Let It Be Cafe & Eatery, Mae Rim Plaza

Lazy Sunday lunch with a friend. Mae Rim area. The easy choice is Mae Rim Plaza where there are now several new restaurants and cafes.

The obvious choice for me whenever I get a chance to go there is Steak of The Day and Fukuro, but today, we wanted to try something else and came across a cute small cafe called Let It Be.

The cafe looked very inviting, the menu, surprisingly, is more like an Italian restaurant's menu than a cafe, and importantly on a hot day (isn't it always hot in Chiang Mai?), it's air conditioned!

The cafe itself is quite small (one shophouse) and only had about 5 tables inside and 1 table outside. There wasn't many people when we arrived, but the small eatery quickly filled up with patrons. They had quite a good turn over too without being too crowded. We also felt very comfortable, enjoying our lunch and chatting away for quite some time and never felt rushed.

The menu was surprisingly quite extensive. There were several Western / Italian dishes - pasta and pizza; steak and grilled dishes - beef, pork, chicken, sausage and fish as well as some Thai dishes and salads.

We opted for the Lunch Set Menu that had several choices of mains as well as a drink, salad or soup and ice cream. I chose the Spaghetti Ham & Dry Chilli set for 175 baht.

The first course - House Salad. This was quite lovely, served with a light sesame dressing on crispy and fresh lettuce. There were also tender slices of duck on the top.

Salad with Duck and Lipton Iced Tea

For the main, I chose the Ham and Dry Chilli Spaghetti. It was lovely, a little spicy and had lots of garlic!

Ham and Dry Chilli Spaghetti

And for dessert... Ice Cream with Fruit Salad. It's a nice finish to the meal. Let It Be also have several desserts on the menu eg. Banana Split, Crepe Suzette and Chocolate Lava so there are a few choices for those with a sweet tooth too.

Vanilla Ice Cream with Fruit Salad

Incidentally, my friend ordered the Carbonara lunch set. She wanted a vegetarian version, made with mushrooms and the chef had no problems making it for her.

Let It Be Cafe & Eatery
Mae Rim Plaza
Tel: 091 869 5962, 094 610 1115
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/letitbesteakhouse/timeline
GPS Co-Ordinates:  18.91588, 98.94223

Shogun Japanese Restaurant

Driving home one night, I suddenly noticed a sign - a new Japanese restaurant has opened near Samyak Market, Sansai. The lightbox outside the restaurant had an enticing photo of a large plate of sushi. The restaurant looked quite cute too and had a Japanesy feel.

Since then, I've been there a couple of times and has found the food to be pretty good. It's not Kitchen Hush, but Shogun provides good quality, good value for money and close to home, which means it's a place we can often visit!

Gyoza - one of my favourite snacks at a Japanese restaurant. Shogun's gyoza is very good. Crispy skin with juicy pork filling and slightly tangy and refreshing dipping sauce. 79baht.

Small Sushi Set - a plate of assorted sushi. The salmon was pretty good. The tuna was a bit chewy. Overall quite decent. 299 baht.

And here is my favourite dish, the Korean Chicken. Deep-fried bite sizes of chicken with skin and smothered with a thick, salty and sticky sauce. Yum! The chicken was slightly chewy (which I didtn't mind) and  the skin was nice and crispy. The side cabbage didn't have a dressing on it, so it seemed quite bland after eating the chicken. However, the gyoza dipping sauce makes a nice salad dressing! 119 baht.

If you need some more side dishes to fill you up, Shogun offers 3 rice sets. You can choose from the regular plain steamed rice, garlic fried rice or kimchi fried rice. These come with side dishes of a salad, miso soup and some kimchi. This time I ordered the garlic fried rice. It was lovely with buttery fragrance. A little oily though. The garlic fried rice set was 79 baht.

These rice sets are quite good idea, I think, as diners can order any mains they like to go with the rice set.

The verdict - a nice little restaurant with good food and offering good value for money. The staff is very friendly. Shogun has a cosy ambience and makes you feel like you're in a little restaurant in Japan.

Shogun Japanese Restaurant
Chiang Mai-Doi Saket Rd (118)
Sansai, Chiang Mai.
(On the left just pass Samyak Market)
Tel: 0966987181
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/โชกุน-1559529397710577/timeline
Opens: Daily 11am-10pm