Chatiee Sakchatieechan has lived in Mae Hong Son his whole life. A former teacher, Chatiee started making Thai desserts with his wife and her sister when he retired 10 years ago. Though he mostly eats meals at home, Chatiee recommends the dinner (or evening) market that is held from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. [...]
Rice Noodle Soup with Black Chicken at Mr Huang Yun’s Shop in Mae Aw
To get to Mae Aw in the rainy season, it’s really best to take a motorbike since public transportation is limited. The problem was that I didn’t even know how to turn it on, but how hard could it be? [...]
Coffee, Ba Tong Ko & Tea
Mae Hong Son, Thailand - Before dawn, the Mae Hong Son market is buzzing. Here a vendor is frying up some dough, what is called Ba Tong Ko in Chinese, though the market is not in China and the vendor is not Chinese. Next to his stall a woman is [...]
Nong Jong Kham Lake, Mae Hong Son
Mae Hong Son, Thailand – Quiet Mae Hong Son, beset by green mountains and surrounding a small lake, isn’t know for its food. In this small town, residents are early risers who tend to eat dinner at home so restaurants and street stalls are more limited than elsewhere, but [...]
Chiang Mai, Thailand – After over a month of striking it out on my own, I thought I would get a basic foundation of the Thai food by taking a Thai cooking class. There’s no better place to do it than Chiang Mai, which has over a dozen established cooking schools, plus more informal classes [...]
Mae Hong Son, Thailand – When my grandmother, who is ethnically Japanese, visited Japan many years ago, little boys whispered “gaijin” as she walked down the street. Coming to Thailand for the first time, I assumed that I would be seen as a foreigner, maybe people would be able to tell by the way [...]
Rounds of Chiang Mai Sausage at Ton Payom Market
Here’s a snack I haven’t seen further south (though it’s probably somewhere) – Chiang Mai sausage, a mix of chopped pork, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, shallots, galangal and chilies. You can buy it on the street and nibble on it out of a plastic bag. [...]
Naree Kurata
Chiang Mai, Thailand - Bangkok native Naree Kurata moved to Chiang Mai six years ago to raise her two children and open a business while her husband, a Japanese businessman, was traveling for work. She runs the tranquil shop TreeHouse, which houses modern Lanna objects in a rebuilt Thai-style house that has a longan [...]
Mangosteens (Photo courtesy of the Engineer)
Chiang Mai, Thailand - It’s raining again in Chiang Mai. It’s been raining the past few days and it will rain the next few. We woke up and went out on the balcony. Below construction workers are bending rebar by hand for a new hotel going up in the [...]
Smer Jai Khao Soi
Chiang Mai, Thailand – When I worked in merchandising on a prepared foods line, tastings were a part of the weekly routine, sometimes day-long tastings of dozens of dishes, sometimes just an hour on five different iterations of one product. You would take a few bites of each item, just enough [...]
