Eager for Isan

The pungent, spicy dishes of Isan, Thailand’s northeast, are heavily influenced by the Khmer culture of neighboring Cambodia as well as the fare dished up in Laos (to its north and east) and Vietnam. The climate in this part of the country is extreme, swinging from hot and dry to very wet. Rice doesn’t grow well here, which means that meals revolve around hardy produce.

When you sit down to dinner at a Thai restaurant, many of the most popular dishes served up will have Isan origins: sticky rice, papaya salad, and many laab (minced meat salads) were first created here.

Isan cooks don’t cut any corners when it comes to flavors that pack a punch. They are particularly heavyhanded in their use of chilies (fresh herbs such as dill, basil, and mint are used to counter the bracing heat), strong fish sauces, fermented fish (pla rah), and sour limes and tamarind. The cuisine is also distinguished by its use of pickled and cured ingredients, popular due to the fact that wood for cooking can be scarce in the area.

Popular regional dishes include som tam (a salad using green papaya), laab bpet (a pungent duck salad, sometimes cooked with duck’s blood), gai yang (chicken marinated in soy or fish sauce and spices, flattened and grilled), and naam jaew (a paste-like dip for meat and vegetables made of dried chilies, tamarind, shallots, and shrimp paste). The intense flavors of these dishes are usually tempered by sticky rice.