My Chiang Mai Street Food Story

Soaked, starving, saved by Khao Soi.

Ravenous didn’t even begin to describe the level of hunger we felt as we rattled around in the back of a minivan during Chiang Mai’s rush hour traffic.

You know the drill of an overseas excursion: eyes drooping with exhaustion, skin itching for a shower, waiting with bated breath as the van pulled up outside hotel after hotel, just praying it would finally be your turn to get off.

We’d come from a day of exploring in the Thai jungle. We signed up for waterfall trekking, but I think the excursion we got was, in fact, waterfall bouldering, based on the precarious, questionable ‘paths’ we were navigating with nothing but a worn, tired bamboo stick for support.

The face of a woman who is partaking in an activity against her will

Our teeth chattered as we huddled together beneath the icy blast of the van’s air conditioning, our clothes soaked through from our waterfall frolic and Chiang Mai's rainy season downpours. Ramiro levelled a look at me:

“Food. Shower. Bed.” He gritted out, huffing a sigh of relief as the van finally arrived at our apartment.

Rain battered the pavement in heavy, loaded droplets that might bruise if you weren’t careful. Normally, I’d be quick on my feet, darting off to find shelter. But what would’ve been the point? We were soaked to the skin already.

The 7-Eleven just a few paces from our apartment glowed in a warm, inviting welcome. I could practically taste the ham-and-cheese toastie with my name written all over it. So, clutching our belongings to our chests to shield them from the downpour, we squelched our way across the slippery pavement.

We splashed through puddles and dodged the torrents that cascaded from the restaurant awnings. ‘You want waterfalls? We’ll give you waterfalls,’ they seemed to jeer.

But that’s when we stopped.

Just outside a small, family-run restaurant, steam billowed from a large boiling pot. Chicken skewers sizzled atop a flame grill and periodically rotated by a young Thai woman with braces, who used her other hand and the majority of her attention to scroll her phone.

Suddenly, the need for a hot meal was overwhelming.

Seeking refuge under the awning of the small, Chiang Mai street food stand, I called out to Ramiro, who already had one leg inside the 7-Eleven, poised to pick out his snacks for the evening.

With an eye roll and yet another huff, he shuffled back over to me, taking care not to slip on the tiled floor outside the store.

“How do you fancy a nice, warm takeaway instead?” I asked (already knowing, of course, that I’d be getting my own way).

So we perused the menu: a veritable melee of soups, curries and other traditional Thai fare. But it was the Northern Thai staple that drew us in.

Khao Soi is a rich noodle soup with a curry-style broth, made with coconut milk. It’s simmered with chilli and other whole spices, and served with chopped pickles and shallots, but the thing that makes the dish truly iconic is the nest of deep fried egg noodles that sit atop the tender, fall-apart meat.

I remembered a nugget of wisdom from the taxi driver who brought us from the airport:

“If the restaurant doesn't serve beef khao soi, their chef can’t cook. Chicken is easy. The beef took generations to perfect.”

Beef khao soi. Disclaimer: this is NOT the khao soi currently in question.

So imagine my disappointment when I asked for the beef and was met with a shake of the head: ‘Sold out, sold out.’

On any other day, I might have walked away.

But not that day.

So, against my better judgement, I settled for the chicken.

‘Inside! Inside! Rain!’ Ushered an older lady from the restaurant, waving us over to a table, despite our dripping raincoats and the stinky, mud-caked trainers dangling from our hands.

Grateful for the respite, we collapsed into chairs near the door.

Truth be told, I was feeling desperately impatient. I was expecting a ladle of soup slopped into a takeaway container and pressed into my hands so that I could be speedily on my way, but we were simply too far gone.

And so we waited.

It was a short period of barely looking at each other, certainly not speaking to each other, and mustering just enough energy to return the polite nods of the locals populating the restaurant’s tables.

Just as I readied myself to send Ramiro back to 7-Eleven to grab some intermediary snacks, a hefty bag full of thick, brown broth and boxed noodles landed with a clunk onto our table. Heaving a sigh of relief, and offering the sweet old lady my most gracious smile, I eased my aching muscles from the chair.

Then came our most challenging trek of the day: back to the apartment.

We didn’t even try to stay dry. We trudged slowly. Defeated. Drained.

Just as we were about to turn the corner to our apartment, we heard a small voice ring through the thunder:

‘Ma’am! Ma’am! Come back! I forgot your chicken!’

I might’ve been annoyed, if I hadn’t turned around to see this sweet, little old woman, standing out in the rain, shaking a box of chicken at us.

It took a second to process. Then, laughing in exhausted disbelief, we dashed back through the rain to meet her.

Bowing with her hands clasped together, she apologised profusely for the mistake.

And so we plodded along, our belongings and our now-complete takeaway in a precarious balancing act in our weary arms, everything threatening to spill onto the floor at the slightest wrong move.

It felt like an eternity, but it didn’t take long before we were back in the comfort of our apartment. Breathing a sigh of relief, we allowed all of our belongings to crash to the floor. All, of course, except the golden nectar that was our chicken Khao Soi.

Rushing to the kitchen counter, we set the boxes down and got to work unpacking, our nimble fingers working quickly to untie the knots and elastic bands wrapped around the various takeaway bags.

It looked like a bit of a hot mess. Soft egg noodles were tangled together like fishing wire, swimming inside a big, curry-soup ocean, with a single chicken drumstick dumped on top of a thorny nest of fried noodles.

Here she is, in all her glory.

Still, I clutched my fork and got to work.

Peeling off my raincoat seemed like a profound waste of time as I slumped onto the sofa, the takeaway container warming my rain-wrinkled hands.

From the first bite of that chicken, I knew it had been simmering away for hours.

It all but melted off the bone like buttercream. A gentle shake would’ve had it sliding clean off into the soupy abyss below.

It dripped with a thick, coconutty sauce that trickled down my chin like raindrops. Warm, delicious raindrops, seasoned to perfection.

Ginger and cardamom danced together in a perfectly rehearsed waltz, tickling my taste buds as they meandered down my throat, warming me from the inside out.

They were led in their dance by the star of the show; the final piece of the puzzle that pulled it all together, perfecting the dish of dreams:

Lemongrass.

It was subtle. Fragrant. Like the oaky undertone in a posh wine that you know is there but can’t quite put your finger on.

All of this, underpinned by the texture sensation of dreams.

The soft, boiled noodles alongside the crunchy, fried ones, all washed down in that spicy, curry soup. I could barely contain myself.

If Ramiro was talking to me, I certainly couldn’t hear him. Every ounce of my concentration, every brain cell and fibre of my being, was focussed on that plastic container of Khao Soi from an unassuming street food kiosk outside a 7-Eleven on a rainy June afternoon.

Each bite was punctuated by bursts of pickled shallots and mustard greens. Sharp hits of acidity that jolted me from my curry-induced stupor.

I couldn’t help but ponder, as I tried my best to savour the bold-flavoured bowl: whose brain conceptualised this behemoth of a dish?

But really, no single brain can be credited for the creation of Khao soi. This is the result of centuries of immigration, tense Thai-Burmese border politics, and ancient trade routes dating back to the Persian Empire.

It’s something that has been passed down and adapted through generations and generations of spice route voyages, all annexing a piece of their identity into the dish we know and love today.

Exhaustion saved me from missing out on one of the greatest culinary experiences of my life, and it’s experiences like these that keep the spark alive when long-term travel becomes onerous instead of fun.

Have you ever had a culinary experience that’s made you want to sit down and write a 1,500-word article about it? Please let us know.

Catch you next time!

All our love

Eloise & Ramiro Xxx

This is the place in question. It's called เตี๋ยว สั่ง มันไก่, which roughly translates to 'Order Noodles, Chicken Fat.'