Woo - Cafe, Art Gallery & Lifestyle Shop

Woo Cafe.. Here's a rather cool, trendy and very popular cafe on the riverside strip of shops, bars, cafes and restaurants. It's a great place to chill out and chat with friends over lunch or coffee (or dinner).

The cafe was already filled up by the time I arrived at 12pm, and my friends and I managed to get a communal table on the terrace.

The ambience, I would say, is comfortable & chic, somewhere you could spend the whole morning or afternoon just hanging out and chatting.

After lunch, we were able to move to the cool air-conditioned room.

I agonised over the menu a bit as I was hoping for something a bit unusual. There are the regular Thai food options, salads and various Western dishes (pasta and sandwiches).

On this occasion, may be I was going through a fussy mood, nothing really stood out (don't you hate that?)... but then, I saw Khao Yum on the menu.

Khao Yum (rice salad) is a southern Thailand dish which consists of rice (as you would imagine!), various finely chopped vegetables, herbs and spices and tamarind dressing.

When it came out, I must say it looked very pretty. Each ingredient came separately, delicately chopped in little bowls.There were two coloured rice (the blue butterfly pea rice, and pink rice), raw mango, puffed rice, kaffir lime, shredded dried shrimps, etc, etc.

Khao Yum - Before

So it was up to us to mix everything together, then add the dressing! And I must say, it was lovely and colourful! The rice salad was very light, full of flavour of the different herbs, and the sweetish and sourish tamarind based dressing. I really enjoyed every bite. Around 195-200 baht.

Khao Yum - After!

One friend ordered the Salmon Sandwich, which looked and tasted great, and comes with a bowl of nicely fried french fries. 

And another friend ordered the Tom Yum Fried Rice (which she said she had before, and it was very good). Unfortunately, Woo was out of it this time, and a pasta was ordered instead. It looked really good, and would have been good, but I think the chef forgot to add salt as there wasn't much taste to the pasta.

Overall, I really enjoyed Woo Cafe. I love the chic yet down to earth atmosphere. The cafe has a very welcoming ambience and you feel like you can just sit back and relax and have a meal or coffee and chat with friends without feeling rushed. The staff is very friendly and welcoming and the food is also pretty good. I'd love to come back to try other dishes, as well as their coffees and desserts.

Woo is on the pricey side (for a cafe), with most of the dishes being around the 180-200 baht mark.

There is some parking in front of the cafe.

The lifestyle shop part is also very nice, and has some beautiful home decorating and jewellery items for sale.

Woo - Cafe, Art Gallery & Lifestyle Shop
80 Charoenraj Rd,
T. Wat Ket, A. Muang, Chiang Mai 50000
Tel: 052003717
Opens: 10am-10pm