What to Eat in Pai
11 northern Thai, Shan & Yunnanese dishes

The opening act of northern Thai food, and Pai does it well — egg noodles in a coconut-curry broth simmered with a mild curry paste and curry powder, with tender stewed chicken (or beef), crowned with a tangle of crispy fried noodles. You eat it with pickled greens, sliced shallots and a squeeze of lime to cut the richness. The names people mention most are Khao Soi Pai (the red-table stall next to the 7-Eleven on Walking Street), Khao Soi Zister's, which has comfortable seating and lets you adjust the spice, and Charlie & Lek, a home-style place locals go to.

A northern meal is really a sticky-rice spread of several things — sai ua, a pork sausage packed with curry paste and herbs and grilled fragrant; nam prik num, a roasted green-chilli dip eaten with pork crackling and steamed vegetables; nam prik ong, a sweet-sour tomato-and-minced-pork dip; and gaeng hang lay, a Burmese-Shan-style pork curry slow-cooked with ginger and spices until rich and tender. Eat it all with hot sticky rice. Try it at a home-style northern restaurant like Na's Kitchen or the local-food shops in town and on Walking Street.

The dish that marks out the Shan side of this Mae Hong Son region — rice noodles in an orange-red broth simmered from cherry tomatoes, pork bones or ribs, thua nao (fermented soybean) and dried kapok flowers, with cubes of pork blood and minced pork. It's lightly sour and aromatic, eaten with fresh vegetables, bean sprouts, pork crackling and fried dried chilli. The word "ngiao" comes from the name for the Shan (Tai Yai) people; it's a breakfast or light meal you'll find at local-food shops and morning markets in Pai town.

Head up the hill to Santichon village (about 5km from town), a settlement of Yunnanese Chinese who put down roots here, where the signature is Yunnanese food — pork leg stewed in Chinese herbs, slow-cooked low and slow until the meat is fall-apart tender and glazed in dark sweet soy, eaten with steamed or fried mantou buns torn and dipped in the sauce; herbal black-chicken soup with a clear, fragrant broth; and handmade dumplings. Several Yunnanese restaurants in the village, such as Mittraphap Pai, taste much alike, and you can also try Chinese tea and dress-up photos.

Pai is so well known for its rice-field and mountain-view cafés that café-hopping is one of the town's main activities. The legendary one is Coffee in Love, set on a rise looking down over paddies and hills (famous from films, so it draws crowds, but the view really is good). Chang Puak Handcrafted Coffee House sits near Wat Phra That Mae Yen (the Big Buddha) with open mountain views, and Keys's Cafe is a short walk from the centre, surrounded by rice fields, pouring northern-grown coffee. A slow breakfast over pancakes, smoothies and coffee is something Pai does well. Read on in the Pai café guide.

Dinner in Pai is most fun on the Walking Street, which runs down Rangsiyanon and Chaisongkhram roads. Every evening it fills with food stalls — grilled skewers, sai ua, roti, banana pancakes and smoothies, alongside hippie-market staples like falafel, veggie wraps, vegan burgers and smoothie bowls. Graze your way along without sitting down; each item is cheap at around ฿20–60. It's busiest in the cool season when the air makes strolling pleasant; in the rainy season and low season the stalls thin out a little. Read on in the Walking Street food guide.

Pai is one of the most vegetarian- and vegan-friendly small towns in northern Thailand — there are several fully vegetarian/vegan places such as Earth Tone, a vegan café; Art in Chai, an Indian-fusion vegetarian spot; and Good Life, an international café with plenty of vegan options, plus Bom Bowls for smoothie bowls — and Walking Street stalls with clear vegan menus. At a regular restaurant, just say "gin jay" (strict vegetarian) or "mangsawirat" and most kitchens will happily do meat-free pad thai, fried rice and curries.

The Pai River runs through town, and along its banks are restaurants where you can eat over the water at dusk — everyday Thai dishes like tom yum, curries, fried fish and stir-fried vegetables, paired with the water-and-mountain setting. The known spot on the riverside is the Pai River Corner area, with a wide riverside deck (good food, but priced up a touch for the view). To be honest, a riverside table means you pay partly for the view; if you want excellent, fairly priced Thai food without the view, a place like Na's Kitchen in town cooks Thai well.

To eat the way northerners do, try larb khua (northern larb), which is different from the Isan version — northern larb is minced meat or pork tossed with "prik larb," a blend of dozens of herbs and spices, then dry-fried until fragrant, deep and savoury rather than sour. It's eaten with raw vegetables and sticky rice, and it's prime drinking food. A spot locals like, Larp Khom Huay Poo, has larb and several northern dishes in a local-shop setting — good for a proper northern dinner with a cold beer.

The ingredient that gives this region's food its own twist is thua nao — a fermented soybean of the Shan people, made into sun-dried discs (thua nao paen) that are grilled or fried as a snack with a cheesy aroma, or pounded into a seasoning for nam ngiao and dips. The other thing the Shan do well is Shan tofu, made from a yellow pea flour into a soft set, eaten both steamed-and-sauced and fried crisp. You'll find these at the Pai morning market and at local-food shops — a taste that marks out the Shan side of this valley.

Round off a meal Pai-style — the town has hippie bakeries and dessert spots turning out cakes, pancakes, brownies and cheesecake to go with coffee. A place like Witching Well, which opens early and has long done Western breakfasts and desserts, is a go-to morning coffee stop for Pai travellers. The coffee here uses beans grown in northern Thailand, with many cafés roasting their own and doing serious pour-overs, plus Thai sweets like banana roti and market treats on the Walking Street — dessert in Pai works equally well as a café sit-down or a market stroll.