Cheese In Chiang Mai

[simoncnx]

Saw Hapico cam in Yok today together with their burgers and bacon

Edited February 1, 2013 by simoncnx

[Beetlejuice]

If you want a good selection of cheeses at the lowest prices in Chiang Mai, than visit The Hideaway. It`s not called The Hideaway for the sake of, it`s because this place is really difficult to find.

The Hideaway is a small tearooms type restaurant and at one side of the restaurant there is a cooler cabinet stacked with cheeses. They also sell home made bread, butter, pickles, sauces, cakes and lots of other farang goodies. I will tell you that the cheeses are not quite up to the standard you would find in the West, but are certainly a very close second and only a fraction of the prices you would pay at Makros or in other farangper markets.

How to get there:

From the Airport plaza, go along the Hang Dong road heading towards Tesco Lotus. Before you reach the Tesco Lotus, you will see a large multi story building with black tinted windows on the left. This is the Siam Commercial Bank. Turn left into the Soi by that building. The Soi is laid back a bit and easy to miss, so keep those eyes peeled.

Travel down the Soi, further up it bends to the right, keep going and on the left you will see a sign, The Hideaway. It is on the corner of a Soi again on the left, can’t miss it.

[Plastic Brontosaurus]

If you want a good selection of cheeses at the lowest prices in Chiang Mai, than visit The Hideaway. It`s not called The Hideaway for the sake of, it`s because this place is really difficult to find.

Thank you however from what you describe this is actually Dacheeso - the factory is across the soi, and the fridge at The Hideaway is where you can buy the Dacheeso cheeses (I believe the owners of Dacheeso own The Hideaway but I could be wrong; when I went to the factory to ask about buying cheese they directed me to The Hideaway directly across the road). Rimping has some Dacheeso products as well by the way (some cheeses and milk).

As you say, prices are low but the taste is also a bit different from the types of cheese you would normally get at any supermarket; the feta for one was not to my liking but I guess it depends how it is used, for example in sauces etc. the Dacheeso one could be OK.

Either way thank you for the information, particularly the directions will be handy for anyone wanting to sample their products

[spawn]

How to make a review without mentioning what they have at Big C Extra? They have the best prices by far with their direct import Casino Brand...Camembert,Brie, Mozarella, Some Saucisson and many more...

[Plastic Brontosaurus]

Final review - cheeses by type...

Having had a bit more time to explore and compare, here's my final list of what cheese to get where and why - as of March 2013. This is a personal opinion of course and what is available where for how much will change over time, but perhaps it may be useful. These are the cheeses I tend to buy - I don't know enough about other cheeses to make useful comments about them.

French Brie-style cheese:
Makro. Makro sells these as cuts from a large wheel (or you can buy the whole wheel). Excellent quality, and not too bad price-wise at under 200 baht for a piece of around 250 grams.

Dutch Gouda and Edam cheese:
Makro. They usually have pre-cut chunks of around 1kg of young Gouda ready wrapped and priced at under 600 baht. Price-wise it costs less than half of what buying a small chunk at a supermarket costs (example 250 gram Edam at Big C costs a whopping 300 baht).

Feta (cows milk):
Rimping, Tops and others. There's not much choice in feta that I have been able to find (4 kinds only). There's the Danish-imported Apetina brand which comes in cubes, either plain (in a small blue bucket) or marinated with spices (two kinds). Apetina is OK but fairly expensive (200 baht for the plain version and usually around 170 for the - smaller - marinated one). Then there's the Caroline brand which is made here in LOS. This is a plain feta which is sold in a 200 grams square flat container. It is fairly salty but otherwise pretty good as far as fetas go in my opinion. It's supplied floating in brine, and the dry rather than the creamy style feta. Costs around 150-180 baht depending supermarket. Then there's Lemnos from Australia, in several varieties (at Tops and perhaps others). This is a very plain feta which does not have much taste in my opinion, I wish they'd import some smaller brands from either AU or NZ which tend to taste a lot better. And lastly there's Dacheeso's feta which can be bought from Dacheeso direct or at Rimping. Personally I don't like the taste but others probably do as they stock it, so people must be buying it.

Rondelé/Boursin:
Big C. They have the French range of President cheeses, which, being an industrial brand, excels in processed cheeses (I don't like their non-processed cheeses too much, at least not the ones you get here). Rondelé is a soft cheese spread with herbs and garlic in the style of the probably better known Boursin, which I have not found here yet. It's great on fresh baguette-style bread or even a white hotdog roll. Sticker shock however at 350 baht for a 125 grams container.

Cheddar:
Anywhere. This is one of the cheese types that one can find everywhere, and I'm not sufficiently fussy to make much of a difference. My preference is for the Mainland brand which is imported from NZ. It is available at most supermarkets, and particularly the Mainland Vintage I find quite palatable.

That's it. Perhaps others can shed some light on other cheese types, or disagree with the above...

Once again thanks for all your contributions to this thread

[SoloFlyer]

Royal project on Huay Gaew used to do a good feta from buffalo milk - I was wary to try, but had that tangy tast of a good Aussie feta, although on the dry and crumbly side. Haven't seen it in a long while, sad as it was only circa 120b for a good sized slab. (200g???)

They did a dutch gooda or something there too, which I found fairly versatile.

Would be great if some of the wholesalers would be prepared to do a platter by order.

[OldeBellPedr]

If you don't want to keep a load of cheese in your fridge you could try a cheeseboard in a restaurant around town. At The Olde Bell we stock the following cheeses

Mild Cheddar

Extra Mature Cheddar
Double Gloucester
Edam

Austrian Smoked Cheese

Red Leicester
Brie
Camembert
French Goat’s cheese
St Albray
Danish Blue
Bleu D’Auverne
Stilton

These are available individually or as cheese board selections of 4 or 5 portions starting at 145 baht. We offer a 'budget Selection', a British/Australian Selection or a 'French selection'.

or you can buy a minimum of 4 cheeses of your choice and we give you free toast, crackers, crudités and home made tomato chutney.

Washed down with an imported British beer or two or a glass of Aussie or Chilean Red wine, they are very popular.

We believe we stock the widest range of cheeses of any restaurant in town - although I'm sure someone knows of somewhere with a few more!!

[luther]

Quick update: did a round of cheese shopping. Found the following:

Makro:

A decent albeit not very large selection of cheeses, at good prices (lower than anywhere else on average, as was already promised by contributors to this thread). They have a good range of hard cheeses and a few soft ones, including a very nice 60% French brie.

No real feta, although they have a 500 grams block of cheese in a combibloc/tetrabric style pack which they sell as feta. However the name feta does not feature on the pack and the packaging type means this will need to be eaten upon opening, or transferred to another container and then eaten quickly. So did not buy. Will go back there for non-feta cheeses.

A side note about Makro: in many countries you need to have a business to buy at Makro but here you don't. Just apply for a Makro card at Customer Service (at the entrance). You need to show your passport or Thai drivers license. The form is in Thai but just fill it in and the staff will fix any errors. They give you a temporary card and you can pick up the actual card two days later.

Rimping:

Good selection, better than Tops or anywhere else I have been so far for that matter (Tops is kinda halfway between Makro and Rimping in terms of number of different cheeses). However pricing significantly higher as was already mentioned by some on this thread: real French brie for example probably double Makro's price.

Found a Thai feta which I like in salads (which is what I use feta for, several times a week). Brand is Caroline and it comes in a 200 grams flat square white plastic container, with a aluminium foil top and label on the top. For a Thai product I find it expensive at 155 baht (import Danish Apetina feta costs 199 baht for 200 grams at Tops; would have expected the Thai one to be about half, not three quarters of that price). However it is good its there, and from now on will buy this rather than the Apetina.

There's also the Australian Lemnos brand (available at Tops and at Rimping) however that's got a really flat and industrial taste, and is in my experience one of the worst feta's in Oz taste-wise so I hope one day they bring in some other brand from there or from NZ (although the Thai Caroline brand will do fine for now).

Could not find the Hapico, perhaps they were out as I looked all around the store.

Did not find any other feta's other than the various Apetina styles (marinated with herbs, etc.) which are very expensive. So clearly there's not a lot of feta consumption going on here it appears...

Did not find Yok (initial armchair search - tried to find them using Google Streetview) but will try again. Any tips on exact location or how to identify the building would be great (I know it's supposed to be opposite Big C Extra but could not find it on Streetview; I tend to look it up first as its a nuisance to go somewhere and then having to drive around the area, crossing the superhighway a few times etc. so prefer to know up front the precise location).

Once again thank you to all contributors for the info - fridge is really full now

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=118185647615829272584.00047f374587edd07b74d

If you are driving away from Huay Kaew on the super highway, continue until you pass Index Living Mall, then make a U turn. It's on the left, big green YOK sign.

[barefoot1988]

hey guys, please pardon me but anyone kow where could i get some easy cheese in spraycans?

[gennisis]

How to make a review without mentioning what they have at Big C Extra? They have the best prices by far with their direct import Casino Brand...Camembert,Brie, Mozarella, Some Saucisson and many more...

I am a great lover of Coulommiers and have been buying the 'Coeur de Lion brand from Rimping,,,always well within its 'best before' date,tasty and creamy.Has always been expensive 400 baht last year,then it went up to 630 baht,so I didnt buy it. Tried the Casino brand from BigC at 260 baht, but disapointing, nowhere as good as the Coeur de Lion., Last week the Rimping price was down to 499 baht,so Im back with it.

Since the Euro is down and the Baht up,I dint realy know why the French cheese are still so expensive. At BigC they have some very reasonable 'Casino" branded foods,I find their Pizza at 99-135 bah very good value