CHUM Northern Kitchen @Old City — Restaurant in Chiang Mai Province

It took us three attempts to get into this sought after Thai restaurant, which offers authentic northern style cuisine. The first twice, the tables were full by 7pm and we were turned away. It was worth persisting however. By a stroke of luck and with a little assistance from the owner we managed to get a table on the last night of our stay and ate the final and best meal of our holiday here. The ambience of the restaurant is cosy, with lots of wood, nice crockery and pleasant music. No “touristy” dishes, pizza or pasta are offered. We ordered the pork and ginger curry which melted in the mouth with a rich gingery gravy. The northern sausage had a real zing of chilli and was spicy but with a hint of lemon grass. To accompany these two dishes, we ordered juicy pumpkin cooked with egg, and a fourth dish of a green vegetable we haven’t seen before, which was also delicious. The food was fragrant and delicious without being overly spicy (1 Malaysian and 1 British diner). This feast, with rice, cost less than 500Baht, comparing very favourably with what we had paid for more hackneyed dishes elsewhere, such as the ubiquitous pad Thai and papaya salad. In all, we felt we had had a real taste of northern Thailand which concluded our holiday on a delicious note. Thank you, Niam and staff, for your great service and a...

We came here because it looked pretty and there were some things on the menu that we wanted to try. The interior is very nice and quiet and the people working here are very kind.

We ordered the prik oua (deep fried chilis stuffed with pork), Kanom Jeen (rice vermicelli with Northern Thai curry sauce), kao kai kon nam prik ong (chum style jasmine rice with scrambled eggs topped with spicy tomatoes) and pad fuk thong (thai stir-fried pumpkin with basil leaves and eggs). To wash it all down we ordered a chrysanthemum and rosalee tea.

All of the dishes were unique and quite delicious. The sweet potatoes were nice and light, and the eggs with tomatoes reminded us of something we would normally have at home. The fried chilis were pretty delicious and crunchy and nicely flavoured from the pork. The star of the evening was definitely the Kanom Jeen - which I think just translates to a type of noodle. However, there were many interesting things that added a lot of nice texture and flavour. It had really unique and delicious mushrooms and the broth was rich and flavourful but not overly salty. There were also jelly-like brown cubes which turned out to be boiled chicken blood - that was an interesting experience! To me they did not taste like much. I really enjoyed the noodles.

This is a...

Delicious Northern Thai cuisine in a small restaurant just over the road from Chaba Prai spa. Unfortunately we got there a little too late in the evening to order the signature Chiang Mai Pork ginger curry, but the food we did order (fried rice with Thai sausage, stuffed bamboo shoots, meatballs and a soup) was all delicious! From reading other reviews, it seems that we were lucky to even get in there without a reservation as the place seems very popular. The wait staff spoke good English and checked with us about our spice tolerance when we ordered. Note that some menu items are quite small portion sizes (e.g. the meatballs) and it isn't always easy to tell from the pictures on the menu. But the staff came to check with us if we wanted to order a few more things once we'd finished the first round, so we didn't leave hungry! The only minus point in my opinion was my husband's black sticky rice, which came out on a plate but still in the plastic bag it was steamed in and didn't have anything else with it like coconut milk or fruit, so it was rather bland compared to the flavourful dishes we'd eaten beforehand....