BIG BIKES AND LOCAVORE
All this talk about the northern countryside and its transformative powers has whetted my appetite for being out in it. And the following day I get my wish as I join Bike Tour Asia, a big name in the region for its big bikes, and embark upon the Mae Hong Son Loop: a 600-km circular route that is one of Thailand’s most famous road trips.
Locavore highlights of the loop include a stop at Pang Ma Kluay, a small village surrounded by countryside famous for its foraging potential. Here chefs such as Black come to source goodies, including wild bitter aubergines, edible freshwater algae, shoots, herbs leaves, roots, and the tender cores of banana palms. Another clue to the area’s gastronomic abundance lies in the organic Arabica coffee plantations skirting Baan Huay Hom near Mae Hong Son.
After three days on a big bike in the glorious northern countryside, I arrive back in Chiang Mai reinvigorated, replenished, and – as it is just before lunchtime – ravenous. As such, I make a beeline for the Food Trust CNX where some notable Thailand-based culinary big-hitters are cheerleading the locavore cause.
The brainchild of Dylan Jones and Bo Songvisava, the couple behind Bangkok’s much-missed Bo.lan, Paolo Vitaletti, the founder of acclaimed pizza chain Peppina, and Andy Ricker, whose Pok Pok line of restaurants helped popularise authentic punchy Thai flavours in the US, Food Trust CNX was set up as a way of promoting sustainability through food.