There are many Thai cooking schools in Chiang Mai, and the reviews on Trip Advisor for all of them are overwhelmingly positive. Last year, I took a class from Zabb E. Lee Cooking School and loved it. I wanted to try a different school this year. How to choose when there are so many wonderful choices? For me, it came down to menu. Every school has set courses to choose from – soup, curry paste/curry, appetizer, noodle, etc. Within those categories is where the schools differ.

I was able to reserve my spot online https://lannasmilethaicooking.com. All of the schools will pick you up at your hotel (or other accommodation) and take you to visit a market to show you the different foods you will be cooking with. I was picked up by Nim and Pim, the owners of the school. It turns out that there would be only one other student on the day I visited; a lovely young lady named Daneesha. She was on a break from teaching in South Korea and was traveling solo around SE Asia. Chiang Mai was her first stop. We really hit it off, which made the time in class fly by. I made pad Thai, Kao Soi, Tom Kha Gai, spring rolls, and mango sticky rice. Let’s just say that all were delicious!

If you enjoy Thai food (and honestly, why visit Thailand if you don’t), do yourself a favor and take a cooking class. Besides cooking (and eating) some delicious food, you will be sent home with a cookbook that includes recipes for many Thai dishes that you can try out. You can be sure I will!