Panchalee Vietnamese Restaurant

Panchalee Vietnamese Restaurant

Here's a little break from noodle shops! Let's have Vietnamese at Panchalee - one of my Vietnamese food crazy friend's favourites. I've been here twice already, and I want to keep going back to have some of the same dishes (and try new ones).

Panchalee is a rather unassuming restaurant in a quite lane off trendy (and rather hectic) Nimmanhaemin Road, which is great because I can easily find parking! It's really nice to sit in the outdoor section - in fact, most of the diners opt to sit there, at least when I've been here for dinner. Bring your mosquito repellants though if you don't want to get eaten alive!

My favourites (so far) at Panchalee:

Kuay Jub (Vietnamese Noodle Soup) - 40 baht

Kuay Jub (Vietnamese Noodle Soup)

I tried to stay away from noodles for this post, but I can't help it! This Vietnamese Noodle Soup at Panchalee is a dream!  Lovely silky smooth noodles & soup, very slightly thickened, highlighted with a peppery flavour and earthiness of fried onions. It's so good I think I'll be happy just eating this!

Shrimp on Sugarcane (85 baht)

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This is a really great dish too. The sugarcane prawns are nice and crispy, the "meat" firm. I also love to chew on the sweet and crunchy sugarcane sticks inside. Very nice with the sauce.

"Pak Mor" - Pork mixed with spring onion in steamed flour - 50 baht
The flour "skin" is amazing. Just the right consistency. Sticky and soft enough to hold everything together, but we are still able to break the "pak mor" easily with our spoon or fork. Tasty and aromatic filling. Topped with "moo yor" - sliced pork loaf. Really good when steaming hot!

These were just some of the dishes that I enjoyed. There are plenty more that I'd love to try.

Their herbal drinks are great too (and importantly - not sweet!).

As you can see I rather enjoyed the restaurant and the food here. Very clean, great (and inexpensive) food. Very friendly staff. They were so nice - we were the last customers sitting around and chatting till about 9pm and none of the staff made us feel like they were in a hurry to go home.

Panchalee Vietnamese Restaurant
Nimmanhaemin Road Soi 15 (end of soi)
Tel: 084 1738372

If you've been to Panchalee, let us know what you think via "comments" link below. What dishes do you like from there?

Saigon Oi! (originally Pho Saigon)

Saigon Oi! is my current favourite restaurant to go for lunch. In fact, I eat there at least 2-3 times per week. It's not just that this homey Vietnamese restaurant is only 2 doors down from my office (lazy me!), and air-conditioned, the main reason I go there is for their great clean, tasty and reasonably priced food. It's the sort of food you can enjoy everyday without feeling guilty!

Here are some of my favourites from Saigon Oi!

Sugar cane prawns with "Kanom Jean" (a kind of rice noodles). You can see the chilli, peanuts, etc on top. There is also the Vietnamese dipping sauce underneath. Mix it all up with your chopsticks and eat! A very light and refreshing dish. Some might find the sauce too sweet though. You can also have your "kanom jean" with other toppings eg. grilled pork marinated with lemongrass, beef, spring rolls, etc.

Vegetarian Fresh Spring Rolls - this is also rather gorgeous, and surprisingly filling due to the omelette and tofu. The sauce is thick and very yummy! I can just eat the sauce alone! They also have very good Fresh Spring Rolls with Prawns.

Deep fried Spring Rolls - This might be the only deep fried dish on the menu, and one of my favourite spring rolls in Chiang Mai! Very tasty, and deep fried so nicely - very crispy on the outside, and the pork filling so soft. Goes very well with the Vietnamese dipping sauce.

"Lad Na" - Rice noodles with eggs and Maggi sauce gravy, well, I think they use Maggi! Quite different from Thai style Lad Nas & very tasty and fragrant.

The Verdict:

A great place to go for simple, tasty and healthy Vietnamese food. The staff is lovely too, but they suffer a bit from staff shortage, so service can sometimes be a quite slow if there are a few customers.

The Rating:

The food: 7/10

The ambience: 6/10 (Nice clean restaurant, nothing fancy. You go there to eat.)

Value for money: 7/10 (Dishes are from 45 baht-around 75 baht for beef / prawn dishes)

Saigon Oi!

Shop 206/27 Meechok Plaza

Chiang Mai

Tel: 0815308224

Website

My Vietnamese Restaurant, Meechok Plaza

Lucky me having an office at Meechok Plaza, Chiang Mai. There are now all these great restaurants, I probably won't have to go anywhere else! Here's the latest addition - My Vietnamese Restaurant. This is the second Vietnamese restaurant at Meechok Plaza, and the third one in the area.

My Vietnamese Restaurant is the most "professional" of the three. Pho Saigon (the first Vietnamese Restaurant at Meechok Plaza) is great, and is more family runned, the food is also homemade style, so is Hanoi Nam Neung Restaurant. My Vietnamese actually has a manager running the place, and since opening last week, she has been going around and checking with customers to make sure the food is OK....Oh, I know because I've been there 3 times already!

Here are some of the dishes we tried last time we went:

Nam Neung - you cut up the "sausages" and wrap it in the rice paper together with the vegies and a dallop of the sauce to make little spring rolls. It's one of those great hands-on communal dishes. Delicious! 80 baht.

Sa Bud Nga - Crispy flour sheet filled with minced pork and various other ingredients. I haven't had anything like this before, and it was surprisingly lovely. The "crispy flour sheet" is nice and delicate, and filled with soft wide noodles and tasty stir-fried minced pork. 70 baht.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls - These are great too. I've never seen spring roll skin like this before. It kind of puff up when fried, and very crunchy. 60 baht.

Vietnamese Crispy Pancake - another nice dish. The pancake is light and crispy. The filling is not overly tasty, but sometimes it's nice to have some dishes more delicately flavoured. 60 baht.

The Verdict:

A very good restaurant with very nice food. I have no idea how authentic the food is, but we certainly enjoy most of the dishes we tried. They also serve a big bowl of fresh vegies and herbs (as do the other Vietnamese Restaurants in Chiang Mai). Really good value. The servings were are quite large, and the bill only comes 290 baht for 4 of us.

Now I can't wait for the new Japanese Noodle Shop to open!

The Rating:

Ambience: 6.5/10

Food: 7.5/10

Price: 8/10

My Vietnamese Restaurant

Branch 1: Opposite Chiang Mai University (Huay Kaew Road)

Branch 2: Meechok Plaza (corner of First Ring Road & Mae Jo Road)

Branch 3: Behind Carrefour Super Highway (this one is a franchise)

Contact details - coming up!

Hanoi Namneung Vietnamese Food

For the last couple of weeks, a large banner with a picture of Vietnamese Namneung and been seducing us to eat at this newly opened road side restaurant. The restaurant is simple, but quite attractive and clean looking.

It seemed though that the family running the place is quite new at running a restaurant, and there are a few teething problems - like some dishes on the rather simple menu were "not available yet", and no mosquito repellent. The waiter told us there are no mosquitos here! LOL..for the record, there were HUGE mosquitos. I guess they'll provide repellants soon enough if a lot of customers asked for them.

Hanoi Namneung's specialty is .... Namneung - a kind of Vietnamese pork ball rolled into sausage shape, served with fresh vegies, herbs, and rice paper. It's a fun dish to eat - the namneungs are sliced into small circular discs, and then we roll up our own "fresh spring rolls" with the softened rice paper wraps. Hanoi Namneung's Namneung is quite tasty. The sauce was a little too sweet, but still quite yummy and peanuty. 85 bath for the small serving (3 "sausages").

The fresh spring rolls were lovely - lots of fresh vegies, herbs and tofu. The sauce was way too sweet, so don't put too much! 40 baht.

Sugarcane prawns - these were quite nicely done. The "meat" was nice and firm, a little chewy, but still tender at the same time - just the way I like it. (Some other restaurants make it too soft for my taste). Same sauce as the sugarcane prawns. In fact, the same sauce is used in all the dishes except for the namneung. 70 baht.

The Herbed Pork Leg Stew was quite good too - a variation from the typical thai pork leg dishes. Served with rice - pretty good value at only 40 baht.

The Spring rolls (deep-fried) was not so great though. It was served cold and the spring rolls skin soft. 45 baht.

The Verdict

Not a bad restaurant. Simple with quite good food. Not much variety. Hopefully we'll get more to choose from as the family settles into their business. Good value - only 290 baht for 3 of us!

The Rating

Ambience: 6/10

Food: 6/10

Price: 7/10

Hanoi Namneung

Middle (1st) Ring Road

(Between Doi Saket Road & Mae Jo Road, close to Meechok Plaza)

Pho Vientiane

Pho is one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes, along with the fresh spring roll. The first time I had Pho was at a friend's place in Sydney. Her mum cooked this most delicious noodles in beef broth dish. It was my first introduction to Vietnamese food. Well, I haven't had Pho for a long time, and was really happy when Pho Vientiane was recommended to me.

Pho Vientiane is one of those "local" restaurants, nothing fancy with simple tables and plastic chairs. The first thing that we noticed was that it was quite busy, which is always a good sign! I couldn't wait to try the Pho. Here it is! 

Well, I remembered Pho to be somewhat tastier, but this one was still quite nice, and it was only 30 baht. For non-beef eaters, they also have the pork version. Might try that next time.

Their deep fried spring roll dishes were great though. We had fish spring rolls with the loveliest soft and fluffy fish, and a yummy dipping sauce (above). The deep-fried pork spring rolls were delicious too (below). 

Somehow, we ended up with mostly fried dishes, but I will try the fresh spring rolls next time and will report back.

All in all, it was a good value meal. The dishes are between 30-60 baht. 

We're sure to go back to try the other dishes. 

Location: Right at the end of an arcade opposite the Shangri-La Hotel on Changklan Rd. Watch out for a bright yellow sign with red writings.  

Opens daily - 9am-9pm