I had only one disappointing meal in my first trip to Chiang Mai. That happened in one of the supposedly best fine dining venues in town: Le Grand Lanna, the Thai restaurant of the five-star Dhara Dhevi resort.
My experience is limited to one lunch. So, obviously, it just may be that they had a bad day or I was unlucky. However, I think useful to share the experience so you can judge by yourself. Even if I collected a single data point, there were some big red flags.
The visit
I reached my destination by Grabcar, it took me around 15 minutes to arrive from the Northern part of the old city. The restaurant is accessible from the parking lot in front of the resort (so you do not have to step inside the resort proper).
A receptionist dressed in traditional garments greeted me and escorted me to the dining room.
I was seated on the veranda. I guess this was the place where they have their performances with traditional music at night. The restaurant was very quiet. I found odd that they did not ask me whether I preferred to seat inside their air-conditioned room… but it was not too hot so I did not complain.
What compelled me to try a lunch at Le Grand Lanna was their selection of beautiful lunch sets, reminiscent of bento boxes. I knew about them because I had looked at their website, but weirdly enough I was not offered the menu featuring the lunch sets; rather, I had to request it.
The main dish was a bowl of the traditional khao soi with chicken. I have described this khao soi in another post and I found it a softball: ok, but not particularly tasty (especially the noodles).
The set contained some vegetables fritters and crispy pork. I enjoyed the crunchiness of the dish, but to be honest I could not really taste the pork.
Then there was a side of herbal rice. Totally tasteless. I could not finish it.
What really ruined the meal was this soup: chicken broth with minced pork and soft bean curd. It was a very harmless soup, but when I chewed I could feel something wrong… there were some small fragments of something in the soup! Something not edible and impossible to chew! I explained the situation to a waitress.
Shortly after the manager came and explained that the fragments were residuals from clams used to make the broth better… The manager admitted that this was a mistake. Clearly, in the kitchen they were unable to prepare a simple broth. What a disappointment.
The check
These lunch sets were priced 620 THB plus service charge (10%) and tax (7%). Since they messed up big time, the manager offered me a 10% discount and did not include the drinks (that would have been another 140 THB or so). So in the end I paid 646 THB (19.50 USD). Normally, including drinks, would have been close to 900 THB (27 USD). I think they should have given me even a larger discount, but I was not in the mood to negotiate. Fool me once, shame on you.
The bento box was appealing to the eye, but it was remarkably tasteless (and actually came with a failed dish). A perfect example of image over substance.
Also, while the personnel was nice and I appreciated the manager taking responsibility, honestly I felt that they processed me without much care (I was not even asked if I wanted to seat inside the air-conditioned room).
Given the super-inflated prices (for Thai food), I would certainly not go back to Le Grand Lanna. There are so many better places where to spend your money in Chiang Mai for fine food: The Redbox and Baan Landai were my favorite during this trip.
I find the more one pays in Chiang Mai most often the more one is disappointed. Many great meals to be had here you just don’t usually get you pay for when splurging.