We were so glad we chose A Lot of Thai as the cooking school we attended while in Chiang Mai! A small school run at a private residence by a wonderful cook, teacher and humanitarian Yui, with the help and support of her husband Kwan along with occasional guest appearances by their two young children.

We were picked up at our hotel at 9:30AM, met the rest of our group totaling 8, and were taken to the courtyard of the family home. The classroom’s permanent set up includes 8 workstations each complete with its own wok, burner and utensils as well as a demonstration workstation where Yui prepared each dish for us before we cooked the same recipe at our own station under her watchful eye. Yui began by asking if anyone had a commitment for the end of the day as her classes often ran passed the 4:00PM scheduled end time. We had so much fun, learned so much and enjoyed Yui’s thoughts on everything from food sanitation to workers’ rights that the day flew by and we didn’t return to our hotel until well after 6 PM.

Several of our classmates booked classes for another day and we would have too if we weren’t leaving Chiang Mai the following day. By the way, no one even thought about eating dinner that night; we were stuffed from eating the 6 dishes we prepared throughout the day as well as the refreshments we purchased during our tour of a local food market.

Since we returned home to New York City we’ve gone shopping at the Thai grocery that Yui recommended and have cooked some of the dishes we made with her with surprising success. We will definitely return to A Lot of Thai Cooking School the next time we return to Chiang Mai.

One of our favourite SE Asia experiences was Yui's cooking class. It was fun, personal, interactive, delicious, and gave us great insight into one local's passion for food, education and environmentalism.

Not only was it extremely well organized and hands down the best food we ate during our three weeks in SE Asia, conversing with Yui was an unexpected bonus. She is so genuine and sweet in wanting to make a change and very articulately discussed a variety of topics with us all throughout the day.

Her family run business (she runs the classes and her husband drives and designs all the promotional material) deserves all the praise that everyone here has given and I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed!!!!

My husband and I went on 'A Lot of Thai' cookery course because we had read the recommendations on Trip Advisor. We weren't disappointed!
Yui, our teacher, spoke excellent English and taught us all about the ingredients for Thai cookery. She advised us about what ingredients we would be able to buy in our home countries and offered substitutes for ingredients that would be hard to find.
We were taught how to make each dish, and sampled Yui's excellent food before being let loose on our woks to create our own dishes.
Yui advised us how to alter the recipes to suit our own taste and after we had cooked each dish, we ate it! After cooking six different recipes we were really full, so don't worry about eating before you go!!
The trip to the market to see the huge range of food available to Chiang Mai cooks was great. I just wish that we had that choice in our local market!
As soon as we get over the jet-lag, John and I will be trying out the recipes Yui gave us in her beautiful cookery book.
If you go to Chiang Mai don't miss this wonderful experience.

Small class sizes in the coutryard of a family home.
A patient instructor with a wicked sense of humour.
One of the first in Chiang Mai to compile a cookbook and website.
So much food, you will be stuffed by mid-afternoon.

Fantastic way to spend the day!