Asia Scenic Cooking School - Chiang Mai

Our Class (that is Mam on the left).

I am supposed to be starting Culinary Training at George Brown this January, although it looks like I might have to defer for a semester while I try to organize funding. Anyway, I came to Asia with the plan of attending a few different cooking schools to pick up a few tricks.
I spent a day checking the different options out before finally deciding on Asia Scenic Cooking School. Walking into the school I received a friendly greeting, from Mam the main teacher, and a break down of what we would be learning.
The other schools, which seem to be more popular, like Baan Thai and others, were more like factories than schools. All the prep work was done for you, and in some cases you had little choice in which dishes you learned to make. Not so for Asia Scenic, every step was hands on, to the point of making your own pastes, and tasting and smell herbs from their backyard organic garden. If different students chose different dishes you also got to watch them prepare their food, essentially learning them too.
All the photos from this post are the property of Asia Scenic and are reproduced with permission (Thanks Mam)

Making noodle dishes,
Pad Thai for me, just to see what if anything I was missing

Learning to properly wrap spring rolls,
for some reason I have always found it harder
than hand rolling Vietnamese fresh rolls.

The class proudly showing off their spring rolls.

Making deep fried bananas, made before the mains
as they are often eaten cold from little plastic bags from street vendors.

Prep work...chopping garlic

That's me cooking up some Cashew Nut Chicken

Our class relaxing after gorging
ourselves on all the food we made.