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These notes were made during a short trip to Laos. These are just our food experiences and you may have a totally different experience depending on your budget, where you travel and where you eat.

Roasted frogs on a stickNotes made January 2006

Laon food is similar to the food in Thailand but with fewer spices. It does have a little more variety than Cambodia though.

A spoon and fork are used to eat most meals, except chopsticks with noodle soup. However they are not used in the conventional western manner, but the spoon is used for putting food in the mouth while the fork is used for cutting and shoveling.

Fermented fish sauce – is made from fermenting all kinds of fish and prawns/shrimp, to get a dark sauce that smells very strong and can be offensive, and is used in all manner of foods and cooking.

Often MSG will be on the table, like salt, to add to your meal as desired. It even looks like salt!

Salted Mekong FishStaples

The staples in the area are rice and noodles.

fruit and vegetable marketFruit and Vegetables

Fruit is plentiful, with the full range of tropical types; banana, pineapple, mango (often eaten green), jackfruit, durian, dragon fruit (pink skin with white flesh and black seeds throughout), lime, rambutans, lychee, watermelon, star fruit, mandarin, choko, longan (smaller and less fragrant than a lychee), guava (also eaten green more than ripe) and mangosteen. They have lots of pomelos, which are gigantic grapefruit around 20cm in diameter with skin about an inch thick. Fresh fruit shakes can be ordered on street corners, mixed up in a blender with ice, and sometimes sweetened condensed milk. Delicious on a sticky hot day!

There are limited vegetables, mostly green leafy types, carrot, string beans, tomato, cucumber and lettuce.

Laon Laap dishBreakfast

Typically noodle soup is eaten for breakfast. Another popular dish is rice with barbecued meat.

Crusty baguettes can be found all over the region – the French influence especially in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. This is a great breakfast alternative if your not a fan of noodle soup!

Signature dishes

Kai pen – crispy sheets of Mekong river weedSnacks

Collecting river weedOther foods

Dessert

Coconut cake – very moist and very sweet cake made from coconut

Drinks

 

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