Sing it Lao-Der

laotian food is as bright as it gets

Hi, everyone!

I had some scheduling issues last week (my uncle wanted us to play in a trivia tournament; our team took second place and won some pocket money!), so I got squashed in terms of time. Next week is a bit dicey too, only because of family commitments — but the beginning of summer always gets a little hectic for everyone. Warmer weather euphoria comes for us all.

This week’s on the free schedule, but the newsletter does need paid subscriptions to survive, so consider it if you can:

Davida picked today’s restaurant based off a recommendation from her course advisor at school. When she mentioned the name, I already knew we’d have a fondness for what was coming, because we have a tremendous love for Southeast Asian flavors. There’s just something about a style of cooking that’s heavy on the acid and fermented flavors that gives our moods a big boost. It could be our four-season Midwestern living, but I think food born of tropical weather helps whisk our imaginations to far-flung places.

That’s how we found ourselves on Elston, at Lao Der, in Irving Park.

Lao Der is Chicago’s first new(ish) sit-down Laotian restaurant in over 10 years, and it opened up last April.

Chicago’s overall Laotian food options are pretty slim. There’s also a unique Chicago-based Lao food delivery service called Laos to Your House (best name ever), but it doesn’t have a storefront. So you know Lao Der is going to be something special, especially in a neighborhood with a dearth of Southeast Asian restaurants to begin with. It’s a small place with a handful of tables, and a jumble of menus that list specials along with its core items.

Davida was curious, so we ordered the lotus juice ($5.95), but sorry, everyone, you’re out of luck — we got the very last order.

It was on limited-time special, and this subtly herbal drink is light on the sweetness with slices of starchy lotus root floating in it. The herbal notes were so hard to catch that I couldn’t perceive them, but Davida said she detected some. The menu description stated that this juice helps relieve the body of heat, which we found interesting.

The Esan sausage (oftentimes spelled “Isan” at Thai restaurants) is in the appetizer section, and it’s a very unique encased meat with a distinct tangy flavor and a slightly crumbly texture.

That’s because it’s a fermented sausage, which was likely a way for meat to be preserved without refrigeration back in the day, but now we get to reap the benefits of something that tastes vibrant. It’s served with shredded cabbage, peanuts, and a bird’s eye chile pepper, and watch that pepper — these things might be small, but they pack an incredible punch.

And if you like papaya salad, Lao Der is the place for you.

There’s three types on the menu: tum Luangphabrang, tum Vientiane, and tum Thai ($10.95 each). If those names aren’t familiar to you, don’t worry, we had no idea what we were doing, so we dove in headfirst. Pictured above is the tum Luangphabrang, and what makes this one unique is the inclusion of crab paste. Otherwise, the ingredients include wide ribbons of shaved papaya, colorful cherry tomatoes, birds eye chiles, and lime.

It’s incredibly punchy, tart, and vibrant, and that crab paste gives it a hard-to-describe deeper flavor than fish sauce alone, with a slightly darker visual tone than the other papaya salad we had (more on that momentarily). And in terms of spice, you can order all heat-containing dishes from a one to five level; we simply asked for spicy and got the perfect amount of punch, high enough to be enjoyable, but not quite to where we’d consider it blazing. Next time, I we’ll ask them to secretly kick it one notch higher. I just couldn’t get enough, and now I’m obsessed.

The nam khao ($15.95) is a rice dish with red curry paste, cubes of fermented pork, lime leaves, green onion, peanuts, coconut, cilantro, with toasted puffed rice on top, and it’s served on a bed of lettuce.

This is an interplay between crisp and crunchy textures, with strongly sour notes from again, the lime — but what you can’t see in the photo is the diced fermented pork. It’s not crumbled sausage bits, but rather cubes of meat that look more like ham. They’re very sharp, so the whole dish just runs away with that flavor. I’ve never had a dish that’s primarily composed of rice that just felt so bright, which is why I loved it.

Among the specials was this khao mun gai combo ($17.95), which came with half-poached and half-fried chicken.

You may recognize it (minus the fried chicken) as a version of Hainanese chicken rice, which uses that poached chicken liquid to make the rice. It comes with a cup of nourishing chicken broth on the side, along with two dipping sauces, sweet chili, and a fermented soybean-based one. The poached chicken thigh is humble, juicy, and tender, while the hard-fried chicken is crunchy and fun to eat. While I’m sure you’ve all had sweet chili sauce before, that fermented soybean one is hard to stop eating — it reminds me of Korean doenjang (a fermented soybean paste, with a stronger flavor than miso).

This is comfort food, something you should get if you need a hug. Or just something that’s a little gentler on the palate than some of the other dishes.

If there’s anything we’re going to always order, it’s a combo plate that encompasses a wide swath of the menu, so that’s why we got the Lao Der combo ($29.95).

This one has the Esan sausage from earlier, Lao Der jerky, sai oua Lao (another type of pork sausage), your choice of papaya salad, and a dipping bowl of tomato jaew. There’s also a few pieces of fried seaweed and a steaming hot container of sticky rice on the side. This plate is like four appetizers crammed into one, but we all know these are the best kinds of platters.

The sai oua Lao is an herby pork sausage with a tang to it. Its main seasoning components are lemongrass, galangal, lime leaves, garlic, chili powder, and onion, which adds up to satisfying bites. That jerky features crisp edges but is mainly chewy, with a lot of salt and savoriness, and the tomato jaew on the side is almost like a roasted tomato salsa with fish sauce in it. For our choice in papaya salad, we picked the tum Vientiane, which has a much more direct savory note when compared to the Luangphabrang, thanks to the heavy dose of anchovy sauce.

It’s not often Davida and I demolish meals like this, but we crushed most of what we got, and I was ready to call it.

But she’s usually the one to ask about desserts, so we ordered the the grilled bananas with salted caramel sauce ($8.95). I’ll admit, it’s definitely not a looker, but considering I hadn’t read the menu description, I was pleasantly surprised when I got that first hit of salt in that buttery coconut caramel, which tasted similar to condensed milk. The bananas weren’t terribly sweet, and they reminded me a lot of fried plantains, just without the oil.

Part of being a food writer and exploring whatever’s good (or not) means embracing things that you’re not always familiar with. I can tell you that I have much to learn about Southeast Asian food, like the subtle differences in things like papaya salads, but that’s just the joy of diving into a place like Lao Der. It’s another proudly independent place proudly serving the immigrant food of its owner; might as well dive headfirst into a bowl of tomato jaew and enjoy the culinary trip to Laos.

Lao Der
3922 N Elston Ave
Chicago, IL 60618
(872) 241-4879

Hours:
Wednesday - Thursday: 4 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Friday - Saturday: 11:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Sunday: 11:30 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Monday: 4 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.

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I know how well-informed many of you are, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of you’ve already been to Lao Der. If you’ve been, let me know if there’s anything we missed — it’ll be a good excuse to go grab it for takeout.

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Okay, everyone, I don’t think I’ll be able to do next week only because we’re showing my mom some extra love this coming weekend, but I’ll let you know if anything changes. Have a great week and enjoy some papaya salad if you can, extra spicy for me.