What to Eat in Nan
12 dishes from khao soi to sai ua

The dish that tells you instantly you're eating northern Thai — egg noodles in a coconut-curry broth built on a northern curry paste, rounded and fragrant, topped with a tangle of crisp fried noodles, served with tender beef or chicken. It comes with pickled greens, sliced shallots and lime on the side to squeeze in and cut the richness. The Nan version is gentle rather than fiery, leaning on the aroma of the paste and coconut. You'll find it from the morning market to the khao soi shops in town, a breakfast or lunch that's as northern as it gets. Add a little chilli oil and pickled greens to taste.

The relish at the heart of a northern spread — green chillies roasted and pounded with garlic, shallots and salt, smoky and gently hot. It's eaten with cap mu (แคบหมู), puffed crisp pork crackling, steamed vegetables like pumpkin, long beans and eggplant, and sticky rice — a set northerners eat at almost every meal. Nan's nam prik num is rounded and smoky rather than searing, so it's friendly even if you don't love heat. You'll find it easily at rice-and-curry shops and the morning market, and the pork crackling makes a good takeaway too. Dip it with hot steamed vegetables for the best balance.

The northern sausage you can't skip — minced pork mixed with herbs: lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, curry paste, turmeric and shallots, stuffed and coiled into a ring, then grilled slowly until fragrant, the skin lightly charred and the inside packed with aromatics. The lead flavour is herb fragrance, not heat. It's sliced and eaten with sticky rice, a relish and fresh vegetables, and you'll find it at every northern restaurant and market stall in town. Some Nan cooks add makhwaen for the local fragrant tingle. It travels well as a gift too — eat it just off the grill, while it's hottest and most aromatic.

A rustic northern curry that gathers many vegetables in one pot — ivy gourd leaves, cha-om, betel leaf, dok khae (sesbania flowers), long beans, eggplant and whatever's in season, cooked with a northern curry paste and herbs and a little meat, chicken or fish. It's savoury and aromatic rather than rich, a thin, brothy curry that goes easily with sticky rice or steamed rice. The heat is moderate and you get a real pile of greens, so it's a dish that captures the everyday, home-style way northerners eat. Find it at rice-and-curry shops and northern restaurants in town. If you like vegetables, this one's for you.

Northern laab is clearly different from the Isaan kind — minced beef or pork tossed with a toasted laab-spice blend made from many spices dry-roasted and pounded, deeply aromatic but with no lime and no sourness. The lead is the fragrance and a faint bitterness of the spice mix rather than heat, and many Nan shops add makhwaen for a local fragrant tingle. It's eaten with sticky rice and fresh herbs like phak phai (rice-paddy herb), mint and long beans, and comes both raw and cooked (laab khua). If you don't eat raw, order it cooked. It's the dish that shows off the spice side of northern cooking best.

A Tai Lue dish that says Nan well — a set jelly made from cooked bean starch left to cool until firm, then cut into soft strips or pieces, a bit like a soft tofu or jelly. It's tossed with a sour-spicy dressing and topped with peanuts, sesame, fried garlic and pickled vegetables. Some recipes use soybean, others field peas, and it's cool, tangy and refreshing — well suited to the weather. It comes from the Tai Lue communities around Pua and Tha Wang Pha, and you'll find it at market stalls and local shops in town. Many visitors have never tried it, so if you spot it, order it.

Makhwaen (มะแขว่น) is a small aromatic peppercorn that's the signature spice of Nan, a relative of Sichuan pepper that gives a fragrant aroma and a light tingle on the tongue — not heat. Nan cooks use it in laab, relishes and curries, and the easiest way to meet it is makhwaen fried chicken — chicken marinated with makhwaen and fried until it's crisp and fragrant with spice, eaten with sticky rice and a dip. Beyond the cooking, makhwaen is sold as a dried spice at the morning market and the walking street, so you can take some home for your kitchen. It's the smell that says Nan most clearly.

Nan grows arabica coffee on its hills in several parts of the province, on high ridges and on hill-farm plots, so there's fresh-roasted local coffee to try at cafés in town and at the rice-field cafés around Pua. You can order espresso, pour-over or iced drinks, and the flavour and aroma vary with the growing area and the roast. It's worth asking which local beans a café is pouring and which hill they come from. Many Nan cafés sit in old wooden buildings or look out over fields and mountains, good for a pause between wandering the old town or driving around the province. We avoid naming a single café, because good ones are spread around several areas.

At the weekend the Nan walking street in the old town becomes the liveliest place to graze in town — rows of stalls doing sai ua, pork crackling, khao soi, laab, grilled and fried snacks and local sweets. The part many people love is the roadside khantoke, where you sit on mats by the street and eat a northern set meal — both a meal and the atmosphere of the old town at once. Prices are easy, starting at a few tens of baht per item, and you can browse crafts and gifts as you go. It's busiest in the early evening, so bring cash and take it slow. If you're here on the right night, it's a food stop not to miss.

The most local breakfast in Nan is at the morning market — open before light, where locals shop for the day and eat breakfast. There's khao soi, khanom jeen nam ngiao (a tomato-and-pork noodle soup), khanom jeen nam ya, fried dough sticks (patongko) and sticky rice with sai ua and pork crackling, plus local sweets and seasonal fruit. Prices are local-market cheap and you can graze several things in one place. It's a good way to start the day before heading out to the old town or up into the mountains. Come a little early while everything's still out and fresh, and bring small cash.

Khantoke is a northern set meal laid out on a tall wooden pedestal tray to sit around and share — it usually brings nam prik num, pork crackling, sai ua, gaeng hang le or a vegetable curry, laab and sticky rice together in one spread. It's the traditional way to eat, and it lets you try several northern dishes in a single meal. In Nan you'll find khantoke both as a set at northern restaurants and as roadside khantoke at the walking street on weekends, where you sit on mats by the street. Some places lay it out with a local cultural performance. It's ideal if you want to taste several northern dishes with the atmosphere to match — order one to share and eat your fill.

Beyond the in-town food, Nan has Tai Lue dishes and sweets in the villages around Pua and Tha Wang Pha that reflect the province's Tai Lue culture — there's khao ram fuen, Tai Lue-style relishes and curries, and local sweets such as khao kaep (a northern rice cracker), treats made from rice and cane sugar, and seasonal local desserts. Many of them you can buy at the markets and at shops in the Tai Lue weaving villages, and they make good edible gifts. They pair nicely with a cup of the local arabica too. It's food that tells Nan's Tai Lue story well — buy a few kinds and taste them side by side.