily. Above is Ruen Pae II's version, complete with a fried egg. It was quite nice, but the sauce too sweet.

Third dish - Jungle Curry - the only comment - it was too hot(spicy) for me! Should have asked for "Mai Ped" - "not hot". Jungle Curry is quite a healthy curry - no coconut milk and has plenty of herbs like kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and also has peppercorns and chilli!

Since the Jungle Curry was so hot, we had to order another dish to pacify our burning tongues. We decided to order deep-fried prawn patties (Tod Man Goong). It looked great. The prawn patties were still sizzling when it arrived at our table. I must say, though, it was the worst Tod Man Goong I've had. Tasteless, and the plum sauce was sugary sweet.

The bill came to be 371 baht for 3 people (yes, still cheap, at least!). Perhaps we'll have better luck next time, but definitely no Tod Man Goong!

Ruen Pae II

Middle Ring Road, opposite Baan Panon Housing Estate

San Peeseua, Muang, Chiang Mai

Tel: 053 115194

There is another branch on San Kampaeng Rd. Tel: 053 338 641