We’re not vegan but we can pretend.
We love food. Have I ever told you that? Part of the reason we like to travel is the opportunity we have to sample cuisines from everywhere. We are eating our way around the world! Yes, we ate Japanese while on vacation in Bangkok and sure, you can order “Chinese food” in Maine, but it’s just not the same as going to a Chinese family’s home and sitting around a table together to eat the dumplings that you just made, all together, by hand earlier that day. There is something magical about sharing someone’s culture right up close, in their home. (Don’t worry, we were invited! No breaking and baozi-ing here at Unparalleled.)
And when we were in China, we loved to go to a Thai restaurant. We loved the spice and the coconut flavors, but it wasn’t the same as what we’ve eaten since we set foot on Thai soil. Remember the first time we were here and I had mango sticky rice? We love to find food we can really sink our teeth into.
Our all-inclusive approach to eating doesn’t just refer to culture. We respectfully enjoy meat on occasion so we’re not vegan. However, we also enjoy vegetarian and vegan food, so when we found Adrian and his Alchemy Vegan restaurant online, we thought we’d give it a try. Unbeknownst to us, we had stumbled upon Chiang Mai vegan magic. We had just settled into a rental house that was a bit further from restaurants than we liked so we resorted to looking at places on Facebook and in the Grab food delivery app. Alchemy Vegan’s menu was enticing so we reached out. This was during the heaviest lock-down time of covid so Adrian, the founder, owner, head chef/lead culinary alchemist and legit chemist with a real degree, even, generously offered to deliver to us himself.
It’s bigger than I imagined!
It’s been months and I no longer have pictures of the first time we devoured it BUT I can clearly remember the first time we sunk our teeth into the Beast Wrap, a hearty tortilla wrapped around SO many good things: avocado, beetroot, pumpkin, pumpkin seed pesto, tofu, cheese, tomatoes and Adrian’s special recipe Vegballs. It was earthy and intense, like when you walk into one of those shops that sells goat milk soap and hemp seeds. Without really thinking, your senses tell you you’re in a good place, a place where you can nourish your body with all the right things.
Fast forward a few months…
…to a time when restaurants are open again and we can leave the house! After a 10-15 minute car ride that we spent dreaming of the Beast Wrap, we arrived near Alchemy’s new home just south of the Old City in Chiang Mai. We were looking forward to catching up with Adrian to see what he’d done since the lock-down ended, checking out the real restaurant and cramming amazing vegan food into our faces. His restaurant is a frequent destination for us as we eat our way around the world.
Without even looking at the menu, we knew we wanted the Beast Wrap. While I was silently contemplating ordering two of them – one and a half for me and a half for Kim – Kim suggested we split ONE and order take a culinary adventure with something different from the menu.
While my heart and stomach quietly objected, my head thought it made sense. We agreed on a light and crisp cucumber salad to balance out the delicious weight of the wrap. Both plates were easy on the eyes, as you can see, and even easier to inhale.
I like to have dessert planned before the first bite of my entree hits my stomach
Call me efficient, call me a multi-tasker, call me a pig. They all apply at one time or another throughout the day. When we’re eating the savory part of our meal, sometimes we think ahead to what comes next. We’d seen some chocolate cake on the menu and had had to walk by the cooler brimming with ALL the desserts on the way to our table. The seed of dessert had already been germinating in our brains.
While Adrian has his degree in chemistry, his artist’s heart is full when he is creating vegan recipes. He is always combining new elements and the menu is ever-evolving. The menu only listed one cake, ignoring the others in the cooler. To hear Adrian describe them, we couldn’t pick just one so he superbly sliced us some samples of each kind of cake so we could make informed decisions.
We started the dessert onslaught with my personal least favorite – ever, anywhere – carrot cake. I have never met a carrot cake I loved and I’ve made my peace with it. There are other ways I can ingest my calories, believe me. Kim really liked it though, and she can be a tough critic sometimes.
Then we had a slice of gluten-free chocolate cake, despite self-deprecating remarks about how he’d make it wrong and it was too dry. It reminded us of a Hostess Devil Dog and that’s not a bad thing.
Then we tried the dulce de leche cake made of coconut caramel. It was mellow, in my opinion, although Adrian says the locals think it’s too sweet. From our experience in all of Asia, locals sometimes like cake that doesn’t seem to have any sugar in it. My sweet tooth is a strong one, however, so my tastes differ greatly from the Thai people. So if they don’t eat any of this dulce de leche cake, we all know it can come live with us.
And then, Chocolate Decadence(s)
We can never eat enough chocolate so we ordered a big ol’ slice of the Decadent Chocolate cake. The samples were like small, sugary appetizers 
prepping us for the ultimate chocolate experience. It’s a constant at Alchemy, the most popular dessert, and we can see why. The cake was moist and rich and the frosting was creamy and not too sweet but just sweet enough. We could have talked ourselves into being finished after this bad boy. We could have pushed ourselves away from the table, completely satisfied and full. (A difficult thing to do when you’re 1) in a booth with a bench attached to the wall, and 2) food-a-holics like us.)
BUT NO, Adrian kept going. He just HAD to tell us about this secret concoction he had made before in his crazy culinary chemist lah-bore-a-tory. He told us he shaves off the tops of his cakes for more professional decoration and presentation. How he kept wondering what to do with all those cake tops. Why not smear peanut butter between them and make the most delicious chocolate and peanut butter layer cake ever?
He was a little giddy about it, honestly, like a kid admitting to his friends that he peaked at the Christmas gifts in his parents’ closet and he WAS getting the carbine-action, Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock.
I don’t even care if it puts my eye out.
How could we say no? In one description of this thing, he had confided, confessed and conspired with us, convincing us we needed to try it. (And by “try,” I mean completely eat the whole thing and lick the crumbs off the plate.) The raspberry gelato on top was a nice touch but unnecessary. This creation needed no garnish.
At this point, we had spent about two hours and 5000 calories at Alchemy Vegan. We parted ways eventually, rolling out to walk around town for a bit and try to burn off some of the damage. Kim and I were full but happy, and we knew we’d be back. We hoped the peanut butter/cake topper cake would return also but we weren’t holding our breath. We couldn’t. It was all we could do to walk without breathing heavily.
