Grill of India - Chiang Mai: Great food and relatively cheap
Indian food has the potential to be expensive in Thailand (relatively) and I have no idea why that is the case. Perhaps the ingredients are expensive here. When I say "expensive" i mean that a dish costs $5 or so and this is only "expensive" if you compare it to the surrounding countries (except Singapore, where everything is expensive.)
I am not terribly picky about a menu at an Indian restaurant. Like most gringos, I haven't really strayed too far off the path of Tika, Tandoori, naan, and samosas... and Grill of India has all those things at around the same price.
The food arrived fast and it was all hot. I'm not gonna suggest that they prepared it all fresh to order because I don't know and it also doesn't really matter to me as long as it tastes good. I would prefer speed over being "fancy-pants."
We ordered all the things I mentioned above and all of it was delivered in less than 15 minutes. Everything tasted fantastic and when we asked for "spicy" they didn't try to kill us. I love it when a place is able to find that balance and these guys nailed it.
The total bill wasn't going to break that bank either. A table for 4 with 5 large beers and enough food to satiate all of us came to around 350 Baht each (a little over $10.)
The only downside is something that doesn't really apply to me because I don't care (but feel other people do.) The interior of the place is really "meh." It looks as though they don't really try to make the place look nice.
For me, i go to restaurants to eat, not to admire their furniture. However, from the street I could see how this might turn a few people away. If you are one of those peeps I say ignore that aspect of it, because everything else was wonderful.
Grill of India is located in the tourism central part of the town that you would most likely be staying in anyway if you are visiting Chiang Mai.
location including GPS coordinates
69 70 ถนนพระปกเกล้า ตำบล พระสิงห์ อำเภอเมืองเชียงใหม่ เชียงใหม่ 50200
061 795 9264
I wonder if potentially Indian food has a lot in common with Mexican food. In that I mean that they both involve a lot of preparation. We always joke when we go to Mexican places that they must have microwaved our food because it comes out so quickly. When you consider the rice, beans, and protein is probably all cooked ahead of time and they just need to assemble it and melt the cheese, it isn't that surprising though. I feel like Indian food probably deals a lot with developing the flavors over time and just throwing the end products onto a plate probably doesn't take that long.