Our last couple of days in Thailand were mostly a mad dash to sample as much of Chiang Mai’s culinary specialities as we could. (Seriously, are you even surprised?)
Things started off healthily. A simple congee with egg and savory doughnut made for a solid breakfast.
Even lunch was healthy. We stopped at SP Chicken, famous for their rotisserie, which we enjoyed with rice, water spinach/morning glory, and a bean thread noodle salad.
For dinner, we headed to the Chiang Mai Sunday Night Market, a sight so expansive, so busy, so bustling that you have to see it to believe it. And the street food! So much street food. And this, my friends, is where our healthy eating began to go downhill.
Fried golden needle mushrooms, banana blossoms, and morning glory. Always eat the morning glory.
Fresh vegetable spring rolls. Not pictured: the deep fried spring rolls we inhaled just before this.
Glass noodles with wild mushrooms and pepper. Vegetables! Vegetables are healthy!
We washed it all down with gac fruit juice, passion fruit juice, and sweet corn juice.
We were exhausted from all that eating walking so the next day we took it easy, strolling around the Old Quarter on our last day in Chiang Mai.
Because of its proximity to Myanmar, Chiang Mai has a large Burmese community. For lunch, we ate at Swan Burmese Cuisine. Fried fish, chicken with mint, chiles, and lemongrass, and of course a green tea leaf salad. Burmese tea leaf salad has got to be one of the best salads on earth, amirite?
We couldn’t leave Chiang Mai without one last stop at our favorite Thai cafe: Fruiturday! One last mango sticky rice for the road.
Next stop: Singapore.