There’s one dish that everyone loves at Lao Village. The crunchy fried rice ($9) is everything you could want in a meal: a mountain of rice, slices of Lao-style ham, shallots, peanuts and golden shards of crispy rice bits that everyone ends up scrabbling over. Simple honest food is the order of the day – there’s nothing glamorous about Lao Village. A security flyscreen door opens onto a dining room that is bare walls, tiled floors and tissue boxes on every table. The menu runs for 31 dishes, each helpfully accompanied by a photo and nothing over $14. Som tum papaya salad is always a highlight. The Thai version ($8) is a mix of shredded green papaya, tomato wedges, dried shrimp and peanuts pounded with a dressing that balances hot, salty, sweet and sour. The Lao style version ($8) is its feistier cousin, a dark and salty concoction that uses anchovies and fermented crabs. Mop them both up with sticky rice ($2.50), served in miniature woven bamboo baskets. Get your protein fix from fatty Lao pork sauages, Lao beef jerky, barbecue ox tongue or a huge slab of barbecue liver (all $9). And don’t forget the quails ($10/$14) either, deep-fried so the skin is crisp and you can crunch down on the bones with ease.
Lao Village
Time Out says
If you can get past the crunchy fried rice, try the crisp deep-fried quails
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