Lao food is hot, spicy and traditionally eaten with stricky rice. This rice isn't and ordinary rice that serve or eat in most Asia countries. It's a glutinous "stricky rice" khao niaw which rolled into a neat small ball and eaten with the hand. Although there are long grain jusmine rice available everywhere in Laos but stricky rice remains the basic staple of Lao's people and it's unique to lao cuisine.
Sticky rice is steamed cook and place in a specially made bamboo basket called tip khao to keep it warm and hot. Traditionally people will sit on the floor around a few dishes to eat lunch or dinner. Eventhough sticky rice is eaten by hand but food on the dishes is aways eaten with spoon or forks.
Laos food are genenerally cooked and prepared with local fresh ingredients like herb, vegetables, fish, poultry, pork and beef. Since Laos has no sea border, sea-food is very hard to find and have to import from neighbouring countries like Thailand and Vietnam.
Watch Video below about taste of Lao food!
Popular Lao food are lap and tam mak hung. Lap is cooked using minced meat, fish, poultry or duck mixed with lime juice, salt, fish sauce, chilli, onion, mint and grilled rice powder. The meats used in lap are sometime cooked, half-cooked or raw. This is depend on the customer who order it. If this is your first time to order lap make sure to let the chef know you need well cooked lap.
While tam mak hung is a spicy salad made from a sliced green papaya mixed with salt, sugar, chilli, garlic, lime juice, fish sauce and ground peatnut is often eaten with grilled chicken and sticky rice. If you do not like hot and spicy tam mak hung just let the chef disgard chilli and spicy hot stuff.
There are many others popular lao food available for you to order and enjoy. Please make sure you refer to the restaurant menu when you are at lao cuisine. Vietnamese noodle known as pho is also very popular and you can find this restaurant in Vientiane and in major city in Laos.