Ginger & Kafe

"East-West eclectic funky - fun casual chill-out bristo" is how Ginger & Kafe describes itself on its website. I guess that's not too far from the truth. Ginger & Kafe is funky and definitely a great place to chill out and lounge on the colourful sofas. For the more fashionable diners, there is a lovely (and a little pricey) boutique selling clothes and accessories at the back of the cafe.

The food is great too. Ginger and Kafe serves both Thai and Western Food and offers a wide variety of choices. The Thai food is great, the Western food is OK (but not terribly great!). If you go, I'd highly recommend Thai food.

The service was pretty good. The staff can speak English quite well, and quite accommodating. A fellow diner is gluten intolerant and we simply told the waitress that she is allergic to oyster sauce and soy sauce (both contain small amount of wheat) and request that the dishes we ordered shouldn't have any of these ingredients. She promptly checks with the kitchen and comes back informing that we shouldn't order any Thai food as all the Thai dishes contain soy sauce or oyster sauce! The dishes won't be tasty without these ingredients! However, after we tell her it's fine to use fish sauce or salt, the kitchen still produced very good dishes.

The drinks menu was quite interesting and filled with names like Pep Up and Wow Crazy. I had Pep Up - a very refreshing lime juice based drink. Definitely pepped me up! 140 baht.

The Thai food is great, as mentioned earlier - tasty and high quality (even without soy sauce and oyster sauce!). The Pad Thai - although a typical Thai street food dish, is excellent, well, at least the way I like it - tasty, moist but not soggy. The flavours are perfectly balanced. 110 baht.

The Pomelo Salad is also great, minus the crispy pork which is left out because it's marinated in soy sauce. 120 baht.

Stir-fried Pork and Mushroom with Roasted Chilli Paste. This actually came stir-fried with red curry paste. I guess the roasted chilli paste must have soy sauce or oyster sauce. Anyway, it was very nice as well. 140 baht.

The total bill came to 913 baht (including the 10% service charge added). Pricier than regular Thai restaurants, but it's worth it considering the lovely ambience, the location (in the old town with lots of parking), and the quality of the food.

The Verdict:

Beautiful cafe to relax and hang out with friends and bring guests. Lovely ambience, good Thai food, OK Western food. Good parking. A little pricy, but worth it.

The Rating:

Ambience: 7/10

Food: 7/10 (Thai); 5/10 (Western)

Price: 6/10

Ginger & Kafe

199 Moonmuang Road

T. Sriphum, A. Muang

Chiang Mai

Tel: 053 419011

Opens daily: 10am to midnight. Last orders 10:30pm