Occasionally, one may have a craving to eat something 'sap'. On these occasions, the place to go is a somtum restaurant. 'Somtum', or papaya salad, is a ubiquitous Thai dish with all the delicious Thai flavour - sweet, spicy, salty, sour- especially spicy and sour!
Solao is a simple and clean open air local restaurant. They have more than just somtum - the menu is actually quite large and includes various fried fish, grilled pork neck, tom sap ("sap" soup), larb....
The somtum here is very good. There are many varieties to choose from eg. with crab, fermented fish, etc. We chose the Sao Chiang Mai (Chiang Mai lady) Somtum...the regular papaya salad with Chiang Mai crispy pork skin and pork loaf. The pork skin gives a nice crunch. Very good, and very spicy and "sap"!
One of Solao's most famous dishes that I see when ever I see a review is the "Peek Gai Tod Nam Pla" - Fried Chicken Wings in fish sauce - these are chicken wings marinated in fish sauce and deep fried. Solao's chicken wings are definitely very yummy, and, I guess, dipped in a slightly sticky sweet and salty sauce - very tasty indeed, and also a good respite from the fiery papaya salad.
The "Plachon Dad Diew" - deep fried sundried snakehead fish, served with green mango salad - very nice! The sneakhead was very nicely fried - fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.
A very good and popular local restaurant. Good value too - you can expect to pay about 100-250 baht/person.
Somtum Solao
43 Sirimankalajan Rd
Muang, Chiang Mai.
Tel: 0896355848
Opens daily 10:30am-8pm
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ReplyDeleteI will definitely be browsing through your posts to find good eats the next time I am in Chiang Mai.
wow .. must check out this place. Thanks for posting :)
ReplyDeleteFound it. SOLAO! Chicken wings and prawn salad now! Can't read Thai script, a little hard to order though
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