Cheng Mai Restaurant

THIS, is one of the reasons I return to Kelantan:

Chengmai Thai Food Restaurant at Kampung Kulim

To be more accurate, THIS is the reason:

Steam prawns with bamboo shoots in curry with coconut milk

I came here with my family in my previous trip, fell in love with this dish, and we repeated order during the same meal. This time, we fell in love with this dish, and we came back on the second night. This is how good this dish is. I cannot understand how this dish is not their signature dish.

First of all, the fresh bamboo shoots are crispy. Secondly, the prawns are fresh. They cooked it so well that the it is still springy. Most importantly, the way they cook the coconut milk curry is very different. It is thin and you can drink as if you are drinking soup, but the fragrant is so thick that you are going to love the after taste!


So, if our favorite curry prawn is not the signature dish, then which is?

Of course is the photogenic flaming volcanic chicken (火山鸡). Almost every table ordered this dish. The chicken is served "standing" and "burning". The flame dance and you will see phones and cameras in action.

The waitress here are not very good in marketing. They don't know how to introduce their dishes and that's why we didn't order this in my previous visit with my family. Until we were almost done, we saw the standing chicken flaming in next table... We regretted for not ordering, and we always wonder how it taste.

Finally, the truth is out: the chicken is well seasoned and juicy. Deserved the flame :)


I'd say their another signature dish is Kheng Som, Thai style asam pedas fish. They know everyone loves the soup so you are allow to refill as many times as you wish, FOC. My gang love sour and spicy food so this dish is one of the more popular ones.

All the other dishes that we ordered were great too. We love all of them. However, our favorite, steam prawns with bamboo shoots in curry with coconut milk, overshadowed the others.

Lime sauce sotong

 Pad ped catfish

Deep fried 'pork hand'

Deep friend kangkung

All of the above, including 2 jars of drinks and rice for 6, cost us RM179. Very satisfying.


As I said, we love the steam prawns with bamboo shoots in curry with coconut milk so much, we returned on the second night.

We arrived late so we suspected the better chef already went home. The curry is still good but we have less bamboo shoots and more mushrooms. Still good, but a bit of disappointment for not having enough bamboo shoots for everyone of us.

We noticed that we didn't order tomyam on the first night. How can one not ordering tomyam at a Thai restaurant? So we tried the tomyam and it was very ordinary. Not bad, but just ordinary. Slightly below our expectations.


Even the lime sauce lala taste bland as compared to previous night lime sauce sotong.

lime sauce lala

The one that surprised us was their signature toufu. Very fragrant, very soft. The garlic and chili bring the best out of the toufu. Lovely!

signature toufu

These 4 dishes, rice for 6, 2 jars of drinks cost us RM92.


How to go?
1. DO NOT follow Google Map. See the big red cross that I marked on google map below? That's where google thinks Cheng Mai Restaurant is. The huge red arrow I marked below is the actual location.
2. Set your GPS to go to Restaurant Kampung Kulim, and Cheng Mai restaurant is just another 2~3 minutes drive away.