Posted by Alice on Feb 23, 2010 in
Thailand 
Here is one of my favourite dim sum/yum cha places. It's owned by a chef from Shangri-La Hotel. They make great roast duck (one of the best I've had in Chiang Mai!), some basic but very nice dim sum dishes eg. prawn dumplings, BBQ pork buns, Cream buns, etc.
Just an aside - the steamed dim sum dishes are great, however, the fried dishes (eg spring rolls or taro dumpling) are only fried in the morning, so they get cold by lunch time - not great...but would be alright in the morning, I think.
The roast duck at DDD 45 is lovely, and unlike many other restaurants, the meat is tasty. The sauce though, is slightly sweet. I don't have photos of the roast duck here, but the roast duck noodles are especially delicious!
Below is the photo of crispy pork rice. The sauce is the same as duck sauce. You can help yourselves to the two different types of chillis! The one on the left is a kind of preserved chilli in vinegar (very nice!), but my favourite is the sauce on the right, which I think contains garlic, shallots and soy bean paste, amongst other ingredients. It has a spicy and kind of nutty flavour. This sauce is so amazing I can just eat it by itself! Hmm may be I should have focused the camera on the sauce, not the rice!
The BBQ Pork Egg Noodles are lovely too, flavoured by the versatile duck gravy.
The prices are pretty reasonable too. The dim sum dishes are 25 baht, and the rice and noodle dishes, 35 baht. Not bad!
DDD45
Chiang Mai-Mae Jo Rd
Near the corner of Super Hwy
Close to Thepanya Hospital (next to 7-11)
Tags: Chiang Mai, Chinese Food
Posted by Alice on Feb 17, 2010 in
Thailand
Here we are again, Chinese New Year! I hope everyone will have a prosperous year of tiger!
So what did we have for our family CNY dinner? This year we went to the ever reliable China Palace, at the Holiday Inn. The food and service there is always great, and prices reasonable! This year we broke away from the traditional Chinese New Year dinner (eg. having whole fish, abalone and muscles, the hair like vegie, etc). Here are some of the dishes we had:
Mixed-entree: Deep-fried prawn balls, spring rolls, deep-fried pork (sweet), and an egg dish that you eat with lettuce (San Choy Bow style). Everything was lovely, especially the pork. (I have an extra-sweet tooth this week, for some reason!). Everything also looked very grand on the silver dragon serving platter.
Chicken with Chinese Herbs: This was really lovely and light. The herbs were fragrant without being over powering.
And what is a Chinese celebratory dinner without Peking Duck? Thai style Peking Duck is very different from what I had in Beijing, where a lot of fat is eaten with the duck skin. In Thailand, duck skin served is crispy, and very little fat - I guess this makes a "healthier" version, so we can eat more! The great thing about peking duck is that you get two (or sometimes more) dishes from the one duck. This time we had the meat stir-fried with pickled cabbages and bean sprouts - delicious!
Stir-fried tofu with vegies: This dish looks better than it tastes, but still very nice!
Another dish worth mentioning is Calamari Stuffed with Prawns - unfortunately, the photo didn't turn out, but it was very interesting and scrumptious. The calamari outer were coated with what I think might have been salted egg yoke, fried and topped with a salt and chilli mixture (which looked and tasted like instant noodles' seasoning!). Yum!
Needless to say it was a great meal, and we were all extremely full and happy! : )
China Palace, Holiday Inn
Chiang Mai-Lamphun Rd
Tel: 053 275 3000
Tags: Chiang Mai, China Palace, Chinese Food
Posted by Alice on Dec 7, 2009 in
Thailand
We were rather excited to finally check out the 1.5 year old Yangzi Jiang ("Yangzi River") Cantonese Restaurant. Having previously been to and really enjoyed its' older-sister restaurant, Mei Jiang ("Beautiful River") on Changklan Rd several times, we thought Yangzi Jiang would be a sure bet for Thailand's Father's Day dinner.
Yangzi Jiang is situated in an elegant home in the trendy Nimanhaemin Area. It's quite famous for dim sum/yum cha, and authentic Cantonese dishes. Having grown up with Cantonese cuisine in Sydney, it was exactly what I have been craving! We were even more excited when we overheard someone on the next table say, "Everything here is good!", exactly our sentiments about Mei Jiang.
So there we were, pouring over the rather large menu and interesting sounding dishes. Finally, we settled for:
Salmon Spring Rolls - what a great start! This turned out to be my favourite dish. The rolls were filled with salmon fillet, celery stick, and something white and creamy - perhaps mayonnaise. The Salmon Spring Rolls were served with more salty/sweet tasting creamy mayonnaise which complemented so wonderfully with the salmon. The celery gave each bite a crunch. Scrumptious!
Stir-fried Squids with Morning Glory and Chilli Shrimp Paste - this was also a rather interesting dish. I think the "Chilli Shrimp Paste" used here is
Belachan paste, or at least tasted very similar to it. The squid was very nicely cooked - firm but not tough to chew, and the morning glory was delicious with the salty, rich and aromatic flavour of the shrimp paste, garlic and a hint of ginger.
Yangzi Jiang's roast duck was also quite good - in the sense that we could tell that the duck was of good quality - great texture and nice crispy skin, and not much fat. Unfortunately though, it tasted rather bland. The best thing about it was the bed of chewy peanuts and the tasty sauce under the duck! We soaked up the sauce with a very lovely mantou (Chinese bun), right out of the steamer.
As an aside, I would put Yangzi Jiang's roast duck at number 3 so far in Chiang Mai. The best was at Mandarin Oriental's fabulous Chinese Restaurant, Fujian, and my second favourite, a little local eatery owned by the chef at Shangri-la Hotel.
Fried Eggplant Stuffed with Mashed Shrimp with Chilli and Salt. The golden coloured stuffed eggplants looked pretty good, but oily. The first few bites were quite nice, especially if eaten with the very lightly fried garlic (which still had the raw taste), chilli and salt mixture. The spiciness of raw-ish garlic and chilli helped to breakdown the oiliness a little, but unfortunately not enough. We couldn't finish off the dish and I felt like needing a good cup of tea afterwards!
Finally, the last dish, Fried Yin Yang Vermicelli with Roasted Duck and Sichuan Pickle. It was an interesting dish, and tasted rather good too, but a shame that it was also too oily.
All in all a bit of a mixed-bag experience. Some of the dishes were great, others not so. The service was quite good in the beginning, but became a bit more inattentive as they got busier. That's understandable though, because they pretty much had a full house - being Father's Day and also having long weekend tourists coming up from Bangkok.
I will go back again - I think they deserve another try!
The price worked out to be about 300 baht per person without alcohol.
Yangzi Jiang (Cantonese Cuisine)
10 Nimmanhaemin Soi 5
Suthep, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200
Tel: 053 225 313
Open: 11:30am-2:30pm and 6pm-11pm.
Booking recommended.
Or, if you'd like to try Mei Jiang (Hong Kong Style Rice, Noodles & Congee)
191/17-18 Changkhlan Plaza (near Shangri-la Hotel)
Changklan Rd
Changklan, Muang, Chiang Mai 50100
Open: 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:50pm-9:00pm
Tel: 053 821 112
Does not take booking.
Tags: Chinese Food, Hong Kong, Nimanhaemin, Restaurant review
