What to eat in Laos: laap, sticky rice, noodle soups and markets

Sticky rice, jeow and padaek: what holds the Lao table together

Xieng Khouang's provincial tourism department sums up the Lao kitchen in one line: the staples are sticky rice, fish, buffalo, beef, pork, poultry and herbs and vegetables, either grown or gathered from the forest, freshly prepared and usually eaten with jaew, a spicy dip that comes in endless varieties. Luang Prabang menus spell it jeow.

Sticky rice is not ordinary rice cooked wet: it is a separate variety, steamed rather than boiled, and served in a bamboo basket. Purple, pink and black kinds appear seasonally at a higher price. Despite its other name, glutinous rice, it contains no gluten.

Padaek, fermented fish, is what Tamarind's menu calls the pungent Lao fish sauce; it goes into its jeow padaek dip, its chopped-fish salad and a pork stew, and can be left out on request. The same menu notes that locals have tam mak hoong, the green papaya salad, with a strong fish-sauce flavour.

Regional dishes sit on top of that base. Tourism Luang Prabang lists the old royal town's own: khao soy, a rice-noodle dish mostly eaten in northern Laos; khaiphaen, a snack of freshwater green algae; or lam, the traditional Luang Prabang stew; Luang Prabang sausage of pork; and a salad of Mekong fish. In Xieng Khouang the speciality is sindard, a hot pot in which thin slices of meat grill on a hot stone while vegetables cook in the soup around it; our Plain of Jars guide names where to eat it in Phonsavan. Noodle soups such as fer came from Chinese and Vietnamese cooking, and the baguettes sold at Luang Prabang's night market date from the French period.

• The base: sticky rice for each person, one or two jeow dips and raw or steamed vegetables.
• Then the dishes: a laap, a soup or stew, and grilled or steamed fish or meat, shared.
• The flavour to know: padaek, fermented fish, in dips, salads and stews; ask for it to be left out if it is too strong.

Laap: the dish to order first

If you order one Lao dish, make it laap (also written larb or laab). ASEAN's tourism portal calls it a spicy, aromatic minced-meat salad. Riverside Boutique Resort's restaurant in Vang Vieng gives the recipe: ground meat or fish and herbs, laced with fish sauce and lime juice and topped with a powder of dry-ground rice. Kualao's menu in Vientiane adds mint to the same outline.

The meat changes with the cook. Tamarind, a Lao restaurant on the Nam Khan in Luang Prabang, lists duck laap with banana flower (LAK 130,000), buffalo laap (LAK 140,000), with or without tripe and the bitter buffalo bile, and tofu laap (LAK 90,000), with fresh greens to wrap and fresh chillies on the side so you set the heat yourself. Simpler riverside and market restaurants charge much less for the same dish.

A common way to eat it: a pinch of sticky rice, a little laap pressed onto it, then a bite of raw herb or cucumber. On the Bolaven Plateau, Sabaidee Valley's restaurant serves a Lao-style pork laap; our Pakse and Bolaven guide plans meals there.

• Cooked or raw: Kualao serves its laap cooked; ask before ordering if you avoid raw meat.
• With it: sticky rice, a plate of raw greens and a papaya salad.
• Meat-free: tofu laap is the vegetarian version.

Luang Prabang's night market and morning markets

Luang Prabang's markets are the easiest introduction to Lao food. Tourism Luang Prabang lists the night market daily from 17:00 to about 22:00 along Sisavangvong Road, from the tourism office towards the National Museum, with a few hundred metres of road closed to traffic. The handicraft stalls take the main street; the food is in the side lanes, where the tourism office names sticky rice and grilled chicken, papaya salad, fish steamed in banana leaf and fish grilled in sea salt, with fruit blends, teas, iced coffee and French-era baguettes.

The town's daytime markets are where the cooking starts. Tourism Luang Prabang names five local markets, among them the Morning Market and Phosi Market. Tamarind runs a private tour of Phosy Market with one of its chefs (USD 60 in total for one to six people). Early risers who watch the alms round will see the markets at work: Tourism Luang Prabang advises anyone making an offering to buy the sticky rice at the local market earlier that morning.

For the evening cooking class, the set dinners and the Luang Prabang tasting lunch, use our Luang Prabang guide; it prices those meals in its four-night budget.

• Night market: the food is in the side lanes off Sisavangvong Road.
• Morning: the Morning Market and Phosi Market, best with a cook to explain what you are looking at.
• Classes and set dinners: priced in our Luang Prabang guide.

How a Lao meal is ordered and eaten

Order for the table. Lao dishes usually arrive together and are shared, with sticky rice alongside throughout the meal. For two people, a laap, a soup or stew, one grilled or steamed dish, a jeow and a basket of sticky rice each is a full dinner.

Eat with your fingers. The custom is to take a handful of sticky rice from the basket in your left hand and pinch small portions from it with your right, using them like a spoon, without licking your fingers or dipping the same ball twice. When fingers are not used, a fork and spoon are common, with the fork pushing food onto the spoon. Noodle soups come with a spoon and chopsticks for the noodles.

Set the heat. Many dishes can be made mild, medium, very spicy or Lao spicy, and fresh chillies often come on the side for those who want more; steamed and raw vegetables are there to wrap food and to cool the palate between bites.

Pay in kip. Carry small kip notes for markets and noodle shops; our first-trip guide covers money and cards. Tipping is not widespread in Laos; leaving a few thousand kip at a restaurant is appreciated when the service was good.

• Two people: three shared dishes, one jeow and two baskets of sticky rice.
• Manners: right hand for eating, no licking fingers, no double-dipping.
• Heat: ask for mild, medium or Lao spicy; fresh chillies come on the side.

Noodle breakfasts, sweets and Bolaven coffee

Start the day with noodles. Khao piak sen is the bowl to look for: ASEAN's tourism portal calls it a delicious yet straightforward regional noodle soup, and Riverside's Lao menu in Vang Vieng serves it as rice-noodle soup with chicken or pork. Few street noodle shops publish a menu or hours; look for a busy counter with a pot of broth at the front, and go in the morning. Tourism Luang Prabang also counts noodle soup among the five savoury snacks to try in town, with Luang Prabang sausage, eggplant dip with sticky rice, barbecued meat and khaiphaen.

Sweets from the street. Tourism Luang Prabang's five sweet street snacks are roasted bananas, coconut pancakes, deep-fried treats, fresh fruit and steamed sticky rice cakes. At a sit-down meal, look for khao gam, purple sticky rice with coconut, sesame and banana.

Coffee comes from the south. Sinouk Coffee Plantation is on the Paksong–Thateng road at Lak Khao village. The producer describes Arabica cultivation and a community that works and lives on the plantation, and explicitly welcomes tour groups, walk-in visitors and resort guests. The producer says the harvest season runs from October to November. On the same plateau, Sabaidee Valley's restaurant lists iced coffee Lao style, named after Paksong in Lao on its menu, at LAK 40,000. Our Pakse and Bolaven guide plans the plantation day and the waterfalls around it.

Beer. Sabaidee Valley's drinks list gives typical prices: Beerlao at LAK 21,000 a can and LAK 34,000 a bottle, with Beerlao Gold and Beerlao Dark at LAK 28,000.

• Morning: khao piak sen, rice-noodle soup with chicken or pork.
• Sweet: coconut pancakes or steamed sticky rice cakes from a stall; purple sticky rice at dinner.
• Coffee: Bolaven Arabica, best on the plateau itself.

What a meal costs

A Lao meal is priced by the dish, so the bill depends on how many plates you share. The first five prices are from the 2025 menu of Tamarind in Luang Prabang, the last two from Sabaidee Valley's November 2025 menu on the Bolaven Plateau, both read on 27 October 2026.

At those Luang Prabang prices, a dinner for two of tofu and duck laap, mok pa, a papaya salad and two baskets of sticky rice comes to LAK 445,000 before drinks. For a whole day, our trip-cost guide allows about LAK 300,000 a person at cafes, noodle shops and simple restaurants, about LAK 550,000 with sit-down meals and set dinners, and about LAK 1.1 million at the best restaurants and hotels.

• Cheapest good meal: a bowl of khao piak sen or night-market grilled chicken with sticky rice.
• Where the money goes: set dinners, tasting menus and imported wine, not the Lao staples.
• Rooms, transport and sights: in the trip-cost guide; this page prices the plates.

Meal by meal on the first-trip route

This plan follows the railway route in our first-trip guide: Luang Prabang first, then Vang Vieng and Vientiane, with the Bolaven Plateau as a separate southern extension.

• Luang Prabang: khao piak sen at a noodle counter in the morning; the Morning Market or a Phosy Market tour; laap, or lam, jeow and sticky rice at Tamarind (closed Sundays); the night-market food lanes on another evening.
• Vang Vieng: khao piak sen at lunch, or the five-dish Lao degustation ending with mango sticky rice at dinner, at Riverside Boutique Resort's Restaurant du Crabe d'Or, open to non-residents (12:00–14:00 and 18:30–22:00, last order 21:30).
• Vientiane: Kualao, in a colonial villa on the corner of the That Dam intersection, serves lunch daily 11:00–14:00 and dinner 18:00–22:00, with Lao dance in the evenings; its menu includes laap, mok pa and papaya salad. For a second evening, ASEAN's tourism portal recommends Ban Anou Night Market.
• Bolaven Plateau: Lao-style iced coffee and a laap dinner at Sabaidee Valley (daily 09:00–21:00, last order 20:30), and a walk among the coffee trees at the Sinouk plantation.

Alms, vegetarian food and allergies

The morning alms round. In Sai Bat, Lao people place sticky rice and other food they have prepared in the bowls of passing monks. Tourism Luang Prabang gives the observation times as about 05:30–06:30 from March to October and 06:00–07:00 from November to February, and asks visitors to observe in silence, to stay at least 5 metres from the monks and, if making an offering, to buy the sticky rice at the local market earlier that morning. Our Luang Prabang guide covers the rest of the etiquette.

Vegetarian and vegan. Tamarind's menu warns that some of its vegetarian dishes contain fish sauce, shrimp paste or oyster sauce, and asks strict vegetarians to say so when ordering; it also offers tofu laap, a vegan jeow sampler and a plant-based set. Name those ingredients, and padaek, when you order, not only meat.

Allergies. On Tamarind's menu, peanuts come with some papaya salads and a dipping sauce, and sesame with soop pak, the steamed greens; fish sauce and padaek turn up in more dishes than their names suggest. Say what you avoid before ordering, and say it for the whole table, since the dishes are shared.

• Alms: watch in silence from at least 5 metres; buy offering rice at the market.
• Vegetarian: say no fish sauce, no padaek, no shrimp paste and no oyster sauce.
• Allergens to name: peanuts, sesame, fish and shellfish.