Savor Scout › Food guides › Laotian food
How to find good Laotian food
Lao food is the cuisine behind a lot of what Americans think of as Thai — larb, papaya salad, sticky rice — but cooked with more funk, more bitterness and more heat. Many Lao cooks run Thai restaurants and keep the Lao dishes on a separate list.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Sticky rice in a basket — Glutinous rice steamed and served in a woven basket, eaten with your hands. It is the staple, not a side.
- Papaya salad with padaek — Lao-style tam mak hoong uses fermented fish sauce and is funkier and saltier than the Thai version. Ask for it Lao style.
- Larb with toasted rice — Minced meat with lime, fish sauce, herbs and toasted ground rice. The toasted rice should be freshly made and nutty.
- Bitterness allowed — Lao cooking uses bile, bitter herbs and greens on purpose. A kitchen that keeps them is not adjusting the food for you.
- A Lao menu — Look for a section or a separate page. That is where the cooking is.
What to order
- Larb — Chicken, beef or pork, with sticky rice.
- Lao papaya salad — Ask for the heat level honestly.
- Khao piak sen — Thick, chewy rice noodle soup, the Lao comfort food.
- Sai oua — Herbal Lao sausage with lemongrass and galangal.
- Ping gai — Grilled marinated chicken.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for Lao, Laotian, sticky rice, khao piak and sai oua in menus and reviews, because most Lao kitchens are filed as Thai, and reviewers are usually the ones who point out the Lao menu.
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