If you only eat one dish at the market across from the North Gate… it’s gotta be the pork from the Cowboy Hat Lady. But if you eat two, that’s where Changphuak Suki comes in.
Changphuak Suki sells Thai suki, a distant cousin of Japanese sukiyaki that features stir-fried cabbage, glass noodles, and eggs, mixed in with your choice of meat (I went with pork).
It’s technically a noodle dish, though there’s probably more cabbage than noodles. It seems odd, but the fresh crunchiness of the perfectly cooked cabbage works very well with the soft, chewy glass noodles and the tender pork.
It comes with a dark red sauce on the side. I figured this was going to be a chili sauce of some sort, but it was barely spicy at all — it tasted kind of like a thicker, richer version of tomato soup. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, but I dumped it onto the noodles regardless. It’s good; it adds a bit of sweetness and some nice depth to the dish.
Location: Si Phum, Mueang Chiang Mai District, Chiang Mai 50200
How to find it: It’s a bit harder to find than the Cowboy Hat Lady (there’s no hat to look for, and no English signage). Just go to the end of the market and look for the stall with the red and white signage, and the big piles of cabbage and eggs.