NYT loved it. NPR loved it.

chote chitr

even before i moved to bangkok, a friend told me about chote chitr which she had heard about on npr. and me, being the npr nerd that i am, hold npr standards above gold. is it weird that i consider jonathan gold as one of my favorite writers?

i got a tip from another friend who had visited this place that the woman who owns it speaks english fluently and has little patience. she was scolded for trying to ask and order in thai. tip: use your english. honestly, the woman is a little like the thai version of the soup nazi. she had little patience for me when i asked questions about the dishes and only repeated her scripted responses (obviously for farangs) with a sigh of annoyance. that's ok for me, though - i'm chinese and was raised on curt service.

so, with that, we put aside the extensive menu and ordered what she suggested: tom yum goong, banana flower salad, and mee krob with shrimp.tom yum goong with 3 massive, palm-sized prawns was on the sour and creamier end of the spectrum of this dish with a sweet tinge (which is a bit more unusual). i loved the tender bamboo shoots in this. i was hesitant about submitting to thai-soup-nazi about ordering this since it's so 'ordinary' here, but i was pleasantly surprised. on account of the mutant prawns, this dish was the priciest at 150B.

banana flower salad, also with shrimp and chicken. tangy and sweet without much chile spice. this was my fave. the mee krob (fried, crunchy noodles) with shrimp, fruits and nuts was pretty sweet, though not without a little sour tang, and had a fair amount of carmelized sugar drizzled over it.

all in all, it was a good eat and i can see why foreigners like it so much: 1. the woman speaks english, 2. the dishes aren't raging spicy hot, 3. everything's a little sweet (they use a lot of fresh fruits in their dishes, too), and 4. though it's without AC, it's a comfortable little place to sit and feel like you're discovering something off the beaten path (though now, the path is pretty beaten).chote chitr. 146 phraeng phuton (just of thanon tanao) in rattanakosin (south of democracy mon.)
dishes 30-150B