Food and drink in Vientiane, Laos
Vientiane has a great variety of food on offer. Local stalls sell barbecued pork, chicken and duck, sometimes goat, beef (or buffalo); countless roadside stalls and restaurants serve bowls of different varieties of steaming noodles with meat, and other local delicacies are seen everywhere. Food from other ethnic kitchens is in abundance: Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, French and Italian cuisine are found in the cities.
Leading city hotels and better Lao food restaurants such as Kualao in Vientiane serve a variety of local and Asian regional dishes, many of which appeal to Western palates, as well as European food. Meat may be locally produced, but more expensive establishments use produce imported from Thailand or further afield such as Australia, New Zealand and the USA.
Recommended foreign-run restaurants in central Vientiane include the excellent French Le Central; also Caves des Châteaux, Italian L'Opera, Kop Chai Deur (international menu), Joma and Scandinavian Bakeries. These are all within walking distance or near Nam Phou (Fountain) Square and two blocks from the Mekong River. The Lao Plaza Hotel offers buffets and à la carte dining and overlooking it across Samsenthai Road is Rashmi's Indian Fusion restaurant which has an excellent menu and tasty food.
For a more local and probably cheaper experience, there are many bars and restaurants stretching along the riverside; a couple offer dinner cruises on the Mekong River itself, where you can relax with a beer and eat Lao/Thai style dishes, after watching the sun go down over Nongkhai and Thailand – less than a mile away. The Bor Pen Yang Bar and restaurant is popular among expats and tourists, with elevated views over the river and an ATM outside. See our Lao Banks page for ATM locations and exchange rates for Laos.
Due to its former colonial background, Vientiane has always had a reputation for its good French restaurants, and this legacy has survived (see above). There are also many mostly inexpensive and often excellent eateries of almost every culinary variety except fast food franchises. No McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and no Starbucks or other international food outlets operate in the Lao PDR so far. A good or a bad thing, depending on your point of view!
Worthy of mention and also near Nam Phou is Joma Bakery & Restaurant with two other branches in Vientiane and one in Luang Prabang. Here you will find excellent home-made bread, snacks and salads, cakes, savoury food and decent coffee, and WiFi for your laptop too. Next door to the main branch is the compact and recently totally renovated Pimphone Market now with deli area and a wide range of western (also Japanese) foodstuffs plus cold meats, fresh milk, butter and cheese, imported delicacies and grocery and kitchen products.
Smaller convenience stores called 'mini-marts' are dotted around the tourist and foreign residential areas of Vientiane. These are where you're likely to find many things not used by many Lao shoppers, such as fresh milk (local or Thai), bacon, cold meats and sliced bread (crisp, fresh baguettes are easy to find though), and imported condiments and sauces etc. Some of these things are pricey but you have to consider the limited demand and the cost of import. French or Californian wine is quite cheap, however, and prices sometimes lower than the Duty Free shops at the Friendship Bridge. While these are primarily for travellers to Thailand, anyone in Laos can purchase from them without leaving the country, making 'duty free' something of a misnomer!
Apart from traditional Lao eating places, there are Thai, ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese and Korean eating houses catering to the many residents of those groups that make up the diverse population of Vientiane. There are also restaurants serving Japanese, Indian, French, Italian, Scandinavian, and other nations' dishes, tucked away in corners somewhere. Tourist and Western food restaurants in Laos have fast food like sandwiches, burgers and pizza; French fries are common and served in many pubs and places where young Lao people drink too. Excellent bread from local bakeries is available everywhere, a legacy from the days of French rule. Oven-fresh baguettes and sandwiches made from them are eaten daily by Lao people as well as tourists. Fresh fruit and juices are in abundance too, as are all common (and uncommon) vegetables and salads. European bread, baked products and other light meals are available from Scandinavian Bakery and Joma Cafe (several branches in the city).
Lao traditional food
Much of the food seen around Vientiane is similar to Isaan (North East
Thailand) food across the Mekong River. This is not surprising, as the
people originate from the same ethnic communities. Sticky (glutinous) rice,
many styles of noodle, including 'lao spaghetti' and ordinary boiled or
fried rice, together with fresh leaf plants and herbs like mint, coriander,
basil and parsley usually accompany dishes, as well as sometimes pungent,
very spicy or bitter sauces are used as dips for the hand-fashioned balls of
sticky rice.
All parts of an animal are edible to the Lao; chicken, duck, goose, pork, beef, buffalo and goat are eaten cooked, or sometimes marinated and eaten raw, and prepared in a variety of ways – barbecued on a charcoal grill, fried in oil, or boiled in stock to form a soup.
Vegetables and fruit abound, and there is a plethora of green or brown leafy plants, many looking like garden clippings of grass and weeds to the uninitiated, and some extremely bitter to the taste. Root vegetables, bulbs, herbs and spices, including hot chillies and garlic, are almost essential ingredients, as the Lao palate prefers hot and sour! However, there are mild and sweet dishes too, probably from the Chinese and Vietnamese influence.
A warning – many offerings from roadside restaurants, food stalls and traditional village homes, although in many cases tempting, should be treated with caution, and some avoided altogether. Some very strange and unpleasant smells and tastes can emanate from these dishes, and cleanliness of preparation and serving utensils is questionable! This becomes less important after one has settled in, and develops immunity to local bugs and bacteria, but an upset stomach is a common occurrence among both locals and foreigners. Usually fixed with Imodium or an equivalent, available at the numerous pharmacies, it can still be uncomfortable and debilitating.
Beverages and Drinks
Water
from the mains is not recommended for drinking unless previously boiled.
Most urban Lao drink and cook with bottled water, usually delivered to
houses, restaurants and shops in 20 litre (5 gal) plastic bottles costing
5000 kip (50 cents US). Half and one litre bottles are available cheaply
everywhere, the most popular brand being Tiger Head from the BeerLao
factory.
Freshly
made fruit juices and bottled sodas are sold in most populated areas. Most
popular is the locally produced Pepsi Cola, which has a history in Laos dating back to 1968 when a
'Pepsi bottling plant' was set up in Vietnam War days with the assistance of
US President Richard
Nixon. It was apparently a CIA-run clandestine heroin production facility. Not a single bottle of cola was
produced until 1985! Pepsi production was
eventually begun by the
Lao Soft Drink Co.
Ltd.
now
partly-owned by the Thai Loxley Group. It produces Pepsi, 7Up and Mirinda, as well as plain soda water. The Pepsi
factory is near the sizeable Beerlao complex on Thadeua Road,
between the Friendship Bridge and Vientiane.
Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Diet Coke, M-150 (the most popular Thai energy booster), soy milk and other beverages are sold in stores and restaurants, but are all imported from Thailand, along with many other Thai food and other products.
Alcoholic drinks: beer, wine and spirits in Lao
Spirits, locally made and imported, and wines (French being the most popular for historical reasons), are sold quite cheaply in shops, and at higher prices in hotels and restaurants of course. Magnums of sweet Chinese sparkling wine are popular for celebrations. Due to an extremely low (if any) liquor tax or excise duty, alcohol costs considerably less in Lao than Thailand, and is much more readily available. It seems the government is intent on maintaining its control by keeping the local population, as well as visitors, happy with cheap alcoholic drinks, and it appears to work very well!
Excluding
water, the
most popular drink in Lao by far is Beerlao. The Lao
Brewery Company Ltd. is a joint venture between the Lao Government
and Danish brewers Carlsberg, one of the world's largest. The beer
and bottled drinking water producer is arguably the most successful business
in the whole country! A much bigger
second factory will open in the southern Lao city of Champassack,
to cope with increasing consumption and export potential.
Lao beer is already exported to eight
countries in the local region, the
Although
it's also sold in
33cl cans
and bottles, the 640cl 'pint' bottle is by far the most popular. It seems everybody, young
or old (there are no licensing laws), drinks Beerlao in copious quantities.
Locals take it home in yellow crates of 12 bottles,
seen stacked at local stores throughout the country.
Beerlao
has a clean, crisp flavour and is affordable by almost everyone.
Typically a large BeerLao costs 6,000 kip
(65 US cents) to take home singly or by the crate, and 7-10,000 kip (up
to $1) in Lao
pubs and restaurants; it can be considerably more in 'farang'-type bars,
more
upmarket hotels and nightclubs where small bottles may cost $1.50. Beer Lao
is 5% alcohol and very drinkable. Almost 70 percent of the raw materials
used to
produce it are imported from
How beer and spirits are drunk traditionally in Laos
As most alcohol drinkers know, beer tastes better and is more refreshing when it's served cold. In the USA, where beer is virtually tasteless, it's chilled to almost freezing, possibly to disguise this lack of flavour! Lao beer tastes good (it's won several international awards), but due to the hot climate, it needs to be chilled. While shops, homes, pubs and restaurants have coolers or refrigerators, most can't cope with the rate of Beerlao consumption. The easy solution is to add ice to the beer. Out of habit Lao and Thai people tend to do this whether the beer is cold or not. Restaurants used to serving tourists may ask foreigners if they want ice added to their glasses. While almost unheard of outside Asia – even seen as a punishable crime by some – putting ice in beer does help reduce alcohol intake; not a bad thing when drinking beer in hot weather.
In Lao homes, beer shops and restaurants outside the main towns, Lao people traditionally drink from a shared glass. There is a 'ritual' where a 'pourer' chooses how to much to fill the glass and must drink first by saying 'sanur deur!' (me first), then emptying it. Then he or she refills the glass to the same level and hands it to the next person, followed by each one of the group.
Two or more glasses may be used for larger gatherings, so the time between drinks is not too long! After a 'round', someone else acts as pourer and the ritual continues until there is no more beer. Before that happens, someone usually gathers up some 'empties' and gets more from a nearby shop (rarely more than a few hundred yards away).
The glass may be rinsed occasionally but the idea of sharing a single glass seems strange and unhygienic to those who have never experienced drinking this way. Nevertheless as the alcohol starts taking its effect (as it will), reservations and inhibitions are soon forgotten. Drinking with Lao people is usually a lot of fun and provides amusing and quite intimate interaction between people, with both eye and hand (not to mention lip) contact 'by proxy' on the glass itself! A foreigner is almost always asked if he or she is comfortable drinking beer like this, and a separate glass can be requested or be offered, without shyness or embarrassment on either side.
Popular more with village and country folk is a clear spirit called lao kao costing just 5000 kip (US$0.55) for a big bottle. At 40% alcohol (some brands are 50%) lao khao is a very cheap way to get drunk quickly, but it's not a very pleasant one as the taste is quite raw. Sometimes it's decanted into a larger container and herbs and other things added for health (and possibly taste) reasons. Lau kau is always taken neat, and poured using a shared jigger with the same ritual described above.
Getting drunk or mao in Lao on lau kau can be fun! But if you're drinking with the locals, beware their hospitality and the after-effects of having too many shots! Here's an effective 'hangover cure', but available anywhere. It's actually a prevention rather than cure which allows you to drink as much as you want without suffering the next day! What could be better than that? Get a free trial, stock up before you leave home or you can get it sent to you overseas cheaply too.
Learn more about
Vientiane nightlife, entertainment and
sex
in the Lao capital. You can have a good time when you know where to
go!
Serenity on the Lao side of the Mekong River and sunset over Thailand.
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