LAOS

I don’t think I ate ANYTHING in Laos that I didn’t enjoy. The nicest surprise was the absence of oily, wet curries, and the much bigger emphasis on fresh, light, spicy salads or meat/seafood dishes; lashings of supremely fresh herbs, a huge array of vegetables, and a good variety of meats and fish.

Common dishes
Laap (Larb in Thailand): Minced chicken, pork, fish with onion, chilli, mint.
Papaya Salad – Always spicy, even when you ask for the mild version! Strips of green papaya, garlic, chili, peanuts, sugar, lime juice and more chili.
Pho – From Vietnam, that tasty broth with beef or pork, meatballs, thai basil, Sprouts, chilli – awesome for breakfast.

Sticky rice – that glutinous version served with almost every meal in Laos – be it salad, stirfry or soup. The idea is to take a couple of fingers full, roll it into a ball, and dip it into your dish to eat the two together.
My best meals in Laos:
Eggplant and fish with thai basil at Vilayvak restaurant in Vientiane – mushy and tangy and wonderful.
Breakfast Pork Pho at Kungs Café in a hidden little laneway in Vientiane.
Dried, fried beef with sesame seeds and spicy salsa at Spirit House by the Mekong River.

Where you can get it here:
YIM YAM – 12 Margaret Street Moonee Ponds   www.yimyam.com.au

A busy restaurant just off the buzzing Puckle Street, Yim Yam is an absolute gem. The highlight here is without a doubt the Yum – warm salads with bags of herbs, spices, vegies and texture.  The Goy Guy Chicken Salad is basically a laap, so a good one to try, but the stand out is the signature dish – Yum Yim Yam. Available with either Prawns or Tofu, it’s a dish full of strips of carrot, lettuce, red onion, spring onion, with toasted coconut and garlic and banana blossom. Absolute bliss.

Other good Laos staples to try include the spicy Laos sausage, Laos Beef Curry; and you can get sticky rice here. Importantly, Yim Yam offers unbelievable value for money, with most mains between $13 and $18. (Note: they have a sister restaurant in Ballarat Street Yarraville).

BURMA
Burmese cuisine is very much influenced by its closest neighbours, so you get fantastic hints of Thai, Chinese and Indian flavours. Great seafood, lots of different veggies and some rich, complex herbs and spices.

Common dishes:
Mohinga – fish based broth with onion, garlic, ginger and lemongrass
Curries – with every type of seafood and all the regular meats.
Shan noodles – either a dish on its own or in a soup. Often with pork or chicken, as well as onion, garlic, ginger, spicy peanut sauce, and served at small tea shops on even smaller tables and chairs.
Thali – Basically a buffet served in roadside restaurants, it’s a smorgasbord of rice, soup, vegetables, curries, chutneys, chillis and salads.

My best meals in Burma:
Curry at Feel Myanmar in Yangon, a curry smorgasbord where the standout was an Indian river prawn curry, with prawn that I’m pretty sure had mated with a lobster … it was huge!

Pork and Pumpkin dumplings with tamarind dipping sauce at Viewpoint Restaurant near Inle Lake
Win Restaurant in Meat Street – one of a plethora of outdoor skewer restaurants on 19th Street in Chinatown. An absolute treasure in Yangon, it’s always nice to eat street food with confidence, and this was fresh, tasty meat, seafood, vegetables and tofu. Went back on a second evening to indulge in the squid, tiger prawn and caramelized pork sausage, the marinated whole fish and the chargrilled corn.

Where you can get it here:
River Kwai Thai and Burmese Restaurant
1/1310 Centre Road Clayton South www.riverkwai.com.au

I was tipped off to this one by a listener when we talked about hidden neighbourhood gems, and that’s exactly what this one is. In a suburban strip of shops, the neon sign outside contrasts with the stylish interior and high backed, worn leather chairs. Service is friendly and efficient, and thankfully the meals are tasty too.

Their papaya salad is a particularly spicy one, we ordered the medium so if you’re sensitive to heat, I’d ask for a ‘very mild’! If you like your seafood, you’ll be blown away by the value for money in the $28.90 seafood curry, it’s apparently a Burmese curry sauce, it’s not going to blow you away in terms of complexity but then it does mean you get to appreciate the mountains of prawns, mussels, fish, scallops, squid and the half crab in this dish.

But by far the standout is the Thoe Thar Masala Hin, a rich lamb curry with soft, slow cooked meat that falls apart in your mouth.

THAILAND
It’s pretty uncommon for an Australian not to be familiar with the flavours of Thailand, so I’ll just let you know that both in Bangkok and down on the coast, I was addicted to the Tom Yum Goong with chunks of galangal, spears of lemongrass, handfuls of coriander and nice fat prawns; and I was introduced to the wonder that is Yum Woon Sen: a warm glass noodle salad with packs of chilli, tomato, prawns, squid and minced pork.
I also did a Thai cooking class in Bangkok and highly recommend it. It was a brilliant way to spend a morning – learning, cooking and eating – and was a reminder that this style of cuisine is actually stupendously simple, even though many recipes in the west do their darndest to make it seem supremely difficult and complex.

There are Thai restaurants all over Melbourne, but certainly both Yim Yam and River Kwai offer great, varied Thai cuisine.