Northern Thai cooking (centered on Chiang Mai and the ancient Lanna Kingdom) is as distinct from Central Thai cooking as Lao cooking is — it uses sticky rice rather than jasmine rice, uses more fermented ingredients (fermented soybean paste, naem sausage), incorporates more bitter flavours, and uses a different set of curry pastes (khao soi — the Northern curry noodle soup with Burmese-Yunnan influence, is the most internationally known Northern Thai preparation).
- **Khao soi:** Egg noodles in a rich, mildly spiced coconut curry broth, topped with crispy fried egg noodles, pickled mustard greens, shallots, and lime. The Burmese influence is visible in the use of turmeric and the mild curry character — it is not the aggressive southern Thai curry style. - **Naem:** Northern Thai fermented pork sausage — raw pork and cooked rice fermented for 2–3 days in banana leaves, producing a sour, slightly salty, slightly fizzy sausage eaten raw or cooked. The lactic acid fermentation is identical in mechanism to German salami but at a much faster timescale. - **Northern curry pastes:** Gaeng hung lay (pork belly curry with tamarind and ginger — Burmese origin); gaeng om (herb-forward fresh curry without coconut milk).
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