Nam prak ong and nam prik nun dips mix platter

With the yearly furloughs that I’ve taken with my son Gino and daughter Giannina to Thailand, one of the pleasures that seem to have grown within us is this romance with their Northern-style food. Northern Thailand seems to present a great compendium of ancient tribal and courtly cuisines, which banks on their vast jungles. Wild herbs, vegetables, and animals have become part of their recipes as well as the vast array of cultivated herbs and livestock there that seem to unify, as an industry, with the temperate weather.

Northern-style cuisine also possesses more sophisticated spice mixes evident in the brisk sales of wide varieties of cardamon, nutmeg, mace, long pepper, Szechuan peppercorn, and other dried aromatic barks and seeds in their district markets. The weather also seems to be very convivial to dining (or pigging out, as the locals seem quite shocked at the number of dishes we always have on our table). But for me, the most surprising is the heat level of their chilies. I feel that it is quite tempered as compared to Bangkok and the South, since one does not need to sweat or cool one’s body or skin in the upper northern areas.

Here are four restaurants worth the visit when one is in Chiang Mai:

Kaeng-Ron Baan Suan Restaurant. Our dear friend and Chiang Mai resident Wolfgang Hieronimi and his wife Woon took us to this ancient house that is still being lived in. Its whole ground floor and garden is a huge restaurant. It had no tourists but is well patronized by locals, which is a good sign of authentic flavors.

For starters, Woon had us try her favorites which were two contrasting dips with raw and cooked vegetables such as spinach, cabbage, squash, and string beans with crispy pork cracklings, sai uwa (kaffir and chili sausage), nem (fermented pork sausage), and boiled egg. The first dip was a sharp green chili called nam prik nun while the second milder, sweeter dip made with roasted red chilis and pork was called nam prik ong. Another side dish of minced meatballs with shrimp and pork dipped in plum sauce was a hot contrast to our cold vegetable and dip platter.

Wolfgang on the other hand started us off with something straight from an Anthony Bourdain preface, a plate of deep fried and bubbly frog skins dipped in a slightly sweet dip of roasted chilis called nam prik pao.

Nam prik, which is a mix of crushed chilis whether dried or fresh, is a base for dips and cooking. It was also the dip base for our nam prik macam on yang or tamarind chili dip used for our herbal fish and chips made of deep fried tilapia slivers flavored with ginger and lemongrass served with very young deep fried kaffir leaves.

Our soup was a rustic bamboo shoot soup with sundried fish called kaeng noh mai or snakehead (dalag) that was also smoked. The soup was served with young edible acacia leaves. A lot of soups in the north are taken lukewarm as was this one, because a lot of the flavors according to Woon are brought out when the soup has calmed down in heat.

For our salads, we had a pakkood, which is a freshwater fern-like vegetable that shoots out of the water, also served with nam prik pao. Most interesting was a young tamarind leaf salad with mature coriander, toasted shallot rings, flaked pla chon  snakehead powder, and pork skin.

Having no more room for dessert and not touching the sticky rice or khao niew, which is the staple, so as not to fill up, we continued the evening with some  highland Lanna coffee.

Kaeng-Ron Baan Suan Restaurant is located at 149/3 Moo 2 Soi Comdoi, Klongchol Prantkan, Chang Puek A. Muang, Chiangmai 50300, Thailand [(053) 213762, 221378].

Huen Phen. This is our favorite lunch spot right in the center of the city, the place boasts of tropical Northern Thai cuisine and is also a place patronized by the locals. Food here is of the  freshest and is presented as an array on a huge open kitchen at about 10 a.m. The staff is very friendly and convivial and are helpful to farangs (foreigners) who to their surprise now go and seek their place.

Unless one will eat the khao niew as the staple of the meal, there are noodle dishes worth trying such as their khao soi which are curried noodles topped with chicken, pork, or beef then for texture topped again with puffed fried egg noodles. One eats this with pickled salted mustard, lots of shallots and ginger just like the khanom jeen nam ngiew or pork blood cubes with pork soup in rice noodles, a sharp, spicy, lightly-sourish noodle soup that cuts the richness of the pork blood.

A whole slew of starter salads made from vegetables and fruits can be ordered to go with the sticky rice such as som tam (a green papaya salad), yam polomai som (made with pomelos and shrimps),  nem (fermented pork sausage, eggplant, and boiled eggs), and a jackfruit salad with red chili.

Pork is a favorite meat here and is done in several variations such as  a cold weather dish called moo kha da (rillettes of pork in jelly, and fat), moo nem (sourish fermented pork ribs that are very much like our tocino but more tart), and sai kro isan (fermented pork sausage stuffed with lightly fermented rice).

Most enjoyable were their Chiang Mai-style chopped pork or larb which is different from their more salad-style Northern Isan cousin because the Chiang Mai style has more aromatic wood spices and is sautéed. There are also their fried crisp papaya salad with nuts, tomato, and salted egg slices and hor mok pla, a spicy fish pudding steamed in banana leaf.

For enders, Huen Phen has a dessert bar, where one can have the traditional tub tim grob or mock pomegranate seeds made with water chestnuts enveloped in clear pink glutinous starch in coconut cream and ice or a mix of fruit, root, and legume preserves called ruammit.

Huen Phen is located at 112 Rachamuuka Rd., Phrasing Muang, Chiangmai 5000, Thailand [(053) 814548/huenphenl-cm@hotmail.com].

Charm-To Noodle. Charm-To literally means huge bowl. This is a very small noodle house by the side of Lanna Palace Hotel on Changklan road. The bowls are really humongous if you order their special bowls (you can literally wash your face with the bowls).

The place is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., it specializes in duck or specifically, light soy duck. The duck has excellent pre-roasted spices and redolent of ginger and is not gamey in flavor (or too ducky…). The duck noodle has well chosen, chewy, and fine rice noodles and the broth which is northern in style with roasted spices and herbs is very bold and upfront. Mr. Aekkrak, the proprieter and chef, also has a deliciously-soured duck rice and a well-flavored beef noodled with some tasty connective tendons on his cuts.

Ran Luam Sen. A lot of locals and police patronize this place with no tourists again around. The broth of the khao soy, which is reputably hand-pounded or stone-ground, is used as a base for khao soy or curried noodles where one is given a choice of fish, chicken, or pork. I chose the fish which came in huge chunks accompanied by a plate of shallots, lime, and salted and pickled mustard. This dish got me through lunch and the whole afternoon with its rich soup and crispy fried noodle topping.

Ran Luam Sen is located at Hangdong Hod Rd. in front of the Hangdong district office near the police station.