Arno's Chiang Mai — Restaurant in Chiang Mai Province

after all the hype on chiang mai eats i was really excited about finally eating here. all in all, i was truly disappointed.

immediately upon walking in, all i could see was the glare of the bright flourescent lights, especially from the packaged meats in the display by the door. not appetizing at all. hideous lighting continued upstairs but at least there it was a warmer tone.

menu was obnoxious, while the design was nice, it was difficult to turn the pages and annoying to keep going back and forth since you couldn’t see many options on the same page. almost didn’t see the appetizers hiding on the burgers page, but then again none of them were especially tempting.

i ordered a red wine, they didn’t have my first choice, so i went with the cab sauv. when it arrived with telltale condensation, my heart sank. it doesn’t matter how long i’ve lived here, but chilled red wine in thailand continues to break my heart and i will never not find it shocking. that said, it was very tasty and if it were room temperature i would have asked for a second glass. my boyfriend loves belgian beer so he was ecstatic about their offerings and enjoyed his kwak.

i ordered the tagliatelle with scallops and my boyfriend went for the tomahawk steak with a side of fries. i had a craving for mashed potatoes so we ordered that too.

tagliatelle came out first, long before the steak arrived. the scallops were tasty and nicely cooked, but the pasta was overdone and the sauce was watery and underseasoned.

with the tomahawk, my boyfriend did what he usually does when ordering somewhere that prides themselves on steaks and says he’d like it prepared as the chef prefers which turned out to be rare. that didn’t put him off but alas, the second bite revealed the center was still cold so we were those a**holes who sent it back. it returned medium-rare and was tasty but a third of the 800g tomahawk (that wasn’t already bone in the first place) turned out to be gristle and fat.

the mashed potatoes were an abomination. mixed with cheese, they cooled to form a thin, oily skin around the exterior and my eloquent boyfriend termed it mushed alien brains. i tried one bite and found it underseasoned and an unapoetizing texture.

the servers were very, very sweet but not especially well trained or equipped to handle questions.

the cutlery also bothered me, which at this point probably just makes me sound petty, but not were the handled massive and awkward, the knife, when placed down, also had a nasty habit of rolling sharp-side up.

if it was closer to home, i’d be tempted to give them another try and go for the burgers that are spoken so highly of, but i suspect this was my first and last visit.

i would go to a must cafe and u for steaks and barefoot cafe for pasta - both have better ambiance and the same or...

I don't give three star ratings lightly but after 2 of the 3 burgers I've had here being below par I think it has to be said, particularly for the very high prices (although the first two burgers I got were free, more on that below).

I originally visited in their opening week and was delighted to discover that they were giving out free burgers. However, when my burger arrived nearly raw (I asked for medium) I was a bit disappointed and indicated that to my friend. The social media manager happened to walk past at that moment and insisted I send it back if I wasn't happy which is something I've never done before and probably will never do again (especially in this setting where they're making the food right in front of you and the chefs know exactly who sent the food back so it's pretty awkward). Anyway, I sent it back and got another burger after a long wait which was pretty good but the whole experience was tainted by the first burger. I decided to cut them some slack since it was their opening week and the free burger offer had put them under a lot of stress as it was super busy and the staff were all new so I waited to visit again before writing my review.

That second visit came last night and I found I was the only person in the restaurant, around 9:20pm. I went with the moroccan lamb burger and curly fries this time at medium-well so even if it was undercooked it would still be edible. It seemed like a very long wait for the burger, around 30 minutes, although probably more because I was alone and used to Thai food which comes out very quickly. I did enjoy the tunes while I waited.

Unfortunately I found the burger wasn't very nice. The patty was dense and rounded rather than flat which perhaps explains why it took so long to cook. The shape meant that it was much smaller than the bun which made the eating experience less than ideal. I could taste the moroccan spices but overall the taste wasn't great. There was also no sauce (I took the 'no spicy sauce' option in my order but expected there to be a non spicy sauce instead) and very few other ingredients so there was no way to redeem the patty. Curly fries were quite nice and plentiful, no complaints there.

I'm kicking myself for not ordering the beef burger double again as I suspect that would have...

Best steak I know . I've been in expensive restaurants thousands of times and never was a big steak guy because seafood lobster etc is just way better 🤷‍♂️ Well I went to Arnos, sizzling plate , medium rare (it cooks in front of u a bit) 75 days aged steak n now I'm a steak man all the way . The sauces r off the chain I don't know what they put in there, I realize it's not high end Argentine meat but damn it works . Maybe it's just me I don't know but I rarely give 5 stars to a restaurant that I don't even personally know (owner or someone that works there) . Even the curly fries are ridiculously amazing . So is Scallops, snails and baby clams. Those are the items I've only eaten , even tho ice been there maybe 30 times. Because there's no reason to change the order. I could eat it every day without getting bored of it. 1 time my steak was overcooked and I forgive that completely because all the other 29 was 10/10 . Nowadays I skip the fries n take some weird cream spinach thing on the side ( trying to avoid carbs) and that's amazin too. Not filling as fries so I hoped they would do 300g steak because 400g is too much. End of the day , with that price I could take 2 steaks (200g) but I know I'd eat them so I take clams or something small as appetizer. Oh and they do oysters with full set on 80bht a pop , buy 3 get 3 for free. 6 is a bit much for a 1 dude but if u on a date or with a friend just go for it. Probably my favorite restaurant in the world and yes , I include all the fancy 200e per meal places too. I eat in Chiang Mai so hopefully bkk is exactly the same. Perfect example that u dont have to pay yourself sick to enjoy...