The Swan Burmese Cuisine — Restaurant in Chiang Mai Province

What happened to the Swan? In the past I have enjoyed the food there; the people were nice and the service was good. Tonight I went in with my g/f and the big guy showed us to a table on the outside passageway. Then he went to the back and disappeared. And we waited for him to take the order. I tried to flag down a young girl who was in the back but she did not see me or ignored me. Or she could have been telling the guy to take care of his customers. But then after a few more minutes my g/f waved to the young girl and she came to take our orders. Tom Ka Gai for me and shrimp for my g/f. It was a little difficult because she did not speak Thai but we pointed to the menu items and she wrote them down. After a while they brought the drinks and then served a family that came in after us. Then the girl brought the Tom Ka Gai and that was all. We waited and we shared some of it and then we asked the girl what happened to the other food. She seemed bewildered. She went back. Later we asked a Thai waitress if they forgot the rest of our order. The Tom Ka gai was mai aroi when cold.She went and came back and said 5 minutes. She lied. Then I got the girl again and asked if they forgot the other order. I said bring the bill and we are leaving. Then she came back and said the cook did not read her writing. My g/f/ said it was okay and she would get the shrimp to go. Just bring the bill. Then the big guy came to the table with the bill, which included the cost of the shrimp, 470 baht. I put 300 baht in the cup, ignoring the 180 for the shrimp and got up to go. Then he came back with bill for 270 baht without the shrimp. I left the 300 bt there and we left. So my question is: if they never got the order for the shrimp why was it on the bill? If they tried to charge me for it then why didn't they cook it. ? If they don't like me at The Swan anymore then I am not...

We stayed in the neghbourhood of Swan for 1,5 months . We went there at least 5 times to eat from which 4/5 were good. Salads are epic. My bf ate beef curry every time - he liked it so much. I like that waiter asks about the level of spiciness. In many places in Chiang Mai (mostly vegeterian ones) there is something l call (kidding ofc) "spiciness racism" which means that seeing we are western they refrain from using spices at all, which I personally hate, as a spicy food lover. It's always nice to check out with the client at least. Sometimes extra dry chilli/tabasco included in the table spice set really doesn't do the trick.

So all that being said, I'm quite sad to write here that our last visit on Monday morning was an unlucky one. Tea leaf salad we got was completely sour - like if someone left it out of the fridge for a good few hours (or even the night). I ate one spoon of it only and I felt nausea afterwards. This made me think that my cucumber salad was also probably recycled from the previous day, as it's taste also didn't feel that fresh, as all previous times. As far as I saw - restaurant has enough clients to not "recycle food" the next day - it's probably much better just to give away left overs to those in need, at the end of the day. Especially in case of salads made from raw ingredients, they really don't taste well. Not to mention when they fully sour like the tea leaf salad.

Shame on you dear Swan, hope after this comment, staff will get better training about what to do with the food that...

We have been traveling through Cambodia & Thailand for the past month and our dinner at The Swan tonight was our BEST meal yet. We started with the Yam Taeng salad which was perfectly spiced and I didn’t want to add a thing!! We enjoyed it so much that we mopped up every drop of the remaining dressing with rice. Sooo good!! I wish we would have taken pictures, but we were a bit too hungry to think about it. We then shared the vegetarian tofu “meatballs” with the most amazing ginger pepper sauce, that I want to recreate to put on EVERYTHING, and the vegetarian Hinlay Curry which also was perfectly spiced and delicious!!

The three dishes above plus two orders of rice and three sparkling waters came to $390B. Plenty of food for two people and we couldn’t have been more pleased with our meal. We read the food descriptions and narrowed our choices and then got recommendations from the waiter. This place is what 5-stars were meant for!! We loved the meal so much we asked if they were open for breakfast so we could join them in the morning… they are not. 1100-2300 are the hours. I love late meals so that’s another plus for The Swan for me. Hope you enjoy your meal as...