What to eat in Laos, and where to eat it

What to eat in Laos comes down to about ten dishes, two of which exist properly only in Luang Prabang, and a technique you will use at every meal. Start with the technique.

Sticky rice, and how to eat it

Sticky rice is the staple, not steamed jasmine rice. It arrives in a woven basket, the tip khao, and it stays warm in it. You take a small amount with the right hand, roll it into a ball against your fingers, compress it slightly, and use it to pick up whatever is on the table. It is a utensil as much as a food.

Two rules of table manners follow. Take from the basket with your hand rather than a spoon, and put the lid back on the basket when you finish so the rice does not dry out. Doing that second thing correctly will get you a look of approval in a village restaurant.

Lao people eat more sticky rice per head than anyone else on earth. It is the centre of the meal, and the dishes are seasonings for it.

The ten dishes

Laap. The national dish, and the one to order first. Minced meat or fish tossed with lime, fish sauce, chilli, herbs, shallot and khao khua, toasted ground sticky rice, which is what gives it the nutty texture. Order it with chicken, pork, duck or freshwater fish. Ask for it cooked rather than raw, because a raw version, laap dip, exists and is not for visitors. It is better here than the Thai version, drier, less sweet and more herbal.

Tam mak hoong. Green papaya salad pounded to order in a clay mortar, with lime, garlic, chilli, palm sugar, long beans and tomato. The Lao version normally includes padaek, fermented fish sauce, which gives it a deep funk the Thai version does not have. It is also hotter as a default. Say “bo phet” for not spicy and expect it to still be somewhat spicy.

Or lam. The Luang Prabang stew, and the dish we would order if we could order only one. Buffalo or chicken with aubergine, wood ear mushroom, long beans, dill and sakhaan, a pepperwood stem that makes the mouth tingle in a way that is closer to Sichuan peppercorn than to chilli. Thick, dark, smoky and unlike anything else in the region.

Khao soi, the Lao one. This is not the Thai coconut curry noodle of the same name. Luang Prabang khao soi is a clear rice noodle soup topped with a sauce of minced pork, tomato and fermented soybean, with a bit of chilli oil. It is a breakfast and a morning market dish, it costs a couple of dollars, and it is one of the best cheap bowls in Asia.

Kaipen. Sheets of Mekong riverweed pressed with sesame, garlic and tomato, dried and then flash fried until crisp. Eaten with jaew bong, a sweet and smoky chilli paste made with dried buffalo skin. This is the snack of Luang Prabang and it travels home well.

Ping. Grilled things, over charcoal. Ping kai is grilled chicken, flattened and clamped in split bamboo. Ping pa is grilled fish stuffed with lemongrass. Both are street food, both are cheap, and both go with sticky rice and a plate of raw herbs and greens.

Khao piak sen. A soft, hand-cut fresh rice noodle in chicken broth, thickened by the starch off the noodles. A morning dish, comforting, and the thing to eat on a cold January dawn in the north.

Mok pa. Fish with herbs, chilli and dill steamed inside a banana leaf parcel. Delicate, and a good order for anyone who has had enough chilli.

Sai oua. Lao herb sausage, coarse pork with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf and galangal, grilled. The northern Thai version is the same sausage.

The baguette. Laos and Vietnam both kept the French bread and Laos keeps it plainer. Khao jee pate is a baguette with pate, herbs and chilli sauce, and it costs two dollars from a morning cart. The bread in Luang Prabang and Vientiane is genuinely good.

The drinks

Beerlao. A lager brewed with local rice as well as malt, and it is genuinely good rather than good-for-a-national-beer. The dark version is better than it needs to be.

Lao coffee. Grown on the Bolaven Plateau at around 3,300 feet (1,000 m), where the soil is volcanic and the altitude works. Both robusta and some good arabica. Ordered locally it comes strong, in a small glass, over condensed milk, usually with a glass of weak green tea alongside to clear the palate.

Lao-Lao. Rice spirit, served at village welcomes, and refusing outright is awkward while accepting three is a mistake. Take one.

Where to eat, town by town

Luang Prabang, morning. The fresh market on the peninsula from about six, which is a working market and not a craft market. Khao soi and khao piak sen at the stalls inside. This is the single best eating hour in Laos and it happens before most visitors are awake.

Luang Prabang, evening. The night market food lane off Sisavangvong Road has a vegetarian buffet of a dollar or two per plate that has been there for twenty years, and it is fine rather than good. The better meals are at the small restaurants along the Nam Khan side of the peninsula and at two or three places doing serious Lao cooking with technique, where dinner is $25 to $50 a head. Our Hanoi office books these because they are small.

Vientiane. The best general eating in the country if you count breadth: proper Lao restaurants, good Vietnamese, the French legacy taken further than in Luang Prabang, and riverside stalls in the evening. Two of the country’s best restaurants are here and neither is expensive.

The Bolaven Plateau. Coffee at the source, with the farm families who grow it, and Katu and Alak village cooking that uses more forest ingredients and less sugar.

The north, Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoi. Simple, riverside, limited. Grilled fish, laap, sticky rice, one or two places that do it well. Come here for the walking rather than for the eating.

Si Phan Don. Fish from the Mekong, cooked plainly, eaten slowly. Nothing else happens and that is the point.

What is overrated, honestly

The night market buffet in Luang Prabang. It is cheap and it is a photograph. The food has been sitting. One visit for the atmosphere is fine, and then go and eat properly.

Restaurants advertising a “Lao and Western menu” on the main street. They exist to be safe. The kitchen cooks neither cuisine with any conviction.

Elaborate multi-course Lao tasting menus at hotel restaurants. Some are very good. Several are a reheated version of what you can eat at the market for two dollars, at forty times the price, with the chilli removed.

Buffalo dairy products marketed as a Luang Prabang speciality. The farm is a pleasant visit and the ice cream is nice. It is not Lao food.

The bug snacks sold to visitors. Insects are genuinely eaten in Laos, seasonally and regionally. The tray of fried scorpions on a tourist street is a photograph opportunity, not a cuisine.

Practical notes

Spice. Lao food is spicier than Thai food more consistently. It is easily adjusted if you ask, and our guides do the asking in Lao rather than leaving you to mime.

Vegetarian. Workable but must be arranged. Fish sauce and padaek are in most savoury dishes by default, and a request for no meat will not remove them unless it is made specifically. Tell us before you fly and our guides brief the kitchens. There is a Buddhist vegetarian tradition to work with.

Allergies. Peanuts, fish sauce and shellfish paste are widespread. Tell us early, in writing, and we brief in advance rather than at the table.

Water and ice. Bottled or filtered water only, including for teeth. Ice in established restaurants in the towns is made industrially and is fine. We would skip ice from a bucket at an unattended roadside stall.

Cost. You genuinely do not need to spend to eat well here. A realistic daily food budget for someone eating widely is $20 to $30, as set out in what a trip to Laos costs.

If you are travelling on to Vietnam, the contrast is instructive and we have written the northern Vietnamese version of this article as eating your way through Hanoi in three days.

Plan this trip

Tell us how much of your Laos trip should be about the food and a specialist will build the days around it, with the small tables booked. Free first outline, no obligation.

Start planning →

Keep reading

• Laos: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Laos food and culture in 11 days
• Luang Prabang, slowly: three days and a fourth
• What does a trip to Laos really cost?
• Eating your way through Hanoi in three days
• All our Laos trips

Frequently asked questions