I think you mean northeastern Thai food. Never seen pla ra in northern Thailand, and I lived up there for a couple of years. Only in the Northeast. The two are separate regions and have rather different cuisines. Papaya salad is generally northeastern too, but the North may have its own version.
Just thought I should explain too that the difference between northern and northeastern Thai is not a nitpick. They may sound close geographically and may actually be close, but they are a world apart, having developed across different lines. The dialects are different. Even the physical types – northern Thais are considered the height of beauty by Thais nationwide, the northeastern Thais the ugliest. Etc. Same with the food, although everyone is so trained that papaya salad is general Thai food, they’ll pretty much serve that in any Thai restaurant abroad.
Offal…Awful.
Awful…Offal.
(Oops! Sorry. I thought I was David Letterman. Carry on.)
The place I’m thinking of with the ant eggs and worms advertised themselves as Northern Thai, but the green papaya salad has to be ordered Lao style for the fermented fish sauce.
This is the one, if you’re curious. They don’t seem to have the insects on the online menu, but the “Northern Thai” menu has offal on it including intestines and blood.
That’s not to say you’re not correct–I know they’re two differmt regions, with Northeast being Issan, but they do serve pla ra at the Northern Thai place so I assume they must be mixing in other regional Thai cuisines in their offering.
Ant eggs and worms are without a doubt northeastern fare. It’s only the Northeasterners who eat bugs and stuff. That’s traditionally the poorest region, and many times they’ve had no choice. I couldn’t say for sure why that restaurant chose to market themselves as northern Thai while serving that, but I suspect it probably is mostly northern, and they’ve thrown in some bugs for novelty’s sake.
The Offal House menu! 
There definitely is some good northern food on that menu. Sai ua (northern Thai sausage) is really good over here. And kow soy (various spellings) is a staple. It’s actually Burmese. Much northern food comes from Burma or is at least Burmese influenced. But the best kow soy – or khao soi, as I usually spell it – I’ve ever had is at a long-running noodle shop in Bangkok.
Haha, milihitlers.
This is the first time I’ve heard of organs referred to as “offal”, but I looked it up and 'tis so. Until now I thought of offal as trotters, connective tissue, reclaimed meats, and the like. Whatever, I’d eat pate every day if I could.
confident nod Oh. Hákarl. Hold on a second, will you ? mad dash NEVER AGAIN ! You bastards won’t [del]take me alive[/del]make me eat that alive !
Hákarl has this additional peculiarity that, once tasted, you will keep on tasting it for about two weeks. This stuff made me understand, on a very deep and intimate level, why the Vikings roamed far and wide.
There’s a great clip of Top Gear’s James May and Gordon Ramsey sharing some of this lovely dish. Ramsey spit it out, but May swallowed it and followed up with “You disappoint me, Ramsey.” I’m posting from my phone, so I can’t link to the video, but it’s on YouTube.