A great Chiang Rai restaurant Lab Sanam Keela

 I did a trip by myself to Thailand recently. Some people asked "why Thailand" and my answer was that I already knew I liked SE Asia, having previously visited Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (just Phnom Penh), and that post-COVID I was feeling unsure about how travel would be so it seemed like a good idea to go a heavily touristed country. Of course the food was on my mind, and the question of what it would be like there vs. the Thai food in Sacramento and what I grew up eating.

I don't think I ever, or rarely ate Thai food growing up. Moving downtown in the mid-90s Amarin Thai (now called Bangkok@12 Thai and frequently crashed into by cars) was the jam, I can't remember why. It was one of the few on the grid probably. I remember getting curries and Tom Yum soup. Working in Davis for almost the last 20 years, there are so many Thai restaurants (many have closed and the popularity of Thai with college students has maybe waned in favor of Chinese, especially boba chains) and coworkers always wanted to go to Thai for birthdays etc. I always kind of groused about that internally because I thought the food was bland and often too sweet, and never liked that kind of pounded out breast meat that was what you got when you ordered chicken as the protein. Sophia's of course is still going strong in Davis, which at times has served as a fun venue and which Davis loves for their sweet cocktails.

My knowledge of Thai food barely progressed past that really. I got into Laotian food from learning more about it at Hmong New Year and there's a definite overlap there but my curiosity to find good Thai food in Sac wasn't really piqued. I ate at Kin Thai once with KW before the pandemic (if memory serves) and then got takeout there once or twice during, and once the ordering process went really wrong so although it's walkable from my house and I could tell it's really popular I didn't eat there often.

Anyway, although I posted lots of IG-bait pics of temples to IG while I was gone, I didn't post as many food pics, so I wanted to do a whole post on the food. I'll start in the city where I ended my trip, which ended up being my favorite place I visited: Chiang Rai. Chiang Rai is far north and kind of equidistant from Laos and Myanmar, very close to both. I still know nothing about Myanmar food, but I def had food in CR that I think of as Lao style.

I'll start with the first meal I ate when I arrived in CR (it was 4 hours via swank bus from Chiang Mai). I had decided to splurge on a 4 star hotel ($130 a night for White Lotus vibez) and I was a bit concerned that it was outside the city center, but I figured if that was annoying to get back into the center that I would just stay at the hotel a lot and maybe eat lame hotel food. But on the tuk tuk from the bus station  (10 minutes) we passed multiple crowded restaurants that were 5-10 minute walk from the hotel. I was so psyched. I checked in, gawked at the room/pool etc and right away headed to a very close place that specializes in larb, called Lab Sanam Keela. Their pork larb is pictured above. It has bits of liver, skin, unknown bits in there but was not gamy or particularly strong tasting, just delicious. It was warm and a bit saucy. Sticky rice seems more common in northern Thailand, probably the Lao proximity influence, not sure, and look at those herbs! The herbs were the real draw, and also cabbage and mustard greens to make wraps. Dude at the table next to me was eschewing implements to ball up the sticky rice in his hand and use it to scoop etc. so I did the same.

I isolated some of the interesting herbs. This one had an incense-like flavor. I just spent about 15 minutes browsing Thai and Lao herbs to try to find what it is with no luck. Even a reverse image scan didn't work.

The one above was slightly bitter and very sour and I made a joke on IG "it me". Pause for laugh.

And then you have fish mint, which I recognized from Vietnamese dishes I've had.

Here's what it looks like from the outside. I liked it so much that I went back for dinner the next day. The first day I went for late lunch, the restaurant only had a few others, the second time I was at prime dinner time and it was quite crowded, many big parties. Traveling alone and not being Thai I stood out and this visit was a bit awkward. I felt self conscious as a weirdo, and then they sat me directly in the entrance so then I'd be the first person that every party coming in saw so the awkwardness just kept rolling on but oh well.

On my prior visit I saw this dish at a table and the roasted squash sold me that I had to try it. It was not on the English language menu, but I looked up a pic from online reviews of this place and screenshotted it for ordering. There was some concern from the server about me ordering it, to the extent she brought someone out from the kitchen about it, but the language barrier just couldn't be overcome. I assured the kitchen guy I would not send it back. It was completely not spicy or unusual to a Western palate so I'm not sure what the concern was. Anyway, it's a mild green chili dip and veggies. Great!

This fried fish dish is a show-stopper, it's on many tables and the dip is the real story. Really heavy on the lime and so good. All the puffy bits on top of the fish are whole garlic cloves, deep-fried, some with a bit of papery garlic skin still on. The meat is filleted and fried and is resting on the skeleton of the fish. I think initially some of the concern is just that I ordered too much food, and true that, but I knew this would be the last time I could ever eat there so I had to go all out.

I wanted to capture this tableau because the best way to drink watery beer in a hot climate is of course on ice.

One last thing that was a little bit funny was after I had been served, the guy from the kitchen who had earlier tried to dissuade me from the dip plate brought me this little bowl of pork belly soup to see if I liked it. I feel like he was trying to get a feel for if it pleased a Western palate and I assured him it was great. You can see that it has cilantro, the varietal that's stronger tasting, and you don't see cilantro super commonly in Thailand in my eating experience in my limited time.

So that's that restaurant, probably my fave place all around that I ate but true to the awkward and experimental nature of travel not always easy and comfortable at all times.