Sai Oua (Northern Thai Sausage)

Chiang Rai, Thailand – Rising and eating breakfast at bustling morning markets, trolling night markets and seeking out the small, out-of-the-way mom and pop shops and independent stands is, it goes without saying, a good way to eat the everyday foods of a place, but sometimes it helps to have an entry point.  In restaurants, though more expensive and sometimes muted in flavor, you can often get the Thai name and ingredients of what you’re eating (sometimes difficult to extract over a language barrier), get dishes unavailable at the markets and, yes, enjoy some air conditioning.

My last day in Chiang Rai, after a morning of motorbiking around temples and mountain roads, I sat down in Phu Lae, a simple restaurant specializing in northern Thai food, including a wide range of curries featuring lettuce, jackfruit, banana blossom and so forth.  I really like the sour northern curries that omit coconut milk so I opted for gaeng som pla (an orange curry with fish).  This one was sour, herbaceous and blow-your-head-off spicy, but so good I kept spooning up the broth until I felt quite high and then kept going.  (Some say chilies activate the release of endorphins; I believe them.)

Also, since it would be my last time in northern Thailand for a while, I ordered the special northen Thai sausage, sai oua, which is flavored with chilies, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, garlic, ginger, etc.  One of the advantages of getting it in a restaurant is that instead of getting it in a plastic bag with the stick, mine came sliced on a plate with bits of fresh chilies and galangal, which I scooped up with every bite of sausage letting the hot, raw flavors play off the fatty cooked sausage. Certainly not a new dish for me, but a new experience all the same and I felt no guilt for getting off the street.

Phu Lae Restaurant
612/6 Pahoyothin Road
Tel. 053 600 500

Gaeng Som (Sour Tamarind Curry with Fish)