Thai curry @ Aroon Rai, Chiang Mai

On our last day at Chiang Mai, we walked along Tha Phae Gate outside the old city and spied this restaurant along the busy main street . 'Aroon Rai, best curry' in town? Hmm... we'll see about it, not one to believe in self touted praises. The restaurant with its airy open dining space has the atmosphere of a small town Malaysian coffee shop. The place looks clean and inviting, plus we were ravenous so we walked in to sample the fare.

Since this is a curry house, we ordered the curries. Now I love curries, the spicier the better. The Gaeng Kheaw Wan Gai, green chicken curry was quite mild in heat level but fragrant with the spices.

(Gaeng Kheaw Wan Gai)

If the Green Chicken Curry was mild, the pork curry packs quite a wallop. The Khaeng Hang Le , Lanna style pork curry is a Northern speciality. The curry is cooked with lots of garlic, galangal and dried red chillies. Coconut milk is ommitted in this type of curry. I like the curry but was rather disappointed that the pork served was bone in. Hence, there wasn't much meat to it. Aroon Rai also sells prepackaged spices and recipes for DIY Thai curry. It's a shame I didn't think to buy any of it. The red curry paste would have made an excellent wild boar curry.

(Khaeng Hang Le)

The platter of deep fried spicy Thai sausages was sinful but oh.. wonderful. The mince meat in the sauasage are mixed with spices and chillies and some pieces of fat. I could do with a little less fat in the sausages but otherwise, it was good.(Spicy Thai sausages)

To balance out all the spiciness and balance our meal with something non meat, we ordered this Oyster mushroom with tofu sauteed in oyster sauce and sprinkled liberally with spring onions. Those were our justification for greens in our meal :)

(Oyster mushroom with tofu)

The restaurant's specialties also include various kinds of fried insects which we skipped.

Lunch bill came up to 282 Baht for 3 people. A little more expensive then most local joints but we felt it was reasonable. So was their bold statement 'The best curry in town' justified? Oklah. The curries were good. Anyhow, it was the only curries we ate at Chiang Mai.

Aroon Rai, 45 Kotchasarn Rd, Muang, Chiang Mai, Thailand. +66 53 27 6947 Opening hours 9am-11pm.