Northern Thai food consists of vegetables and ingredients available in their immediate vicinity. The common meal includes sticky rice, chili sauces and chili based soups. There are also, local sausages, steamed meat, roasted pork, fried pork, fried chicken and vegetables to go with them.

Thai cuisine is marked by the 4 tastes - sweet, sour, salty and hot. The northern people like food with a touch of a salty hot taste and not as much sweet or sour tastes. Meat preferred by the northern people is pork followed by beef, chicken, duck, bird etc. Local fresh water fish is also eaten in the northern.

The northern breakfast consist mainly of sticky rice and some kind of spicy fried protein often pork and egg or boiled rice.

Lunch is often a noodle based dish either fried noodles or noodle soup.

Dinner is an family affair and is served on raised wooden tray 30 inches in diameter or laid out on the floor. Everyone sits on mats on the floor and helps themselves. A typical dinner in a northern house would include - sticky rice, chili paste, bamboo soup, fried fish, grilled pork and chicken. Normally dessert is not served.

Typical Family Meal at home in Northern Thailand

Eating Out

There are many noodle shops in every part of Thailand. The quality of the food is often very good. The odd time my wife has taken me to small restaurants that I would never ventured into if alone, every time the food was superior in quality even if the surroundings were sometimes shabby. When I selected the establishment the food was always inferior to the small Thai place. If the Thai people are eating there the food is normally very good, if it’s on the tourist trail you often pay extra for poor quality. It’s often a good idea to take a bit of a walk off the beaten track to look for a place to eat later and often small carts pop up in the same location every day at dinner time. I’ve never been ill from eating in a small shop but have been eating in a tourist trap.