Som Tum (aka papaya salad) is one of those street food dishes you can find pretty much anywhere in Thailand. Green papaya, long snake beans, fish sauce, palm sugar, lime juice, fresh chillis, garlic, dried shrimp (and other ingredients) are pounded together to produce some of the most amazing flavours.
I Din Klin Krog (which I think translates to something like "vapour from the earth, aroma from the mortar") is a nice restaurant specialising in som tum. You can choose from 19 different varieties such as fried somtum (deep fried papaya somtum) and apple som tum. They also serve various other Thai dishes as well. Som tums are served in "krogs" ie mortars, and these are consistently good. Don't forget to ask for "mai ped" (not spicy) if you can't handle chillis! Last time I forgot to do this, my som tum was very nice and (very) spicy, and together with a spicy soup and larb (see below), my tongue was on fire and I couldn't taste much of the other dishes! 45-65 baht depending on the variety.
What do we eat som tums with?
Generally, som tums are eaten with grilled chicken or pork, fried chicken, and of course, sticky rice. Sticky rice is particularly good when rolled into a ball and dip in the flavourful som tum "sauce". Mmmm. It's also good to have the sticky rice (plain) when you want to tone down the burning on your tongue! hehe
Here we are: Fried Chicken Wings. These are yummy appetizers that went down way to quickly! Very morish. The serving is way too small, but I guess we can't complain too much as it's only 49 baht.
Tom Sap ("Spicy soup") - Very "Sap" - ie very spicy and sour at the same time - yum! This is a really lovely soup full of herbs like kaffir lime leaves, shallots, lemongrass, sweet basil, etc. Kind of like Tom Yum soup with a lot more complexity of flavour - tangy, firey and earthy at the same time. The pork is slightly chewey, which gives a nice contrast to the herbs in the soup. 69 baht.
Fried Chicken Larb - You can read all about larb here on shesimmers.com. What makes larb larb is the nutty aroma of the toasted rice powder. The fried chicken here is more like soft chicken nuggets, but they do soak up the lovely seasoning / dressing (fish sauce, lime juice & dried red chilli) of the larb (which is also quite spicy!). Delicious! 59 baht.
I Din Klin Krog does have some non spicy dishes as well. The deep fried larb is also quite nice. These are balls of larb - nice and crunchy on the outside, lovely and soft on the inside. As for the taste, I can't really say much as my taste buds were numb from all the chillis from the other dishes! 59 baht.
All in all a nice restaurant. Good food. Good service. Nice ambience.
I Din Klin Krog
Behind Big C Extra (Super Highway) near Wawee Coffee
(Chiang Mai Business Park)
Opens daily: 10am-10pm
GPS: 18.798256,99.023754
View I Din Klin Krog in a larger map
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