Lao Food

I'm a big fan of lists. I make lists of nearly everything, simply to lend order and coherency to my life....

The food, culture and language of Laos shares a lot in common with that of the Issan district in northern Thailand, and there are some foods borrowed from Vietnam (like pho and bahn mi), but the strong flavors -- a mix of savory, spicy, bitter and pungent -- are distinctly Lao. Recipes for Lao food here, here, here and here.

1. Bahn mi, a Vietnamese style sandwich, with paté, pork floss, carrots, cilantro and hot sauce on a crusty French baguette.
2. Kaipan and jaew bong, crispy, light, fried river moss and garlicky, spicy, chewy buffalo skin paste, both Luang Prabang specialities.
3. Ua nor mai, crispy bamboo shoots stuffed with pork and veggies, served with a sweet dipping sauce
4. Mok pa, wrapped, steamed fish wrapped in a banana leaf.
5. Rice cakes, light snacks to go with your soup.
6. Jaew, dipping pastes to dab your sticky rice in (in the photo: tomato, mushroom and egglpant jaew)
7. Som moo, sour (fermented) pork sausage, served raw.
8. Orlam, a Luang Prabang buffalo stew, with veggies, green beans, flavored with chili peppers, seared sticky rice, juniper wood and fennel.
9. Barbeque +, barbeque lao style is done on a unique bbq-and-hot-pot-combo-grill. Pork fat goes on the top of the "hill", melts to grease the sides (where the meat is cooked), and finally the meat sauce drips into the soup where you also cook the veggies and noodles.
10. Pho, Vietnamese style rice noodles in beef broth, here topped with scallions, freshly slaughtered chicken, pork blood, and other good stuff.
11. Caterpillars, fried, sold in bamboo tubes at the market, dumped out into a pan and lightly fried. They taste like fried egg whites.
12. Barbequed beef, a savory, chewy snack to go with your Beer Lao. Comes with a basket of fresh veggies and some peanut dipping sauce.
13. Khanom krok, a subtly sweet snack made of rice flour and coconut milk
14. Steamed egg, after a small hole is broken in an egg, the egg is drained, beaten, and poured back into the shell with water, scallions and flavoring before being steamed.
15. Wild boar laab, a pork salad seasoned with lime and basil, sometimes served raw
16. Bowls of steamed egg, flavored with meatballs, vermicelli and scallions
17. Fried chicken, with super crispy skin!
18. Pho, the ubiquitous lunch in Laos, here served with pork blood, handpulled rice noodes and a very spicy chili jaew
19. Egg crepes, thin, deftly-made pancakes made at street-side stalls, here with egg filling. Often served sweet, with banana filling and condensed milk topping.
20. Chili Jeow, a Lao dipping sauce made with lots of spicy chili peppers!
21. Grilled bananas, mini bananas fresh off the grill, seared and a little tough on the outside, but soft, sweet and gooey on the inside.
22. Miang, awesome little savory-with-a-touch-of-sweet-snacks made up of a peanut-noodle-rice paste wrapped in lettuce leaves.
23. Grilled sticky rice on sticks, a great way to eat sticky rice on the go. The grilling brings out a smokey, hearty flavor from the rice.
24. Purple sticky rice, a colorful version of the usual. Sticky rice is served inside a "tip khao" (bamboo sticky rice container). To eat it, ball up a small wad of it in your hands and dip it in "jaew" before popping it in your mouth...