Por Jai Restaurant — Restaurant in Chiang Rai Province

The quality for the price is the real kicker here. A few classic lanna dishes available, and right on the tourist strip.

If you're unfamiliar with lanna food (except for khao soi), this is a great place to scratch the surface and taste some of the wonderful flavors of northern thailand.

Must order dishes (out of the handful available):

Nam ngiaw: pork and fermented rice noodle (khanom jeen) soup with fresh herbs, chilis, and blood cake. If you're unfamiliar with asian food, it might sound wierd. But it's amazing. Anyways, did you come all the way to Asia to eat burgers and live in your comfort zone (go across the street if so)? This place in particular serves an absolutely classic version of this staple lanna dish, which has a million different renditions and can be found anywhere in the north.

Nam prik noom: classic lanna meal acommpaniment-- green chili dip. Simple, super flavorful. Kind of like Thai salsa verde. It's usually served with a plate of boiled veggies. But here, for 10 baht, you get the dip, and for another 5 baht, you get a bag of pork cracklings to drop into your nam ngaw (for crunch) and dip into your nam prik. Mmm

Sai ua: northern thai pork sausage. Famous throughout all of thailand. Herb-stuffed sausage with lemongrass. Grilled to perfection. Dip some in your nam prik!

I also tried the ice lime tea (cha yen manow) which is a super refreshing beverage.

The khao soi here is supposedly pretty good too, but that's really available everywhere. And to be fair, i am skeptical of a 30B Bowl of khao soi. corners would have to be cut in the preparation of the curry paste and quality of the coconut milk used in order to drive the cost down that low. As for me, I'll stick with those yummy gelatinous blobs...

Had the so famous Khao Soi Gaï which is supposedly great here. Its was not awful but far from the best I had. The broth was diluted with too much water and coconut milk so it hardly tasted curry. It wasnt spicy at all and since they offer the Khao Soi in different flavours I suspect they use the same broth for all which makes the other ones probably as bad as mine was. On top of this they just add boneless and skinless chicken afterwards instead of cooking it with complete legs so it removes a lot of flavour. No fresh cilantro and shallot brunoise was replaced by gross chopped red onion. I was not expecting smiling staff as other commented and for that I admit I got served. Service was indeed awful. My girlfriend ordered Som Tam and believe me it has nothing to do with Thai papaya salad. You would expect McDonald to serve bad tasting commercial food like this not any Thai restaurant. The only thing that was really worth the experience was the cheap price of all main dish around 40baht and beverages at 15baht, and my belly full. Find somewhere else there are many great Khao soi avenues...

What an amazing experience! The staff are very welcoming and friendly. We were surprised on how easy we were able to communicate with the staff. We used a mix of english and Thai (with the help of Google translate) and they were able to answer all of our questions and even crack a few jokes!

The food here is next level, amazing, crazy delicious. We ordered the Chicken Khao Soy, the Shrimp Khao Soy, and the Pork Nam Ngeaw. Each one was utterly fantastic. However, my favourite had to be the chicken dish. Creamy, homey, and satisfying! The staff make the dish right in front of you!!!!

I’m not joking when I say you NEED to try this place!

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