The Mad Hatters

Field notes

Return Visits: Asia Market, the One I Was Not Going to Tell You About

I have been bringing friends here for years and keeping it off my feed. A grocery store on North Main, four dishes I order every time, and a spice level that once sent an intern to the restroom. This is the third Return Visits note, and the one I argued with myself about.

By Mikinho, Chief Mad Hatter 10 minute read

The short version

Asia Market Thai Lao Food is a grocery store at 3620 North Main Street in Houston, at Pecore, next door to a Whataburger, with a Thai and Lao kitchen in the back and tables between the shelves. Chomsy Saysane, born in Laos and raised in Thailand, has run it since 2015, with her children and grandchildren among the staff.

I order the same four things: pad see ew with crispy pork, the salted fish fried rice, the fried tofu and the massaman curry. Bring a few friends and share everything. Do not order the Volcanic on your first visit.

An oval pink-rimmed melamine plate of pad see ew, wide rice noodles with Chinese broccoli, egg and pieces of crispy pork belly, flecked with red chili, on a speckled laminate table.
Pad see ew with crispy pork, March 8, 2023. The flecks of chili are not a garnish.

The argument with myself

My X account has brisket from the Sixth Ward, lattes from Galveston and a muffaletta or two, and not one photo of this plate. That was deliberate. I worried about sending more people to a place I like just as it is.

But Return Visits would be missing something without it. Besides, Houston's food writers have already covered Asia Market, and it is still a grocery store with tables. I can probably stop pretending it is a secret.

So bring a few friends, and keep it to yourself.

A market with tables

The shelves carry Thai and Lao staples, some imported from Thailand by the family, and the kitchen uses local produce when it can get it. You eat among the groceries. In the older photos, the noodles arrive on pink-rimmed melamine plates; the red plastic tumblers are still on our table in the latest one.

Inside a small grocery store, a glass deli counter and drink coolers on the left, shelves of packaged goods down the middle, and wooden restaurant chairs and tables at the back, on a grey wood-look tile floor.
The view from the door, July 16, 2021. Deli counter on the left, groceries down the middle, tables at the back.

I would have sworn it used to be somewhere else, and it did. I started going around 2015, at the Cavalcade store Chomsy took over that year, and vaguely remember an earlier version. Her business moved to North Main in 2018. The previous owners opened the separate Asia Market Thai Restaurant on Fulton; the old Cavalcade location became Street Food Thai Market. For this note, put 3620 North Main in the map.

The four orders

Pad see ew with crispy pork. Wide rice noodles, egg and Chinese broccoli, with crispy pork belly in place of the usual sliced pork. What I love is the balance of sweet and savory. The sweetness tastes natural to me, part of the ingredients coming together, without the sugary taste I have had at some Americanized Thai places.

Salted fish fried rice. The menu calls it Salty Fish Fried Rice, pla kem. The name sounded odd to me, and I only ordered it because my wife, Gatinha, loves anchovies and does not handle much spice. I thought it might be something she would love. She did, and so did I. We quickly stopped ordering the other rice dishes because we liked its flavor so much.

An oval blue-and-white patterned plate of fried rice with egg, peas and carrots, cucumber slices at the upper left and a spoon resting at the top, on a speckled laminate table.
Salty fish fried rice, August 14, 2024. Ordered for Gatinha, adopted by both of us.

Fried tofu. It comes with a sweet peanut dipping sauce and is on every table I order for, whether or not anyone asked for it. Mostly, I order the tofu for the peanut sauce.

Massaman curry. Coconut milk, peanuts, potatoes and carrots, with steamed rice. I may over-mention the potatoes every time I bring someone new. The massaman is the fourth regular order on our table.

A white bowl of orange massaman curry with a black spoon resting in it, a plate of steamed rice to the right, the fried rice at the upper left and a pink-rimmed plate of noodles above, on a speckled laminate table.
The massaman, the same lunch in August 2024.

The Volcanic

The printed menu asks for a spice preference: Mild, Medium, Hot, Thai Hot or Raging Volcano. I call the top one the Volcanic. The online ordering page stops at Thai Hot, so ask at the restaurant if you want to go further.

I enjoy it once in a blue moon. At the same requested spice level, the stir-fries hit me harder than the curries. A pad see ew or a moo pad prik at Volcanic will find you.

The first time I ate in the North Main building, after the move, our server was one of Chomsy's grandsons, and he was incredibly nice about warning us off it. We ordered it anyway. We loved it, and he gave us Asia Market polo shirts for our trouble.

Then there is the intern, whom I will call Alex. We brought him to lunch, on his first Thai meal of any kind. We eat family style, but he was cautious and ordered his own pad thai at zero stars. The rest of us were sweating through a moo pad prik at Volcanic, and he wanted to see how bad it could be. We advised against it. He took a single bite, excused himself from the table and went to the restroom. I texted the employee who had brought Alex in: "We may have killed Alex." The reply was a screenshot of a text from Alex: "I may die."

He lived. Start with the Medium if it is your first time.

A white plate of stir-fried crispy pork belly with sliced onion, green and red bell pepper and basil in a dark chili sauce, on a speckled laminate table.
Moo pad prik with crispy pork, March 8, 2023. The dish from the Alex story, at a level I did not write down.

Family style

Bring three or four people and share the four orders, with the massaman to balance the heat.

If you want a fifth thing, the kao nam tod is crispy rice with sour sausage, peanuts, red onion and cilantro, with lettuce to wrap it in. The menu marks it very popular. It was on our table in April 2021, and I have no argument with the menu.

A white plate of crispy rice salad with pieces of sour sausage, sliced red onion, peanuts and a pile of fresh cilantro and lettuce leaves, on a speckled laminate table.
Kao nam tod, April 14, 2021.

Who should go

Come for a meal among the grocery shelves, with enough people to share a few dishes. The restaurant lists its hours as eleven to 8:30 Monday through Friday, eleven to 9:30 Saturday, and eleven to 7:30 Sunday, with the last dine-in order half an hour before closing. It is bring your own bottle with no corkage fee, and wine glasses are available.

If you want a dining room with a wine list, this is a grocery store. If you have a fixed idea of what mild means, The Infatuation warned in print that the food arrives hot no matter what you ask for, and I am not going to argue with them either. And if you are a first-timer with something to prove, read the Alex section again.

The record

Photographed visits: April 13 and 14, 2021; July 2021; August 2022; March 2023; July and August 2024; October 2025; February 2026. Some show the food, others the room or the people I brought. The photographs start in April 2021, about six years after the visits did.

An oval pink-rimmed melamine plate of pad see ew with crispy pork, Chinese broccoli and a heavy scatter of red chili, on a speckled laminate table.
The first pad see ew in my library, April 14, 2021.

Valentine's Day

A restaurant table with rice and wide noodles on a round plate in front, chopsticks across its edge, fried tofu wedges and two dipping sauces in the middle, and square plates of noodles and fried rice behind, with red plastic tumblers and dark wooden chairs.
Valentine's Day, February 14, 2026. The fried tofu and its peanut sauce are in the middle of the table, where they belong.

The most recent table in my library was just Gatinha and me. Gatinha and I usually start Valentine's Day the night before and celebrate it into midnight, because it is also the anniversary of our engagement. This year the week had been long and most of the plans took detours. On the fourteenth I apologized that things had not gone the way I meant them to, and asked what she was craving. Anything she wanted, we would go. She wanted Thai Lao. It was a great night. I married well.

Sources and further reading