The Last of Chiang Mai - The Food!

We ate dinner at Italics, which was in the lower level of our hotel, a couple of times while in Chiang Mai.  One night Christopher had the tuna tartare:

And I had khao soi.

Another evening we ordered the pizza (you can pick four kinds, and they'll do a quarter of the pizza in each of your choices), and the lasagna to share, with bruschetta as a starter.

 

Everything was excellent!

A different day we shared the mango sticky rice for dessert:

Mango sticky rice is a very popular dessert in Chiang Mai, and it's super addictive. You can find it on the menu at most restaurants, and we made sure to get our fill.

We did a lot of walking on this trip, and stumbled upon many ice cream shops.

Durian ice cream!  (It's not great).

On Cloud Nine:

Janie Scoop:

Frozen yogurt from the mall:

This was one of the better walking cities we've been in, if not the best.  No matter where we were in the city, there was always somewhere to stop in for a coffee or a treat to rest our feet, and there was always something beautiful to see.

The streets are really narrow, there are no sidewalks in most areas, and the traffic is crazy, so you have to watch where you are going, but we got used to it quickly.

When we weren't on foot, we mostly used Grab.  I've never used Uber, but I am thinking Grab is similar.  We just got the app. and then entered where we wanted to go, and in under a minute the car would pull up to get us.  They dropped us off at our destination, and none of our rides were more than $4 CAD, even if we drove for 20 minutes.  Nearly everywhere we went had free WiFi, so we were always able to use that to book our next ride.

We also took one tuktuk, and a few rides in the songthaews, although Grab was a cheaper, safer, and more convenient option.  I'm super thankful that one of the hotel employees told us about this app. as it was so useful!

Songthaews (these ride share trucks are everywhere)

We spent an afternoon wandering one of the malls, and ate lunch there.

One evening we went to a Korean restaurant for dinner.

We had a fabulous late-night green curry at Warm Up Cafe, while checking out the band.

We saw a couple of live bands on this vacation; there seems to be a big music scene in Chiang Mai.

Daddy's Antique Cafe was a lovely, charming little place, and it also had excellent chicken wings and house-made pasta (the pasta picture died with my phone).

We snacked on stuffed jalapenos at Rustic and Blue:

Cheesy fries with beet mayo at some over-priced pub:

And all sorts of new and exciting flavours of snacks from good old 7-Eleven.  They have so many 7-Elevens in Chiang Mai; it feels like they are on every corner.

The larb seaweed was really tasty:

But these lemon chips were horrible!  They tasted like Vicks lemon cough drops.  Good in cough drop form, horrendous in chip form.

We were pretty sad to leave Chiang Mai, but we will definitely go back.

Fortunately there was delicious ramen in the Taipei airport, so that helped to make our very, very, long journey home not so rough.

Do you have any spring/summer travel plans?  

Camping?  Road trip?  Somewhere far?

David's Kitchen & B. Samcook Home 16

The service we received at two of Chiang Mai's highest rated restaurants, was unlike anything we have ever experienced before.

One evening we went to David's Kitchen, a restaurant that came in 10th place in the world on Trip Advisor for fine dining restaurants.  We had reservations, but probably arrived about 15 minutes early.  To our surprise, two people came out to the vehicle to greet us, and walk us in.  We didn't let anyone know that we were on our way, but they were ready for us.  They led us to a table that had a card printed out welcoming us by name, as well as cute folded napkins.

The server brought out a delicious amuse bouche:

And then we ordered the escargot, and a lovely citrus salad:

Christopher had the tuna, and I had the lobster pasta.

We really enjoyed our food, and how unpretentious the restaurant was; sometimes we find fine dining places sort of stuffy, but this one wasn't.

We had another great dining experience at B. Samcook Home 16.  It's casual, funky, and fully booked until about August.

There is no ordering, you just eat what the chef is making that night.  Our server brought us the menu for the evening, along with the first beverage.

The first course was a crab meat spring roll:

Then shrimp tom yum, coconut soup, which was fabulous - so flavourful:

Next were pork ribs with a garlic pepper sauce:

And a pretty blue drink:

The next dish was grilled salmon with spicy lime sauce:

And then duck leg with mixed berry sauce:

Finally we got a little dessert and third beverage:

The chef said we could also take an ice cream treat from the freezer - haha!  We were way too stuffed to eat any ice cream, and I feel bad, because Christopher ate at least half of all of my portions.  I have to remember that I just can't eat enough in one sitting to do tasting menus.  It was a really unique dining experience, and we enjoyed how casual it was, yet how beautifully the food was presented, and how fresh and scrumptious everything was.

The craziest part was at the end of the evening when the chef came to our table and asked what hotel we were staying in; he said he'd have his driver take us back!  Talk about service!

How was your weekend?  What did you do?