How do you like Asian food? I love Malaysian aromatic Nasi Lemak, colorful Ice Kacang, healthy Popiah, yummilicious grilled seafood, irresistible Bak Kut Teh, and another 62 unbeatable specialties that I will list them down next time. I also love Balinese sumptuous Rijsttafel, very crispy crispy duck, distinctive Babi Guling (roasted pig) and utterly flaming hot chili padi.

I love Thai super spicy and sour Tom Yam soup, lovely Khao Niao Mamuang (Thai mango with glutinous rice), Thot Man (fried fishcake), Thai Tofu with special sauce, green curry, and many more.

My stomach is growling now.

I also love Singaporean… Singaporean… errmm… ok forget it.

So how should I describe Lao food. Lao food… hmm… the problem that I have with Lao food is that they do not have their own distinctive specialty. When I say Malaysia, you think of Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai and Bak Kut Teh. When I say Bali, Babi Guling flashes into your mind. When I say Thailand, you start drooling with Tom Yam Khung in your head. When I say Singapore, you are confused. That’s how I feel, confused. It looks like Lao food is the combination of Asian food and yet, non of the dishes really stand out to captivate me. But one thing to highlight is they love vegetable. All dishes are served with lot of greens, which I love very much. (Remember, I’m a goat, going to marry a horse :-p)

Now feast your eyes on the photos, enough to keep you busy.

The most common food in Laos has to be baguette. You can find it at almost every corner of the streets. But nothing to shout about, it’s just a normal sandwich.

One of my favourites, Lap ~ a spicy mixture of marinated meat and/or fish that is sometimes raw with a variable combination of herbs, greens and spices. The dish tastes awesome especially eaten with chili.

Lap also. You can see how Laos love greens. I love their greens too.

Well-known papaya salad ~ if you have a fragile throat ask for it without chili, but it’s a pity. (I thought it’s Thai food)

Clear soup noodle with pork. They are never stingy in sprinkling the unions which add the fragrance to the soup. I especially love the fried pork, the skin is so crispy. Lao noodle soup is definitely nicer than Indonesian Bakso. In fact, I thought it was even nicer than Malaysian clear noodle soup.

You can find the similar food that we eat in Malaysia there. Does the food in the picture sound familiar to you?

Looks like Nian Gao 年糕 right?

We were hunting for food in the streets in Luang Prabang and were amazed by the number of stalls that sell grilled stuffs. You can find grilled fish, grilled chicken, grilled lamb, and even grilled rice. I don’t know how hygenic the food was but we definitely wouldn’t want to miss any of them. We got ourselves grilled fish and grilled chicken. They taste good but were a bit too cold for me, probably had been grilled for long. I prefer the food to be served in hot.

Does it remind you of Sate?

Almost every stall was selling the same thing. So after walking for about 10 minutes, we were not excited about the food anymore.

Until we saw this, sticky rice grilled with egg! Awesome and I love it very much! Yeah, I think this is the only dish that is unique among the Asian cuisine.

All-You-Can-Eat is not served in only restaurant, you can find it just in the street. With 5,000 kip, you can grab as much food as that you can into one plate and only one plate.

We were not interested at all, coz all dishes are just simple food like noodle and vege, a lot of vege.

Look at the HUGE bowl of porridge. We somehow lost our appetite looking at it. I can imagine the porridge must be very cold being exposed like this, not to mention about the hygiene.

Dim Sum can be found here too. We found it in the restaurant that is open by Chinese.

I bet you have eaten it here in Malaysia before. Very common pastries in Malay and Chinese hawker stalls.

Looks like Char Kuey Teow (fried Kuey Teow) right? But they fried it with lotsa peanuts which made it tastes differently in a good way.

See, I told you the food in Laos is just so similar to the common food here in Malaysia. If you’re still not convinced, continue reading.

Looks familiar?

Bingo! Roti Pisang!! It makes me wonder whether Roti Canai is originated from India or Laos.

Just right in front of Vayakorn Inn that we stayed in Vientiane, there was a lady pushing a cart with all sorts of equipment filled up the cart.

Apparently she was selling some fried stuffs. Without missing any opportunity to try out any single food possible in Laos, Don ordered a pack of them, without even knowing what they are.

Looks yummy though. And guess what? This is the food that most of the Malaysians would have eaten before.

Fried banana!! Goreng Pisang. So no surprise. It actually tastes nicer in smaller pieces.

After all these hot and spicy food, let’s get some refreshing drink to cool down.

Mandarin juice, pure mandarin juice. It was SOOO sweet that even without sugar added.

Coconut ice-cream, tastes very refreshing like Sorbet.

I asked the ice cream lady’s permission to take a picture with her and she looked like overwhelmed by my request and kept laughing. So happy and made me happy too.

Lao Beer is the best drink to spend time at night.

So how do you like Lao food? My favourite Lao food are Lap, clear noodle soup, BBQ sticky rice, Lao beer, mandarin juice and coconut ice cream. If you are looking for unusual meal in Laos, try ants eggs, grilled grasshoppers, grilled all sort of insects that you can think of. Unfortunately we didn’t see any of them in Laos, or else I would really love to try them.