It's Tuesday, and that means mini market night in my neighborhood. Not too much to choose from on Tuesdays--Saturday is big market day--but there is one lady selling decent northern Thai food, which is what I ended up choosing.
Many of you are familiar with laap (or laab or larb), but I doubt many of you have tried the northern version, laap khua:
Khua means fried, and in this dish ground pork, along with pork liver, heart, tripe, skin and intestines, are sauteed with a curry paste. The curry paste contains a dried herb called ma khwaen, which gives this dish a spicy "numbing" flavor, somewhat similar to Szechuan pepper.
With this I had the northern staple, nam phrik num:
A "dip" of grilled chilies, garlic, tomatoes and shallots eaten with deep-fried pork rinds:
and par-boiled and fresh veggies:
All of this was taken, as is the tradition, with sticky rice. A decent meal--and all for 45 baht ($1.25)!