Guest Post: The Food In Laos

This is a guest post written by Adam (@PergiDulu) one half of a travelling couple who blog at PergiDulu and Baca Resep Dulu

The first guest post on my blog comes from my favourite travelling couple Adam (Australian) and Susan (Indonesian). I've been following their blog since long time ago because they post great stuff. Please follow their twitter (@Pergidulu) and their blog PergiDulu to get interesting updates. This is a delicious post about the food in Laos. Do not read this post on an empty stomach :p

It’s no secret that we love food, so one of the things we do when we travel is try to taste as many of the local foods as possible. But we don’t just eat local food. We like to try all different types of food, just so long as it’s good.  

amazing noddle soup

 In Laos, local food is available everywhere at any time of the day. The main dishes are things like noodle soup, BBQed meat, fried rice and sticky rice. Normal fluffy white rice that you find in the rest of Asia isn’t a

available as often.

meat and fluffy white rice

sticky rice drenched in coconut milk

 If you really want to learn about Lao food when in Laos, the best way is to take a cooking class and one of the best cooking classes in the country is located in Luang Prabang and is called Tamarind. At Tamarind, you get to prepare a range of local dishes in a clean environment. We had the opportunity to prepare a couple of jeows (dips), a fragrant stick of lemongrass stuffed with minced chicken, fish in banana leaf, the famous Lao dish laap and black sticky rice with coconut milk, similar to ketan hitam in Indonesia.

Chicken stuffed lemongrass

black sticky rice

 Aside from all of this local food, in towns such as Luang Prabang and Vientiane there are a lot of other styles of food which are delicious. Because of the French influence in Laos, you tend to get fantastic bread and pastries. We also indulged in some fantastic croque monsieurs, croissants and tarts. Mmm….

delicious pastries in Luang Prabang

lemon tart in Luang Prabang

 But what else is there? Well, funnily enough, you’re also able to find a lot of Indian food in Laos. Even in some of the smaller towns we found Indian food and some of it was incredibly tasty. Our favourite was from Nisha in the town of Phonsavan. Simple but tasty Indian food in a basic restaurant.

Sometimes in more remote parts of Laos you really do have to eat like a local and this is sometimes a little difficult if you don’t know what it is you’re eating. We generally stuck to fried rice and noodle soup in these situations as well some awesome rice porridge.

fried rice is everywhere in Laos

one of the better soups in Laos

rice porridge

If all else fails in Laos, it’s almost always possible to get a baguette with some fresh herbs and vegetables and some meat of your choice. They’ll fill the hole in your belly and keep you going until you find something else you might want. 

baguette and jam

delicious sandwich in Vientiane

 So the food of Laos really is quite diverse. The local food may not be to everyone’s tastes, but most people will find something to their liking, especially when in the bigger towns like Luang Prabang. 

Hungry?