Was lucky enough to stumble into Chern Chim for the first time tonight. Wish I had come sooner, but sure am glad I went in tonight!! I knew they would be serving Greek food, but coming from a Greek family, I gotta say I was tickled pink to see "Pastitsio" displayed prominently on the menu. It is to me what som tam is to our little ladies, and more often than not it's only available at my gia gia's house...
Was promptly seated by a kind Aussie fellow, and proceeded to order the Greek platter as well as a couple of Cokes. They even use imported Coke from the UK, which was another pleasant surprise! Mmmmmm Cherry Coke.....
Around 15 minutes later and this arrived....
Needles to say, I was even happier to find out that they most certainly 'do it right'. This is authentic Greek cooking, ladies and gentleman. :rock: The bechamel in the pastitsio was done just right, and everything on offer was full of the 'right' flavours. Yes!! :clap:
The Mrs and I did the best we could to finish it all, stuffed our faces, and still ended up wrapping up the second kebab to go (polishing it off as I type this out :inlove: ).
At 500 baht for two people, this is a steal. I could easily see a platter like this costing 3-4 times as much back home in Canada, so to find authentic Greek cooking like this in Udon Thani of all places is shocking and wonderful to say the least....Total bill including the 2 cokes was 540 baht.
The chef was even kind enough to come chat with us afterwards, and I really got the impression he takes pride in what he does. We spoke a bit and he seemed genuinely excited to tell me about the upcoming menu which is always a good sign. We ended up with a few pieces of bread leftover with the kebab, so rather than toss them out he threw in some slices of fresh parmesan to enjoy with the bread and kebab back at home (and enjoy it I did!). Even my wife was surprised by this (Cheese here so expensive!!). Guy even speaks better Greek than me! (Not difficult as I barely speak a word myself, but it was awesome to see a Thai fluent in my mother tongue). :hai:
If I could say ONE thing though....the place needs better directions, or even a basic map done up in MS paint! I'm sure a lot of regulars here are familiar with the location already so it's no problem to them, but for n00bs like me, UT, UM, the website, AND the FB page simply list it as being located at 74/5152 ADUNYADET ROAD Map Ref O10. Well I drove up and down Adunyadet road 4 times and eventually found 74/5152, and by my eyes it appeared to be a closed down wedding shop of some sort....(Also I hate having to access UM and use their spammy map, which didn't even help in this case)....Drove past Udon Bread, Big Sausage, Boathouse, tons of other 'farang restaurants' that the locals kept pointing me to, but no Chern Chim :sweat:
Not to be dissuaded by a little adventure, we phoned in and managed to find the place at its current location of 11/1-2 Thanon Bandua Nong Sim Lake, just behind Don Bosco school, but I could see it turning potential customers off not being able to find it so easily.
In the end though, all in all it was a wonderful experience, and I can't say enough good things about the place. I most certainly will be back! :l: :l: :l:
