One of the best restaurants in Chiang Rai - Lab Sanam Keela (ร้านลาบสนามกีฬา)

I think one of the best restaurants in Chiang Rai is Lab Sanam Keela (ร้านลาบสนามกีฬา). You can read all the details about it here:
I really love Chiang Rai as a city - it’s peaceful, usually has fresh air, the lifestyle is calm, relaxing and friendly, and most of all, there’s a good selection of food to eat. Ranging from northern Thai food to delicious Thai Chinese food, you’ll find plenty to devour when you’re in Chiang Rai. One of my absolute favorite restaurants in the city is Lab Sanam Keela (ร้านลาบสนามกีฬา), a restaurant located on the peaceful side of the city, near the Chiang Rai stadium and a school.
Lab Sanam Keela (ร้านลาบสนามกีฬา) serves mostly a menu of northern Thai dishes, and they have a bunch of specials on their menu as well. I didn’t see an English menu, but the menu did have pictures to make it easier for you to order if you don’t speak Thai. The restaurant is sort of like an oversized open air shack, one of the types of restaurants that looked like it started off small and just kept growing and expanding in size little by little, until turning into the pretty large restaurant that it is today. But it’s exactly my style of a restaurants - no frills, open air, makeshift tables, and just amazing food.
Ying and I first started off with a Thai dish known as Yang Ruam (ย่างรวม), which was basically just a mixed grill plate. It included grilled pork, and some grilled pork organs like intestines and liver. The meat was grilled until almost halfway to a jerky style meat - so it had a bit of chewy texture, and it was slightly dried out - which is the way it was supposed to be. Dipped into the house-made chili sauce, it was pretty tasty. I especially liked the intestines, which were like little nuggets of sausage. The next dish we ordered was Jeen Neung (จิ้นนึ่ง), a plate of beef steamed with lemongrass and galangal, and served on a plate with fresh sprigs of cilantro and a side dipping sauce of galangal chilli sauce, known in Thai as nam prik kha (น้ำพริกข่า). The combination was masterful, the meat was slightly chewy, but along with the galangal chilli sauce and the fresh herbs, it was sensational. It honestly almost tasted like a Sunday roast, only with more flavor from the chili and herbs. The Jeen Neung (จิ้นนึ่ง) was one of the highlights of my meal at Lab Sanam Keela (ร้านลาบสนามกีฬา) restaurant.
For another impressive dish we ordered the pla tabtim tod kratiem (ปลาทับทิมทอดกระเทียม), a fish deep fried, and topped with the most amazing pile of fried garlic that I’ve ever seen in my life. It was almost comical how much garlic they loaded on top of it. I did notice that the garlic was slightly battered before it was deep fried, so that did increase the size a bit, but nevertheless, it was a jaw-dropping mound of garlic. The fish was fried to an absolute crisp, and the sauce served was spicy and garlicky. The combination of the crunchy fried fish with the garlic and chili sauce was incredibly delicious. Our final dish, which we ordered just to wrap everything up and call it a complete northern Thai meal, was tom sab moo (ต้มแซ่บหมู), a soup of pork and herbs. It was a little on the greasy side, but wow was it extremely tasty. It was almost perfectly flavored, with chilies, lime juice, tomatoes, and cilantro, and the pork was so tender and so flavorful.
Lab Sanam Keela (ร้านลาบสนามกีฬา) is a wonderful place to eat in Chiang Rai, and I think it’s one of my personal favorite restaurants in the city. The open air, and relaxing atmosphere could not get much better, and the food is wonderful - spicy, sour, pungent, and ultimately delicious. If you visit Chiang Rai, Thailand, and looking for a delicious meal experience that’s heavy on the meat, you should check this place out.
Ran Lab Sanam Keela (ร้านลาบสนามกีฬา)
Address: 123 Moo 22, Tambon Robwiang, Amphoe Mueang Chiang Rai
Open hours: 10 am – 9 pm daily
ที่อยู่ 123 หมู่22 ตำบลรอบเวียง อำเภอเมืองเชียงราย เชียงราย
เปิดบริการทุกวัน 10.00 – 21.00 น.
For more details on how to get here and what to eat, be sure to check out my full post:
Music in this video is courtesy of:
Mark and Ying Wiens: &
Thai Food Guide:
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