Chiang Mai Eat: Mae Pa Sri (妈葩席) Northern Thai Specialties @ Old City

25 September 2024

Mae Pa Sri (妈葩席), a family-run restaurant located along Ratchamanka Road in Chiang Mai Old City, offers both traditional Central Thai and Northern Thai dishes as well as Western coffees and light bites.

Over 60 Thai dishes are listed on Mae Pa Sri’s menu. Other than popular Thai noodle dishes, such as khao soi, khanom jeen nam ngiaw, etc, there are rice dishes such as pineapple fried rice, kra pao moo, etc, too. Mae Pa Sri has two kinds of khan toke platter to try either Northern Thai flavours or meaty sausages. It also serves vegetarian dishes as well as light bites such as sandwiches, toasts, croissants, etc.

Khao soi, a popular Northern Thai curry noodle dish, is served with broad-flat egg noodle in creamy coconut-curry broth and characteristically topped with crispy fried noodle. The dish can be eaten with chicken, pork, beef or fish and is mildly spicy. The accompanying condiments, such as lime, pickled mustard and onions, are optional to add flavours to the curry dish. It is a must-try when in Chiang Mai.

Khanom jeen nam ngiaw, or Northern Thai mild-spicy pork noodle, uses thin rice vermicelli added with pork ribs and chicken blood cubes in a mildly spicy light broth prepared with dried chillies and a number of spices. The noodle dishes is accompanied by fresh lime and bean sprouts, and pickled mustard. The noodle, tender pork ribs and blood cubes are delicious after soaking in the savoury-spicy broth.

The beef noodle soup uses thick rice noodle and served with fresh beef slices, springy beef balls, bean sprouts and lettuce in clear flavourful broth. It is a nice noodle dish to start a day.

Kra pao moo is the well-known stir-fried pork with basil leaves served with rice. The basil and minced pork are not cooked too spicy and a separate sweet-savoury-spicy sauce is served for adjusting its flavours to taste.

Need a caffeine fix? Mae Pa Sri serves nice Western and special coffee, including hazelnut coffee (top-right) and vanilla coffee (bottom-right). Aside from coffee, there are various kinds of milk, milkshakes, soda, tea / flower tea, fruit juice, smoothies, beer and cocktails too.