Suan Paak Restaurant

Famous for their salads and noodle dishes, especially Yen-ta-fos, Suan Paak (literally "Vegetable Garden"), is a complex of three restaurants. The original Suan Paak Restaurant serves salads, organically grown in their hydroponic garden, various Western dishes, and Thai dishes. There is also a Thai Restaurant, and the newer Noodle Restaurant on the premises. Whatever restaurant you end up going to, you won't miss out on the food from the other places, because you can order from all three!

My favourite is the Yen-ta-fo, a rice noodle dish (choose from thin or thick noodles), seafood (or fishballs, whatever you like), morning glory, white fungus, etc., in a tasty pink-red soup. Don't worry, the red colour isn't from blood (although blood cubes are often in the soup - can you spot them?), but from fermented red tofu. The soup is rich in flavour and of course, very delicious! Most noodle shops will sell Yen-ta-fo, but Suan Paak's Seafood Yen-ta-fo possibly costs the highest (and spiciest??), at 130 baht per dish - but you do get a lot of seafood - large prawns, and very big mussels and calamari. The serving is very large, possibly 3 times what you'd get at 30 baht places. The soup is also a lot tastier than your average noodle shop & served with crispy salmon skin that you can soak in the soup...a bit like croutons! Mmm.

Suan Pak's signature dish, though, is Khao Ping (literally, Grilled Rice). It's basically rice stir-fried with Thai shrimp paste, chilli and mince pork, wrapped in banana leaves and grilled. Served with fresh vegies (including lotus stem) and a very delicious clear mushroom soup. The shrimp paste gives the rice a very rich, earthy flavour, which I found very nice on the first few bites, but became too strong if the rice was eaten by itself, but was great with the salad. Not sure if I would have it again though, but it was very interesting and worth a try, and I'd recommend you try it, especially if you have someone to share with! 90 baht.

Here's the Chef's Salad. We ordered it because it was the most expensive - at 290 baht (most of the others were around 100-150 baht). No, I don't usually go around ordering the most expensive dishes on the menu, but I was curious - What's so special about it? Well, it has EVERYTHING - a combination of all the other salads on the menu, and it was humungous! They also had a selection of dressings to choose from. We went for the creamy dressing, which was served on the side, and very good as well.

The previous time I had the Thai dressing, which was very tasty, but it overpowered the western-style salad somewhat - much, much too strong. However, the salad with the Thai dressing went really well with the Khao Ping. The tartness and spiciness of the dressing complimented the salty, earthy flavour of the Khao Ping really well.

In the end, it was an enjoyable meal, especially the Yen-ta-fo! Suan Paak also has a lot of other interesting sounding dishes, so we'll definitely be back!

Suan Paak

61 Moo 3, Airport Rd,

T. Suthep, A. Muang, Chiang Mai 50200

(Next to Airport Plaza)

Tel: 053 202222, 053 904201

Yangzi Jiang

We were rather excited to finally check out the 1.5 year old Yangzi Jiang ("Yangzi River") Cantonese Restaurant. Having previously been to and really enjoyed its' older-sister restaurant, Mei Jiang ("Beautiful River") on Changklan Rd several times, we thought Yangzi Jiang would be a sure bet for Thailand's Father's Day dinner.

Yangzi Jiang is situated in an elegant home in the trendy Nimanhaemin Area. It's quite famous for dim sum/yum cha, and authentic Cantonese dishes. Having grown up with Cantonese cuisine in Sydney, it was exactly what I have been craving! We were even more excited when we overheard someone on the next table say, "Everything here is good!", exactly our sentiments about Mei Jiang.

So there we were, pouring over the rather large menu and interesting sounding dishes. Finally, we settled for:

Salmon Spring Rolls - what a great start! This turned out to be my favourite dish. The rolls were filled with salmon fillet, celery stick, and something white and creamy - perhaps mayonnaise. The Salmon Spring Rolls were served with more salty/sweet tasting creamy mayonnaise which complemented so wonderfully with the salmon. The celery gave each bite a crunch. Scrumptious!

Stir-fried Squids with Morning Glory and Chilli Shrimp Paste - this was also a rather interesting dish. I think the "Chilli Shrimp Paste" used here is Belachan paste, or at least tasted very similar to it. The squid was very nicely cooked - firm but not tough to chew, and the morning glory was delicious with the salty, rich and aromatic flavour of the shrimp paste, garlic and a hint of ginger.

Yangzi Jiang's roast duck was also quite good - in the sense that we could tell that the duck was of good quality - great texture and nice crispy skin, and not much fat. Unfortunately though, it tasted rather bland. The best thing about it was the bed of chewy peanuts and the tasty sauce under the duck! We soaked up the sauce with a very lovely mantou (Chinese bun), right out of the steamer.

As an aside, I would put Yangzi Jiang's roast duck at number 3 so far in Chiang Mai. The best was at Mandarin Oriental's fabulous Chinese Restaurant, Fujian, and my second favourite, a little local eatery owned by the chef at Shangri-la Hotel.

Fried Eggplant Stuffed with Mashed Shrimp with Chilli and Salt. The golden coloured stuffed eggplants looked pretty good, but oily. The first few bites were quite nice, especially if eaten with the very lightly fried garlic (which still had the raw taste), chilli and salt mixture. The spiciness of raw-ish garlic and chilli helped to breakdown the oiliness a little, but unfortunately not enough. We couldn't finish off the dish and I felt like needing a good cup of tea afterwards!

Finally, the last dish, Fried Yin Yang Vermicelli with Roasted Duck and Sichuan Pickle. It was an interesting dish, and tasted rather good too, but a shame that it was also too oily.

All in all a bit of a mixed-bag experience. Some of the dishes were great, others not so. The service was quite good in the beginning, but became a bit more inattentive as they got busier. That's understandable though, because they pretty much had a full house - being Father's Day and also having long weekend tourists coming up from Bangkok.

I will go back again - I think they deserve another try!

The price worked out to be about 300 baht per person without alcohol.

Yangzi Jiang (Cantonese Cuisine)

10 Nimmanhaemin Soi 5

Suthep, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200

Tel: 053 225 313

Open: 11:30am-2:30pm and 6pm-11pm.

Booking recommended.

Or, if you'd like to try Mei Jiang (Hong Kong Style Rice, Noodles & Congee)

191/17-18 Changkhlan Plaza (near Shangri-la Hotel)

Changklan Rd

Changklan, Muang, Chiang Mai 50100

Open: 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:50pm-9:00pm

Tel: 053 821 112

Does not take booking.

*Update: 13th March 2011

Yesterday we went back to Yangzi Jiang for dinner. It was still a mixed-bag experience! The restaurant was full again. The service was pretty slow and mostly inattentive again.

This time we ordered:

Peking Duck (800 baht + 7% VAT) - I must say the Peking Duck here is excellent! Possibly my favourite in Chiang Mai. The skin was light and crispy, and all the fat has pretty much been scraped off. The pancake was very well done too - the texture just right, soft and supple enough not to break. The pancakes didn't stick to each other either. I noticed almost every other table also ordered the Peking Duck.

We also had a choice of what to do with the meat and chose the noodles - stir-fried. It came a long time later. The waitress explained to us that so many people ordered Peking Duck it was taking a while to carve. When the noodles finally arrived, we were quite excited. However, this turned out to be nothing special and flavourless. The duck meat was quite tough and chewy. The noodles turned out to be 100 baht extra - this wasn't mentioned in the menu.

The stir-fried vegetables was also excellent - very fresh crispy vegies, but very expensive at 120 baht as the serving was very, very small.

Talad Nut - Part 1

Having reviewed so many nice restaurants lately, I think it's time to visit something a bit more basic - the local market, well, more precisely, the "Talad Nut". "Talad Nut" are local markets that are held in the evenings and sell everything from clothing, shoes, accessories, and plenty of...food! "Talad Nuts" are usually held once or twice a week in an area. Vendors typically move to different "Talad Nuts" each day of the week. For example, the Somtum (papaya salad) vendor might be at Meechok Plaza (a local shopping centre) on Mondays and Tuesdays, the rest of the week might be spent at other "Talad Nuts", and on Sundays, the Sunday Walking Street (the ultimate "Talad Nut"!).

Here are a few samplings of what you might find to eat at Talad Nuts:

My favourite - Moo Kham Wan - Spicy grilled pork (nice and tender) served with fresh vegies and this super amazing chilli and lime dip. We often keep the dip for use during the week on other dishes like grilled fish.

"Talad Nut" is also the place to buy your dinner! This lady sells various dishes that you can take home in plastic bags.

Here is something that looks rather nicely presented - sausage wrap in bread. Good size for eating on the go while you look around the market.

You can even get sushi! The weather has been pretty cool, but may not be so good in the heat in summer! It's pretty popular though and turn over is pretty quick.

Delicious grilled pork sticks!

Hope you're not too hungry yet! More coming up soon in Part 2!

Alice in Phuket

Taking a break from the Chiang Mai foodie scene, I took a holiday with my family from Oz to the resort island of Phuket. I was not the organiser of this trip, so I just sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the ride, which is nice for a change! ..and since I was so busy just before, I didn't get a chance to research Phuket restaurants.

There was, however, one restaurant that we discovered on our first trip last year, and we couldn't wait to go back to this time, and that was Lotus, at Bangtao Beach. As for the other restaurants, we went by the recommendation of our driver, Khun Mon, which turned out to be quite good (mostly!).

Lotus Restaurant, Bangtao Beach, Phuket

Lotus Restaurant is an independent fine dining restaurant right on Bangtao Beach serving seafood, Thai food, as well as burgers and steaks. There is something for every one, even the non-seafood lover!

The restaurant is situated just behind the Laguna Resorts complex, which consists of various resorts and hotels including the Sheraton and Dusit Thani, and I'd say most of the clientele comes from Laguna.



At this point, most of you may think, "tourist restaurant", which means may be OK food and exorbitant prices. Not so at all. I'd count it as one of my favourite restaurants in Thailand (not that I have been to THAT many, mind you, and I've only been to a handfull of restaurants in Phuket). Not only is the view from Lotus is stunning, the food, especially the seafood, is fantastic.

As we arrived quite early (5:30pm) for the sunset, we started of with drinks and entrees of various Thai staples - Deep fried prawn cakes, Beef Salad, Spring rolls, Tom Yum Koong - all of which were lovely. The prawn cakes were quite large, firm in texture, and delicious. The beef in the Beef Salad was tender and had a smokey flavour. My favourite was the Tom Yum Koong (Prawn tom yum soup) - the fragrant soup was concentrated with flavour. Mmmm.

For the mains, we chose:

Fried Tiger Prawns with Garlic and Black Pepper - the prawns were the largest I have ever seen, weighing in at a whopping 200g each! ...and oh, it was so good! The flesh was firm and sweet, and went perfectly with the fried garlic and black pepper. We kept piling the garlic on the prawns with each bite (and sometimes just eating the garlic by itself!). The prawns were served with a chilli sauce, but we didn't need it.

Raw Oyster served with lime, chilli sauce, garlic and crispy shallot. Again, the oysters were huge. I've only ever had raw oyster with lemon juice, but the combination of lime, chilli sauce, raw garlic and crispy shallot seemed to work. I quite enjoyed the combination of flavours and crunch from the crispy shallot on the oyster.


Fried Mudcrab with Curry Powder. Another huge dish, as the crab was 2.2kg! The largest mudcrab I've ever seen, and even if it wasn't the best curry crab I've had, it was still great. The crab meat was lovely and sweet, and the sauce - delicious on rice..let's just say there weren't much left!


After that, the 7 of us (and one 2- year old) were extremely full. The total price came to 6,600 baht. Great value, considering the excellent seafood and the location. I'd highly recommend this restaurant when you go to Phuket. I'll certainly go back on my next visit.

Booking is highly recommended. The restaurant also has a free shuttle service from Laguna area.

Lotus Restaurant.
Open daily from 11:00am-11:30pm
31/13 Moo 4 Cherngtalay
Thalang, Phuket, Thailand
Tel: 081 797 3110, 076-362625-6
www.lotusphuket.com
(On-line reservation also available)


Other restaurant we enjoyed in Phuket:

Pah Yaah Thai Restaurant

This restaurant commands a great view from a cliff overlooking the ocean and the famous Patong Beach. It's in a more convenient location (closer to town) than Lotus.

There is a variety of food - Thai, seafood, as well as burgers (which looked rather sad in the display fridge - but I'm sure it'll look and taste better when made fresh to order). The Thai food is great there, and not expensive, pricing at a similar level to Lotus.

Our favourites were the Musaman Curry, the huge (and very tender) satays and steamed oysters. The Pad Kee Mao (Stir fried "drunken noodles" with mushroom) was also great.

We had Beef Salad at both Lotus and Pah Yaah, and found that the Lotus' beef were more tender and had a smoky flavour, while Pah Yaah's had the tougher beef but a tastier, more strongly flavoured (and spicier!) salad.

The total for the 7 of us (and one 2 year-old) came to about 2500 baht (no seafood).

Pan Yaah Thai Restaurant
249 Prabaramee Rd.
Patong, Phuket 83150
Tel: 076 290450-1
1.5km from Patong Novotel on Beach Rd to Kamala

NC Bakery and Food

This restaurant was recommended by our driver. On first look, the food, displayed buffet style, didn't look too appetising, however, we were also able to order a-la-carte and decided to give the restaurant a go, and we were glad we did!

NC serves local Phuket / Southern Thai food. They serve excellent "Knom Jean", a rice noodle and curry dish, served with a large basket of fresh vegies - yes, a basket! Other dishes we enjoyed were - Phuket style hokkien noodles and Pineapple fried rice (very good with lots of curry powder). The "Khao Yum" - a sort of southern style rice and vegie salad was also good, but dressing a little too sweet. The dressing is served on the side, so you can always put less of it. Their "Hor Mok", I was told, was also excellent (unfortunately I missed out on it!!).

This turned out to be our cheapest meal, costing only around 500 baht for 7 people and the 2 year old.

We enjoyed it so much we went back the next day for breakfast! Note- this is a Thai breakfast - steamed buns, Khao Yum, Knom Jean, etc. They can also make fried eggs and toast on request.

NC Bakery & Food
183/6 Phangna Rd
Talad Yai, Muang, Phuket
076 224 668

Do you have a favourite restaurant in Phuket? Please share with us the restaurants you enjoy (or the ones we should avoid!).

Yod Sap Restaurant

Having been eating in "finer dining" restaurants, we thought it would be good to take a break and have some simpler food. So there we were, at a local Thai restaurant where local families have their dinners.

Right this moment, a lot of you might as "Yod Sap"? What on earth... ? I guess a loose translation of "Yod Sap" would be "Extremely spicy"! There are lots of restaurants around here with similar names, by the way. One occassion, we went to another restaurant with "sap" in its name, and, boy, our tongues were on fire!

So this time, I was not the only one in the group who wondered if Yod Sap Restaurant would live up to it's name...and one of the dishes we ordered...the Gaeng Pa (Jungle curry) did. Gaeng Pa is a curry with lots of vegies and herbs like galangal, basil, lemongrass, krachai roots, chillis (of course!) but no coconut milk. It was so spicy I could only have a bit of the vegie with heaps of rice, and even then I had a stomach ache...so I guess this is not something I would recommend, unless you're Thai (may be from Issan???) and really can eat such spicy food!!

Fortunately, the other dishes we ordered were OK.

Deep-fried Naem Pork Ribs. These are pork preserved with garlic, which, apparently gives the dish a sour flavour. Often, naem is eaten uncooked, which I am not game to have, but deep-fried naem is so yummy it's one of my favourite Northen Thai dishes....and of course, you should have it with beer! : )

Another pretty good dish to have here is the Hor Mok Talay. Translations for this dish varies from "Thai Curry Terrine" to "Steamed seafood souffle" to "Curry Seafood Moose". I would describe it as a semi-solid steamed curry. For Malaysian readers, it's similar to "otak otak". Yod Sap's Hor Mok Talay was cooked in aluminium foil, and was filled with seafood and lots of fish balls. It tasted great though, particularly since it wasn't sweet like many other Thai restaurants.

Pad Pak Ruam (Stir-fried mixed vegetables) - a pretty standard Thai restaurant dish. All I can say is that the vegetables were lovely - fresh and crunchy, healthy and delicious!

Our meal came to around 380 baht for 3 people.

Yod Sap Restaurant

Doi Saket Road

(In a little lane just before PTT service station just after the Outer Ring Rd)

Tel: 053 399 300

Buonissimo Italian Restaurant (Closed)

There seem to be no lack of good Italian restaurants in Chiang Mai I have previously reviewed Arcobaleno, today we visit Buonissimo, a restaurant with a deli and wine shop attached on the bank of the Ping River.

Sit back and relax and enjoy the views of the Ping River as you dine. You can choose to sit out in the fresh air (if it's not too hot!) or in air-conditioned comfort.

The menu is huge with a dizzying array of dishes, written in Italian, English and Thai. We were feeling a bit like, "We have no idea what to order!!" - well, it was a Friday evening after work and we were all pretty tired! After several moments of deliberation, we decided to have:

Verdure alla griglia in Olio Extra Vergine de Oliva (no wonder we had a bit of a headache!). Translation: Cold Grilled Vegetables with Garlic and Extra Virgin Olive Oil. These turned out to be grilled thin slices of eggplants, zucchini and capsicum, topped with fresh garlic and drizzled with olive oil. It was excellent! Very healthy and light, yet delicious. The sliced fresh garlic gave the vegies a slightly spicy flavour. 99 baht.

Fetta Salad - A dressing-less salad of fetta cheese, olives, tomatoes and lettuce. Although it's dressing-less, you are given bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar (and a huge pepper mill), so you can add as much or little as you like. A pretty good and healthy salad, and quite a decent serving too. 119 baht.

Penne alla Siciliana Pasta (Penne pasta with eggplant, olives, capers, garlic, cherry tomatoes and oregano). A nice tomato based pasta but I find it too salty for me. Just as well we were sharing. I found the penne quite firm, at least firmer than what I'm used to with other restaurants. An Italian friend once commented that most restaurants cook their pasta too soft, so may be Bounissimo's pasta was actually cooked to perfection - al dente. 179 baht.

Frutti di Mare (Seafood Pizza) - A very nice pizza (but again, slightly too salty for me) with plenty of prawns, calamari, mussels and even a few scallops. Nice non-oily thin crust. 190 baht

To finish of the meal, we had a homemade tiramisu, it was quite a large slice and tasted great. Only 79 baht. The lovely raspberry sorbet was also delicious. 40 baht.

Other things of note :

The bread basket, and in that, cheese and onion focaccia (yum!). You can buy this and other things in the deli in front of the restaurant.

There is also a huge selection of wine, and a wine shop in front of the store as well.

Total price - 760 baht for 4 people.

Buonissimo Italian Restaurant, Deli & Wine Shop.

425 Chareonraj Rd, Chiang Mai

Tel: 053 266 431-2

http://www.buonissimo.co.th

Mungkorn Fah (มังกรฟ้า / 天龙饭店)

Mungkorn Fah (English translation - Sky Dragon) is an unassuming Chinese Restaurant situated at the PTT Petrol Station opposite Chiang Mai's Immigration office & not far from the airport. The decor is quite dated and simple, but clean. There's nothing much to distract (other than perhaps a large TV showing Korean drama series) from the excellent food.

In fact, I'd say Mungkorn Fah is now one of our favourite Chinese Restaurants in Chiang Mai. We do very much prefer it to the very much more famous Jia Tong Heng - nice food but quite bland for our taste.

OK, back to Mungkorn Fah. Actually, the first thing of note was the rice! I know, we are in Thailand, and rice is served everywhere, and it's not usually something I comment on, but not all rice are created equal. Mungkorn Fah's rice was so lovely and fluffy, and was cooked to perfection, and went so well with all the sauces from the dishes we ordered...

Bitter Melon stir-fried with garlic. I know bitter melon isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I love bitter melon. : ) This dish is rather different, because most restaurants here have dishes like Bitter Melon stir-fried with eggs, but not the garlic. I've only had this in China. This dish was really nice, although the servings was perhaps a bit small. I think I enjoyed the sauce on rice most!

Now if we thought the bitter melon sauce was nice, it was nothing compared to the "Tao Hoo Song Kreung" - normally equates to fried Tofu stir-fried with "everything" eg. minced pork, garlic and various vegies. Mungkorn Fah's Tao Hoo Song Kreung came out piping hot, but to our initial disappointment, it looked rather plain. I couldn't see the usual vegies in sight. Just plain fried-tofu in a brown looking sauce that seemed to contain a bit of minced pork and tiny (and I mean tiny) pieces of mushrooms. We were a bit unsure about this whopping 200 baht for-just-tofu dish until we tasted it. The tofu was silky smooth, and the sauce was marvelous. I can't even begin to describe the flavour, but suspect it has something like Scallop sauce in it. When I asked the waitress, she doesn't seem to know either. Suffice to say, there was not one drop of the sauce left!

The third dish was Pla Chon (Serpent head fish) steamed with Dul See (fermented black beans). It was an unusual dish for me as I've never had steamed fish cooked this way before, and it was lovely. The salty flavour of the fermented black beans complemented well with the soft, fluffy textured Pla Chon. The great thing too, about this sauce is that it's not too salty. The flavour was just right, and yes, a fair bit of it went on our rice, but no, we didn't have that much of the sauce this time. We were getting full (and running out of rice!).

Total price (including Chinese Tea) - 570 baht for four.

Mungkorn Fah Chinese Restaurant

PTT Service (Petrol) Station

Opposite Chiang Mai Immigration Office

Airport Road, Chiang Mai

Tel: 053 201614, 086 1174473

Opens everyday: 5pm-10pm