This just might be the most beloved dish in Mae Hong Son. Indeed, it’s a variation on khanom jiin naam ngiaw, the pork-and-tomato-based noodle soup that is one of the most beloved and ubiquitous dishes in northern Thailand. But where the standard northern Thai version boasts a broth that tends toward the meaty and hearty, the Mae Hong Son variant is thin and tart, its bulk stemming from a generous knot of thin rice noodles or ingredients like the crunchy pith of the banana tree.

In Mae Hong Son, locals prefer to call the dish khao sen, literally “rice threads,” a reference to the dish’s thin, round noodles, made via a labor-intensive and time-consuming process of soaking, pounding, boiling, and extracting a rice-based dough. Consumed as a light meal or a snack, khao sen is sold both from stalls in the city’s market in the morning and home-based restaurants in the afternoon, typically alongside khaang pawng, deep-fried herbal fritters delicious with—or in—the soup. Note that fresh khanom jiin noodles are generally not available outside of Southeast Asia. If cooking in the United States, Andy Ricker of Pok Pok suggests using fine-gauge dried bún (Vietnamese rice noodles), following the cooking instructions on the package.