Sticky rice is my favorite!

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In trying to get more insights about what differentiates the cuisine in Laos from Thai food, I hit a little goldmine of information on my first full day in Luang Prabang (solo since Courtney had left for her overnight trek). The goldmine's name was Tamarind Cafe and I found it to be so delightful and informative that I knew I had to take Courtney there when she got back.

A Laos man and Australian woman started the little restaurant and also offer family-style dinners on Friday nights and cooking lessons. The menu is really nicely done and provides a good first exposure to traditional dishes, as well as helpful cultural information about the country. The following information comes mostly from that menu, along with a few of my own observations.

Traditionally, all Laos dishes are eaten with sticky rice and therefore Laos food should be less soupy/saucy than Thai food, which is normally eaten with regular white rice. Most menus also have a choice of steamed rice or sticky rice, but at Tamarind I learned that the introduction of steamed rice comes from the influence of Thai and Chinese cuisines and is mostly restricted to more urban areas. Sticky rice is also consumed in Thailand, but often times it is a dessert thing- mango and sticky rice, etc. The people in the north of Thailand (and presumably also the northesast part that borders with Laos) consume more sticky rice, too. The best part about sticky rice is that you get to eat with your fingers! You take a clump of sticky rice and either roll it up into a ball or sort of flatten it between your thumb and fingers and then dip it into the food. It's ok to use your thumb to grab up some of that yummy stuff, too.

Laos food, just like Thai food, uses a lot of fish and seafood products (strict vegetarian nightmare) such as fish sauce, oyster sauce, shrimp paste, etc. and it also uses chile, but according to Tamarind, it is a little less spicy and the combinations are a little less complicated than Thai food. These hidden seafood products make it extremely difficult to eat at street places and make me skeptical even at restaurants with English menus (there is almost always an option under the "Vegetarian" section for mixed vegetables with OYSTER sauce. What?!), which is another reason why I appreciated Tamarind because I could be sure that the things I was sampling were absolutely vegetarian.

Anyway, my delicious meal consisted of 4 dipping sauces, sticky rice served in a pretty little cylindrical woven basket, and these Mekong riverweed chips that are flavored with garlic, tomato, and sesame seeds, and can be seen drying on big racks around town. The dips were: a cilantro green chile one, a sweet tomato one, a roasted egglplant one, and sort of pickled mustard greens. To finish it all off I had a watermelon chile granita. Delicious!! Can't get enough of that sticky rice!! My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

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Comments

[Courtney]

I was craving sticky rice the other day and finally got it! There is an Indonesian Festival going on here right now and I had some white and black sweet sticky rice...heaven!