The Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School

My partner and I organised a day at this cooking school for a group of friends who had come to Chiang Mai to celebrate one of their 30th birthdays. Everyone was keen to have a Thai cooking school experience and we had heard some good things about this school so we thought we'd give it a try. In the end I had very mixed feelings about this cooking school. In my time here, I've gone to lots of different cooking schools and I thought that while this one offered a lot, it was also lacking in some important ways.

The things that I liked the most about this school was the setting. It's a really beautiful spot out in the countryside north of Chiang Mai. It's a family run organic farm, owned by a Thai man and his Dutch wife. They've done a great job setting the place up and making it very comfortable. Another point that I liked about this school is that the course involved stopping at a local market and learning about some of the main Thai products. For my partner and I, since we live in Thailand, it wasn't totally necessary, but I think our guests really enjoyed it a lot. The other thing I thought that was really good is that you got to choose what you wanted to cook. They had about 6 different dishes that you cooked and for each dish you had a choice of 3 different things. So for example, one of the dishes is a curry and you get to choose if you want to make a green, red or yellow curry. This really allowed everyone to personalise the menu and have the foods they like the most.

The main thing I did not like about the cooking school was our instructor. She had a really short attitude and was not very helpful at all when it came to the cooking. The instructor can really make or break these types of courses and in my opinion she totally "broke" this one for us. There was not really any detailed instruction or tips on how to do things. My partner and I ended up helping our friends on more than one occasion due to her lack of instruction. Also, there was only the 1 instructor for 12 students. Every other school I've been to has a lot more people walking around and helping you. The other thing I didn't particularly like is that they made us wash our own dishes. I'm not trying to be snobby, but washing dishes is not a chore I really enjoy doing and I can stay home and wash my own dishes for free. I think for the money you're paying they should take care of that. One of things that makes cooking schools so fun to me is that it's like being on a cooking show... all of the fun of cooking without any of the boring work!

All of that said, some of our friends went there on another occasion and had a much different experience with their instructor. So I think in the end it might just be the luck of the draw whether you have a good class or not. So I guess the questions is... Do you feel lucky?