Khaomao-Khaofang Restaurant

"Imaginary Jungle" at Khaomao-Khaofang

One of my great pleasures is to spend a leisurely Sunday lunch with the family. Today, we head to Khaomao-Khaofang, quite a famous restaurant set in an "imaginary jungle", complete with waterfalls. It's one of those restaurants people like to bring their out of town guests to.

The setting is absolutely lovely. Beautiful large trees, gorgeous tropical garden, waterfalls. It's a man made jungle close to the city. The food is pretty good too - you can choose from a large selection of Thai food, often not seen elsewhere,  and also a nice selection of Thai desserts (and pretty good looking cakes too).

Quite a large variety of appetizers are on offer. We opt for:

"Pla Keun Tod Korb Samun Prai" - Deep fried naked cat fish (don't ask me what that is!) with crispy herbs. It must be one of the specialty dishes as this dish is featured on the cover of the menu. The fish came out looking great, served with chilli sauce, and topped with crispy noodles and various herbs. I find the fish nice and crispy, but quite dry. 190 baht.

"Mieng Gai Krob" - Crispy chicken with herbs wrapped in fragrant leaves. "Mieng" is referred to as bite sized snacks of various chopped up herbs, lime, chilli, ginger, etc wrapped up in Chaplu (Piper sarmentosum) leaves. What we do here is make little cones out of the leaves, then fill the leaves with the chicken / herbs mix. A lot of fun to eat. The sauce is very sweet so it would have been better if it is served separately so we can just add a little bit if we need to. 100 baht.

Other dishes we had: 

"Choo-chee prik pao goong sod" - Deep fried shrimps with roasted chilli paste. This is quite an interesting dish that I never had before. Shrimps stir-fried with crunchy beans, kaffir lime leaves, crispy pork skin and a LOT of "prik pao" chilli paste (as you can see from the photo!). It's a sweetish, spicy kind of dish which I quite enjoyed (mainly because I love "prik pao" anyway!). The beans and crispy pork skin gives a nice crunchy contrast to the prawns. 180 baht. 

"Yum Hed Ruam" - Mixed mushroom spicy salad - quite good. Nice mix of mushrooms and textures, and has all the right flavours. 100 baht

For those who has a sweet tooth, Kaomao-Kaofang has a nice selection of desserts to choose from. We decided to order the Banana fritters with sesame glaze - basically beautifully deep fried bananas served with syrup and sesame. Very nice, and the syrup isn't really needed. Yum! 130 baht. 

In the end, it was a very pleasant lunch. Beautiful, relaxing setting & good food. The service is nice and efficient. The price is slightly highish, but still quite affordable.

Kaomao-Kaofang Restaurant
181 Moo 7, Ratchaphreuk Rd, Nongkwai
Hangdong, Chiang Mai
Tel: 053 838444, 053 441908
Website: www.khaomaokhaofang.com
Opens daily: 11am-10pm

Khaomao-Khaofang has the most interesting toilet! 

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