Foto Friday # 83

Snake Rice Wine for sale in Luang Prabang, Laos. We were told it cures all ailments. I'm sure.

Foto Friday # 57

Sticky rice and grilled sausage in Luang Prabang, Laos. A simple but very tasty lunch.

Foto Friday # 34

For some reason I am now craving one of these babies. I'm on the first flight to Luang Prabang this afternoon.

Street Food Part 3 - Luang Prabang Night Market

Street food in Laos is not that good. Mainly it consists of noodle soups, baguettes, grilled chicken or fish. This really does not happen in every town. Mainly just in the larger towns and cities. If you can call any place in Laos a city. 

In Luang Prabang there is a nightly market, mainly for the tourists. They block off a whole road in front of the old Royal Palace. Stalls are set up filled with locally made handicrafts. You have to walk a good 10 or 15 minutes through this before you get to the food. But at least you will have worked up an appetite. 

My memories from my first trip to Laos, 10 years ago are filled with my daily fix of baguette filled with paté in Vientiane from a small Vietnamese shop. The bread was fresh and as good as you would find in Paris, Laos pate, not the same you find in France but a good substitute, this was sliced and placed inside along with some other forms of luncheon meat. Sometimes they used to give me a piece of cheese, sometimes not. Some salad leaves, some thinly sliced cabbage and a good splattering of chilli sauce. Cut in half and wrapped in newspaper tied with an elastic band. They were delicious. 

Thankfully you can still get them in Laos, but in Luang Prabang they are slightly different now. Gone is the paté. In is sliced grilled chicken, all the other stars are there, especially the chilli sauce. Fantastic. Also had my fix of caffeine at the same time, as the stalls were next to eachother. Lina opted for an oreo biscuit milkshake. Very very rich. Breakfast was sorted that way everyday. 

But as I said it was at night that it all came to life. Most people simply walked passed the alley not even knowing anything was there. Only if you looked and looked again would you notice further down the alley a small collection of stalls selling everything from bar-b-q'd chicken, pork, fish, sticky rice, deserts, stews, Lao salads and even a vegetarian stall. (Which had the worst food there, over cooked soggy veg .. YUCK)

The times we ate there, we always had some grilled fish, plucked straight from the Mekong, gutted, cleaned, smeared in a spice mixture, strapped between two wooden sticks and plonked over some hot coals. The skin was crispy and the flesh still moist. No idea what fish it was, but it had few bones, thankfully, as those little buggers have caused a few near death experiences between me and Lina. We are also getting very good now at eating fish with chopstix. 

We also had a nice juicy piece of crispy skinned pork along with a lovely spicy sausage. Both went down well with some sticky rice and a local chilli paste and a cold bottle or two of Lao beer. We were tempted to have a whole chicken and the pigs head nearly made it onto our plates also, but there are only so many times a day I can eat without exploding.

But this just gives me an excuse to return, as if I really needed one.

Sticky Rice

Sticky rice for me is Laos. Whenever I see it or read it on a menu, I am always transported back to Laos. Kao Neaw was the first and really the only Laos word I know. The first time I went to Laos, I must of had it at least twice a day for a month. This time I limited myself to just once a day. Sometimes. 

It's actually quite a complicated and time consuming rice to cook. First it has to be soaked over night. The the next day it is washed several times to remove any grit or unwanted bits. It is then steamed in a conical type bamboo pot over boiling water for at least an hour. After this it is turned out onto a clean surface and kneaded with a wooden paddle. This, I was told results in the rice balls that will stick to eachother but not to your fingers. Ingenious. It is stored in a bamboo basket until ready to eat. This keeps it sticky but dry, not wet and gummy. 

In restaurants we get it in a small bamboo basket with a lid. You take a small amount and roll it into a ball with your right hand. You then dip into the sauce on your plate or break off a piece of meat or fish and eat then together. It really is heaven. In fact I am sure I have never had normal white rice in Laos. There is no need. The Laotians are quite superstitious, as when you have finished eating the rice, you have to put the lid back on. This ensures a good harvest for the following year. 

It is really quite funny to watch people who have never eaten sticky rice before try and eat it with chopstix or a fork. The Laos who work in restaurants must keep their whole house awake at night telling the stories of the Farang eating sticky rice with chopstix. Badly as well. I saw it so many times and it is really funny. 

Without sticky rice Laos would fall apart. I have seen everyone from young to old munching on it at varies times of the day. Everyone seems to have a small bag of it, either with some dip or meat or just  on its own. But everyone is eating it. In bus stations you get women selling bamboo tubes full of dyed sticky rice with coconut. It's a great sweet. Really delsih...... 

Plus it is what they make Lao Lao from. The sometimes good, sometimes bad rice whisky. Which I have seen people drink at all times of the day. 

In Luang Prabang I saw hundreds of little rice cakes drying on bamboo slats outside houses. Strangely I never actually saw how these were eaten. 

It's going to be weird to start eating normal white rice again. At least in Northern Thailand I can still get my fix. 

Tamarind

We ate at Tamarind twice, but, the competition in Luang Prabang for traditional Laos food is not that good, well apart from a small street near the night market, where quite a few stalls set up at night to tempt you with grilled fish, chicken and Laap salad. More on that later. 

It's located down a quiet street opposite a Wat, which in the late afternoon you can hear the monks chanting their prayers. The restaurant is only open from 11am till 6pm everyday, but the week we were there they were closing much earlier as the owners were away. Which was disappointing as I wanted to attend the cooking class there, as I had heard it was very good and very hands on. 

What they serve is not really full meals but more of a Laos Brunch. More than a snack but less than a meal. The menu tells the story of all the players in the restaurant, and gives a run down on traditional Laos food. Plus highlights some local charities and exhibitions by local artists. It's quite a read.

As it wasn't going to be our main meal of the day, but more of a light lunch. We opted for two sharing plates, so we could get a wider taste of Laos food. Both came with sticky rice, which seems to be eaten by all Laotians anytime of the day, and is my favourite form of rice. 

The first one was more of a dipping plate. It consisted of a tomato and chilli dip, coriander dip, an aubergine dip (which really reminded me of baba ganoush), a fish and chilli dip and a sheet of dried river weed, which was coated in sesame seeds. It ate better than it sounds. 

The second plate had more substantial foods like local Luang Prabang sausage and dried buffalo meat, some rolled cabbage with a sauce inside, some lightly cooked greens and some shredded chicken and beansprouts. 

Both plates were presented very well and were excellent eating. The dips were spicy enough and went well with the sausage. The buffalo meat was divine. I could of eaten that all day. The greens I could of left but were pretty good. The drinks were heaven also. Lemongrass and ginger juice. Very refreshing. 

All in all we spent two pleasant afternoons in Tamarind. 

If you get the chance and do the cooking course, send me an email and let me know how it is. Gutted that i missed it. Next time.