Chiang Mai has a noodle joint famous for its blue noodles (or are they purple??). It is called Anchan that means “blue” in Thai (at least I am being told so) and the color comes from butterfly pea flowers’ juice (by the way, butterfly pea flowers are a popular element in Northern Thai cuisine from what I have seen and the juice is pretty common in restaurants around Chiang Mai.
The visit
The shop is located in relatively calm street in Nimman area.
I guess this must be the most coveted parking spot in front of the restaurant.
There is a large air-conditioned dining room with stools, but overall it is comfortable.
For some reason they also sell unrelated paraphernalia.
This I guess was an attempt to make the place more Instagram worthy.
But let’s get down to business: the noodles. The one page menu has the namesake blue noodles in all possible variations. The signature dish is noodles with pork meat.
I had the version with tom yum (hot and sour) soup. The soup was not great (maybe too sweet), but the noodles and all the content were very good. Among other things there was a pork ball and some crispy pork (in this restaurant they only seem to use pork meat).
Actually, the crispy pork belly was so good that I also ordered an additional dish with it and some rice (including blue rice of course).
The check
For the two dishes I spent 150 THB (4.80 USD), 100 for the noodles and a beverage, other 50 for the pork belly. It is a popular place, but they maintained their prices very affordable. It is nice to have such a nice meal at an affordable price sometimes.
I would recommend to try it and not to miss the crispy pork belly if it is your thing.
Where in Chiang Mai:
19 1 Siri Mangkalajarn Rd.