Vientiane Restaurants

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The Heuankeo Restaurant is a hidden gem in Vientiane! The chef is passionate about her cooking and taking care of her customers. The food is soo...yummy, tasty and authentic!!! They serve a fair spread of local Laotion dishes along with some Thai & Chinese dishes. There is also a noodle station/bar and a desert station. All this for one low set price and all you can eat too!

This place has been open for over 10 years and serves primarily lunch and dinner buffet style. The people are all very friendly. The restaurant is very clean and air conditioned....a very nice luxury to dine in from the heat of the day. The restrooms are also spic and span.

We were here back in '99 and it was quite busy then but the owner tells us they mostly do large catering events and hosts parties in their restaurant. Limited English but you are able to communicate when they have English speaking customers, friends, or family who often stop by for a quick bite to eat. You don't really need to communicate though, just smile and enjoy the buffet spread!

Favorite Dish: Larb! Laotion food is all about the Larbs and this place has all varieties of them...beef, fish, chicken, & turkey. You haven't eatin Lao food unless you've had the sticky rice and Larb.

The fruit and desert station is refreshing after a hot day in the sun.

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This restaurant is a garden restaurant on a small side street. It has waiters dressed in uniforms, and it seems a little more up scale than some of the others. Service is good as is the food.

Favorite Dish: I had several things here, all of them good. The Lao salad with it's chopped spices is truly great for us spice lovers. I also had fish cooked in a banana leaf, also delicious.

Throw in a Beer Lao and you can have a great meal here. It is just a little more expensive than most.

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The Restaurant is across the street from the Best Western hotel. It is a garden restaurant, meaning you eat outside. It doesn't look like much of a place, but these places have the best unpretentious food at reasonable prices.

Favorite Dish: I got the Thai style green curry with chicken. The curry was a deep green and it was full of local spices, basil and apple eggplants. It was much more delicious than the Thai versions I hd in previous days. The others tended to have a lot of coconut milk, maybe too much.

The second thing I like is the Beer Lao, delicious beer!

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There are many restos around the hotels and main tourist district but if you want to eat cheap (but are not so picky about you eat) which locals also patronize, then just head to the Talat Sao mall , go to the top/third floor where the fast food outlets are. You could get a big, hot bowl of noodles with broth and pork slices which is very filling and costs only 15,000 kip or about $ 1.90.

Also available are pasta, sandwiches, fried chicken, and other exotic stuff like kidneys, intestines, liver (of what animal, I don't know!).

Everytime we go on holiday, one of the first things I Google is to see if the cities or towns have a Mexican restaurant, as we love Mexican food. I think the only country that did not have any Mexican restaurants was Burma.

Alexia did a fair attempt at it. The usual nachos, chilli con carne & chimichangas, all ok.

The young waiter did a good job as he appeared to take orders, serve food, work behind the bar & clean up, all with a big smile.

Tried the 'Laos Discovery Set' which takes you through various courses of typical Lao dishes (fish hot & sour soup, papaya salad, laap, sticky rice etc) including a glass of Lao Lao (rocket fuel).

Also offers other Asian food along with steaks, burgers etc.

Lao food is very tasty, provided it is done with the right ingredients. This relatively modest resto has been recommended to us by the taxi driver, and he definitely gave us a good tip. I had Lao Fish Salad at at LAP 40'000 (superb), Yom Yoh at 50'000 and Stir-fried Vermicelli at 30'000. A pity that we could not manage more.

This small, simple Indian restaurant is located just south of the National Culture Hall and has Indian food at good prices. It's meant to be the best Indian in Vientiane, according to Lonely Planet but the sauce wasn't like an Indian curry sauce and was way too runny and not thick but the naan bread and poppadums were fine.