Kruajiangmai Thonglor ครัวเจียงใหม่ ทองหล่อ

Kruajiangmai started as a northern Thai delivery kitchen before opening this two-floor shophouse near the mouth of Thonglor Soi 7, about eight minutes on foot from BTS Thong Lo. The owner is from Chiang Mai and cooks from her grandmother's recipes, which makes this the one place on the soi devoted to Lanna food rather than a token khao soi on a pan-Thai menu. The list runs past a hundred items. Chicken khao soi is 189 baht, the braised beef shank version 219 baht, khanom jeen nam ngiao 189 baht, and pu ong, the crab-paste dip served in the shell, 179 baht. Prices sit a notch above northern places elsewhere in Bangkok, but portions are built for sharing and two people eat well for 200 to 450 baht each. Opening hours run from late morning until 1am, though the main kitchen stops around 9.30pm and only drinking snacks carry on later. Weekday lunch fills the ground floor with office staff from the soi; groups do better upstairs. There is no parking, and the soi is hard to park on after dark, so use a nearby community mall car park or arrive by BTS.