Having lived in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand for the past 11 years, I finally got a chance to visit Laos and was struck by the natural beauty of the country ― everything from waterfalls to rivers to caves to large swaths of undeveloped, unfarmed land ― a rarity in the region.
It really shouldn’t have surprised me to see that simple, natural ingredients were the backbone of Lao cuisine. With fragrances including galangal, lemongrass, kaffir, ginger, tamarind, and coriander, Lao cuisine shares similarities with Vietnamese, Chinese, and more noticeably to Khmer and especially Thai cooking.
You’ll see variations of Vietnamese “pho” (called the same in Lao) but less refined, with different veggies and herbs. (I was once served “pho” with cucumbers and sliced string beans.) Also, stirfries are not as common as in neighboring Vietnam or China. And Laos lean more towards the bitter, astringent, and herbal as opposed to sweet and sour. There’s actually a saying that roughly translates to, “Sweet makes you dizzy, but bitter makes you healthy.”
Everywhere I went, I asked locals, expats, and chefs what they thought no visitor to Laos should leave without trying. Would Lao food fall more towards “unrefined” or “rustic?”
Here’s what they recommended.
