An experience of Thai cooking class – Chiang Mai

Continue my trip in Chiangmai. This will be a long passage as I have too much to share! So we joined the cooking class from Thai Farm Cooking School. The teacher told us that there were  actually more than 100 cooking schools in Chiangmai!! which is a bit unbelievable.  So it’s really hard to pick the best one if you have not yet experienced. I just picked it randomly in google and also read the reviews from Trip advisor. Have seen that they are one of the best cooking school which have more than 14 years experience. Their price is a bit higher than others, it is about 1300 THB / person. However everything was worth and I think I have spent less than what they have been given. So let me tell you more in depth of what I have experienced!

We reserved in advance by emailing them from their web site ( will share later). As they only offer full day class from 08:30 -17:00. So if you don’t plan to spend a whole day, you have to look for another school which provide an alternative. As far as I know there are lots of school do offer half day! However as a full day class, it includes more than half day.

So what you will experience?

• Visit a local market
• Visit their organic farm with introduction of tasting various ingredients
• Cooking Jasmine and sticky rice
• Make your own curry paste
• Cook 5 dishes which includes:  1/ Curry 2/ Soup 3/Stir fried  4/Noodle dish 5/sweet dessert

If you a vegetarians, no worries! They do offer vegetarian/ vegan style!

Heading to Local Market

They picked us up in our hotel around 08:30, there are 4-5 pairs from different countries joined this class. We have students from UK, Shanghai, Taiwan, America and Hong Kong (ourselves). So it is an international class from people around the world! Our first destination was to visit the local market! So exciting!! While we are heading to the market, our instructor gave me a form which need to fill in my favorite dishes. They will collect it once arrived.

No one is born a  Great Cook,

one Learns by Doing

It is not surprise to me of their local market as it do looks very alike to Hong Kong local market. The only different would be they do have lots of curry paste and veggies which I have never seen. So the instructor lead us to different counter and introduce what we will use later for our cooking class. Then we will have 15 mins to walk around or buy drinks if you would like to.

In the Farm

So after visiting the local market, we then head to the farm and our cooking classroom. One of the reason I chose this school is because they got their own farm and the cooking location wasn’t indoor but semi outdoor. Thus it takes around 40-50 mins to arrive there as it’s  out of the city. When we arrived the farm, I felt so relax with the greenery plants, trees all surround you. You won’t see any building like the city. However one thing you might aware is you need to bring your mosquito repellent!

Once we arrived, they offers the welcome drink which is Lemon grass tea made from their fram. It was so refreshing and you can even refill as much as you can!

Instructor introduced different ingredients to us. All the ingredients that we are going to use are pick from here! Everything is 100% organic! After visiting the farm, we went to the little house, which is our cooking classroom.

Are you ready to become Cooking MAMA?

There are tables and all the preparation have been ready! So we have started our first dish, instructor do explained first before we start to cook. Our instructor can speak very well English so don’t need to worry if you don’t know Thai language! She explained very clear and demonstrate step by step, is very easy to follow.

I like her sweet smile with such a sense of humor. I believe everyone enjoyed so much in her class! She showed us how to cook first before we start on our own. Most likely it seems very easy to her but I can’t handle the fire. See what she did below!

My Dishes!

Anyways, the presentation of mine wasn’t really bad! See what I have cooked!

And Dessert!

After 4 dishes, we started our dessert. You have a choice of either Bananas in Coconut Milk OR Mango with sticky rice. I chose Mango with sticky rice! That’s the one I love!

What you get lastly?

We were so full since every time we finished one dish, we have 15-20 minutes to enjoy our food. Lastly they send us back to the city. Before we go, we received the lovely recipe book. It was so lovely with all the color pages. As I know not many school do provide the full color recipe book but only a few sheets of paper. I was much appreciate of what I learned in the class and experienced! I would highly recommend this cooking school to those who wish to experience something different from normal cooking school in Chiang Mai. Details listed below.

More information:

Website: http://www.thaifarmcooking.net/

Email for reservation: Thailfarmcooking@gmail.com

If you are in Thailand:  081 288 59 89 OR 087 174 92 85

If you are outside of Thailand: + 66 81 288 59 89 OR + 66 87 174 92 85

Useful Link: FACEBOOK – THAI FARM COOKING SCHOOL

WEBSITE