The best traditional foods in Laos

Laos is famous for fish sauce, padek, has a distinct fragrance. Insects ranging from silk worms to ants and crickets can be found on many menus. Raw and cooked meats from all manner of animals are grilled and served on a stick or sautéed and served with rice. And traditional foods is worth trying once in Laos.

Laap

Whether you call it laap or larb, this traditional dish retains its essential Lao identity despite its popularity in Thai restaurants.

Laap essentially consists of chopped meat and innards, pork, water-buffalo beef, duck, or chicken will do, mixed with fish sauce, coriander, mint, chili, spring onion, and lime juice, along with dry-fried rice grains that impart a subtle nutty flavor, then cooked. Sticky rice and fresh vegetables accompany a hearty serving of laap, wherever you go in Laos.

Lao Noodle Soup (Khao Piak Sen)

This top-notch noodle dish is probably the most common of Lao food and is a staple not so different to Pho which is synonymous with their Vietnamese neighbours. While common as breakfast Khao Piak Sen also makes good for lunch and pretty much anytime of the day.

This tasty soup bowl generally comes as Beef or Chicken served in like broth over flat rice noodles and flavourings of fresh herbs. Often accompanied by optional garnish of chilli oil, lime juice, bean sprouts, long beans, holy basil and cilantro. Khao Piak Sen costs roughly 10,000 Kip or 40 Baht.

Sticky rice

Sticky rice is a staple throughout the country. It is commonly said that Lao citizens eat more sticky rice than anyone else in the world. It is traditionally steamed in a cone-shaped bamboo basket, and placed in a covered basket where it is eaten alongside many dishes. In Laos, there should always be sticky rice available to eat at any time of day.

Papaya Salad

Made with young, green papaya this is not your average fruit salad. The fruit is chopped into long thin strips and mixed with padek, lime, chilis, salt and sugar to give it a spicy and savory taste. Shrimp, tomatoes, eggplant and carrots are common additions as well. All of the ingredients are pounded with a mortar and pestle giving rise to the Lao name tam mak hoong, or “pounded papaya.”

Lao Sausage (Sai Oua)

The Lao Sausage is not so different to the famous Chiang Mai Sausage next door in Thailand (Lanna Food). A meat treat which fuses the regions signature flavours with sours of lemongrass and kaffir lime and the fiery kicks of chillies and galangal. Fused together with minced pork and pressed into skins.

Lao Sausages can often be seen drying at roadsides or strung up at local markets. Unlike the Sai Oua of Lanna Thai food the Laos Sausage comes served with a tasty dry chilli dip (Nam Cheo) and of course sticky rice. A serving of Sai Oua costs roughly 20,000 Kip or 80 Baht.

Ping Pa

Make your way to a Vientiane street food stall and you will find plenty of river fish in abundance, stuck on bamboo skewers, seasoned with chopped kaffir lime leaf, galangal, lemongrass, cilantro, and lime juice before roasting with skin on.

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What to eat when traveling in Laos

While Lao dishes bear some resemblance to Thai cuisine, the differences are deeper than they appear at first glance. Unlike Thais, the Lao also cook with dill and mint, with a preference for fresh greens. So the next time you find yourself exploring the best that Laos has to offer, or wandering the streets of the Luang Prabang night market, have a go at these delicious traditional Lao foods and complete the local experience.

Sticky Rice (Khao Niao)

Lao people define themselves by their habit of eating sticky rice (khao niao), a grain that most other Southeast Asian cultures relegate to snacks or desserts. Every meal for the Lao is a sticky-rice meal, with this staple served at room temperature in a woven bamboo basket called a thip khao. The Lao eat sticky rice by balling some up in their right hand, using this wad to pick up accompanying meat or vegetable, and pop the lot in their mouths.

A typical Lao family meal includes thip khao full of khao niao, and most of the rest of the traditional Lao dishes listed below served at the same time. Buddhist devotees spend mornings waiting in a line to give monks their day's allowance of sticky rice, in a tradition called Tak Bat.

Laap

Laap essentially consists of chopped meat and innards—pork, water-buffalo beef, duck, or chicken will do—mixed with fish sauce, coriander, mint, chili, spring onion, and lime juice, along with dry-fried rice grains that impart a subtle nutty flavor, then cooked. Sticky rice and fresh vegetables accompany a hearty serving of laap, wherever you go in Laos.

Nam Khao

The Lao hate wasting excess sticky rice, preferring to cook any surplus into dishes like nam khao. This crisp rice salad consists of sticky-rice balls, deep- fried and mixed with spring onions, peanuts, sliced shallots, peanuts, herbs, and slices of a fermented pork sausage called som moo.

Ping Kai

Combined with sticky rice and tam mak houng, this grilled chicken dish completes a classic Lao dining trilogy, served everywhere from Vang Vieng to the Isan regions of northern Thailand. The chicken dish kai yang, also a regular on many Thai restaurants is identical to this Lao roast dish.

To make ping kai, Lao take a whole chicken, halve it, pound it flat, and marinate it in a combination of fish sauce, cilantro, turmeric, garlic, and white pepper before roasting over a low charcoal-fueled flame.

Khao Nom Krok

A serving of khao nom krok makes for a perfect end to your night-market shopping jaunt. As served in Luang Prabang, vendors make a batter of rice flour, sugar, and coconut milk, cook it in a cast-iron custom frying pan, then serve it hot.

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Khao Soi

The flat rice noodles give the dish its name; soi means “to cut”, and Lao noodle-makers often still cut noodles with scissors. The noodles garnished with tomatoes, chilies, fermented soybean, and ground pork before being drowned in rich, thick pork broth, are served along with fresh watercress leaves, mint, Thai basil, and lime.

The noodles are widely acknowledged to be Luang Prabang's official noodle soup, mostly due to the watercress which grows thickly around the former capital city.

Source Tripsavvy