LP Eats

It’s our last day today in Luang Prabang. It has been great here, and I can see myself coming back someday. This last post to round out the LP trilogy is all about food. I was specifically told by someone to take pictures of what I ate, so this post is dedicated to them (full honesty it’s also a bit selfish as I know they may be able to recreate these eats 😝) Food in Laos is delicious and seems to be a combination of the countries that surround it – Thailand, Vietnam and China – yet it still seems to create its own unique flavours.

We did a lot of sampling of things in banana leaves.

The last pick is of grilled honeycomb. DawnO was pretty vocal about the taste of it which I pretty much agreed with, so I’ll let you head over to http://robodawno.com if you want to learn more

We kept seeing this Mekong river weed in the market and figured we should try it. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t necessarily good either. I started to see people ordering it in the restaurant, so to DawnO’s surprise I ordered it too. I found the key … it needs to be fried! 😋

I was super stoked when I saw these peanuts in the market and had already made plans in my head to bring B-Rod home a couple bags. Don’t get too excited B-Rod … they don’t taste like Philippine peanuts (for those of you who think that’s a ridiculous statement, I’m itching to go back to the Philippines to see family, but a VERY close second reason is because I dream of those peanuts!!!)

Green papaya salad tends to be a dish you associate with Thailand, but there’s also a Lao version. The Lao version seems to have a fishier taste. Still good especially with some sticky rice!

This meal was really good, but I’ll be honest when I say I prefer the Northern Thai version which I find to be quite different. Still … a good cheap meal you can find anywhere here and I would order again!

There aren’t a lot of things DawnO and I disagree on, but this is one of them. Rice soup (otherwise known as congee) for breakfast? A big hells yeah from me!

We ended up sharing a set meal one day and though I can’t tell you what all the dishes are, I can tell you that I was surprised by how much I liked the sai ua (sausage). The highlight, however, was the dip which we were later told was made from Lao olives.

If there’s one dish that was recommended to me the most it was Or Lam. Every student I talked to on our ESL day said this was the food I had to eat. I had the beef version of this stew and it didn’t disappoint. I did have this once before in Medicine Hat and similar to that time, it doesn’t look like much, but it is very much a taste sensation!

I throughly enjoyed this meal. The larb is something B-Rod often orders at our fav restaurant. It was good here in Laos, but I think it’s actually better at Sabai Infusion in the Hat!!!

The highlight and the winner of best meal here is the Nam Khao. Also known as Lao crispy rice salad, it’s made from deep fried rice balls that are later separated into chunks. Wait until you hear what is in these rice balls – the sausage which is a few pics back, peanuts, coconut, scallions, mint, cilantro, lime. So basically just a few of my favourite things! Then you take a scoop and put it into a lettuce leaf and add some other greens. One word … yuuuuuuuuummmmmm!!!!

I did have a coffee during coffee time, but quickly switched back to tea. I think so far Vietnam is the only country that could ever turn me into a regular coffee drinker!

I’m sad to leave, but am getting the feeling it’s time to move on. Tomorrow we board the slow boat to Thailand. Two days along the Mekong river, two nights in Lao villages, a four hour bus ride and we’ll arrive in Chiang Mai. We could do it by bus in about twenty hours, but what’s the adventure in that?! I’ll let you know in a few days if we still think of it as an adventure 😝