The northern Thai city of Sukhothai has its own signature noodle dish, kuaytiaw Sukhothai. There’s nothing particularly northern about the dish, other than the copious use of pork, and it appears to be a slight a variation on Chinese-influenced central Thai noodle dishes. The dish is all about the pork, and is served with slices of roasted and/or boiled pork, pork rinds, slices of liver and often intestines. Other ingredients include thin slices of phak chee farang, sawtooth coriander, par-boiled and thinly-sliced green beans, a small mound of ground peanuts and a dollop of palm sugar. And unlike most noodle dishes in Thailand, you don’t specify which noodles you’d like - Sukhothai-stye noodles are almost exclusively served with sen lek, thin rice noodles.
Over the days I was in Sukhothai, I hit three of the town’s most famous places to get the dish.
Ta Pui, whose noodles are pictured at the top of this post, claims to be the original vendor of the dish. It’s easily the least flashy restaurant (it used to be little more than a brick floor and tin roof - it now has a cement floor), and correspondingly serves what is probably the most balanced bowl.
Ta Pui
Th Jarot Withithong, Sukhothai
7am-4pm
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Located across the street, Jayhae is easily the most popular vendor of the dish - just about Thai tourist who comes to Sukhothai stops at this place for lunch. Despite this, the noodles:
were probably my least favourite of the lot, although admittedly the differences between all of these places are very subtle. In this case I found Jayhae’s bowl to be the sweetest and least porkiest. This restaurant also does phat Thai in the local style, which is similar to that served in Mae Sot.
Jayhae
Th Jarot Withithong, Sukhothai
7am-4pm
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My personal favourite bowl was probably at Kuaytiaw Thai Sukhothai:
which was also the only place where I ordered the dish naam, with broth. The rich broth, generous pork rinds and seasoning made this the most full-flavoured bowl, and the one I’d most likely go back to next time I’m in town.
Kuaytiaw Thai Sukhothai
Th Jarot Withithong, Sukhothai
9am-8pm
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