Laos Pho

There's southern style pho in the capital of Laos. A stunning array of crisp snake beans, lime and herb clippings are served on the side of this ripper bowl of thread and meat, which can be ordered in small (=big), large(=huge) and jumbo(=bloody massive). The Laos concept of bowl size needs revising. The jumbo bowl was like a horse trough!

The first morning of walkabout in Vientiane and there I was hunching over a familiar foodscape. Run by a diminuitive Vietnamese women wearing what looked like a paper baker's hat and carrying a thick wad of kip, the local currency, this joint had me immediately curious. Even though I knew I should have been feeding sticky rice into the gob with my hands for breakfast like the locals do, I just had to quell the foreign pho fixation. How would Laos pho measure up?

Not bloody badly, I must say.

The operation is far from amateur. Much bigger than the average pho cave in Hanoi, all hands on this deck are on task; either assisting or portioning at the serving station, delivering the herbs and welcome drinks of iced water, clearing and wiping tables, topping up condiments or cutting up cow out back. One section is reserved for the squeezing of fresh OJ which seems to be the non-alcoholic bev of choice in these parts.

My two travelling companions and I ordered papa bear, mama bear and baby bear serves from one of the many shy but efficient waitresses on duty. Sitting ringside, we got a panoramic view of proceedings at the serving station, which was a fairly standard arrangement of prepped meat, onions, stacks of bowls, stainless steel surfaces and....the star of the show....

...this big mothership of a stockpot.

Bobbing in it are dozens of balls of dubious origin, four of which end up in each bowl, and a cloth bag which no doubt contains the secret concoction of spices, barks and roots of this Laos pho.

The restaurant's Vietnamese name is Pho Ngon and it's near the intersection of Thanon Lan Xang and Thanon Ku Vieng, just around from the Talat Sao (Morning Market). I can say with some authority that it would be ranked very highly in the Hanoi Pho Swoop rankings had it been in Hanoi. Well worth a visit.

Comments

[Helloooo]

Your photos are amazing. Always make me hungry. :) Thanks for all the food tips! :)

[Sticky]

Thanks. My little sony p93 doesn't take a bad snap, does it?

[Veron]

I absolutely love pho ! My friend and I usually sneak out sunday morning (our hubbies can't imagine having that for breakfast) and have a nice hot bowl of it...

[pholover]

holy mother of god...that is one massive stock pot. I'm just curious to what seperates Laotian pho from regular vietnamese pho. That big black thing and the floating sea coral-like objects don't look like cinnamon and anise to me...