On our first night in the city we were a little tired from the long day of travel and climbing up and down river banks at every stop so we opted for dinner at Tamnack Lao, a very reliable restaurant no more than a 5-minute walk from the hotel. We ordered Luang Prabang Salad, morning glory salad, crispy spring rolls and got our first basket of the trip of the ever present Lao version of sticky rice. It was just what we wanted.

About a week later after we had changed hotels to Villa Santi we went back to Tamnack Lao for dinner. While Chitdara 2, where we spent the first 5-nights in Luang Prabang, is a 3-block walk, Tamnack Lao is right across the street from the Villa Santi front entrance on Sakkaline Rd.

On the second visit we ordered Luang Prabang pork sausage, Crispy vegetarian spring rolls, Luang Prabang salad and sticky rice. It was a good thing I didn’t order Luang Prabang pork sausage earlier in the stay as I would have had to have it at every meal!

On our first full day in LP breakfast was on the patio overlooking the Mekong River at Chitdara 2. It’s such a nice way to start a day. After a massage and a little shopping we had a lunch of Pesto Chicken Panini and a shared apple tart at Saffron followed by an afternoon nap made for a perfect first day.

We’ve reviewed Saffron and Tamnack Lao several times on previous visits so we won’t go into it in great detail on this page but if you’re interested on more information have a look at our Luang Prabang Restaurants 2016 page.

That night we had reservations at Paste, located at the Apsara Hotel on the banks of the Nam Khan River. This was our favorite new restaurant of this trip and a wonderful addition to the local food scene. It is the first branch location added by Chef Bee Satongun after her Paste Bangkok restaurant earned its first Michelin Star and our experience was the kitchen and wait staff were all trying hard to maintain that standard.

Given the reputation, we were surprised there were so few diners eating there when arrived but we enjoyed very attentive service and amazing food.

There is an A La Carte Menu but for a first visit, we selected one of the Tasting Menus and were glad we did. Before our meal we were served an excellent gin & tonic, which was followed by a delightful amuse-bouche, Luang Prabang Salad, Lao Sausage & crispy rice balls and the signature dish of the Bangkok location, Smokey Crab Curry. Dessert was Gold Leaf Cheese cake.

The presentation of each dish was exceptional; it looked as good as it tasted. If you click on this photo, it is set up as a slide show of the many different items we enjoyed from the various different tasting menus over meals on 2-nights.

IMHO, everything was really good to excellent but probably the least successful dish was the Crab Curry. Not that it was bad but it seemed to me the more locally (Luang Prabang) inspired dishes were simply better and perhaps the Crab Curry was on the menu because it was so popular in Bangkok.

As you might expect, the cost for a meal at Paste was high compared to most restaurants in LPG but certainly reasonable for such a truly great meal. We were so impressed that we made reservations for our last night in the city before we left. We ordered a different Tasting Menu set on our second visit but had an equally great meal. No doubt about it; we’ll be dining at Paste on our next visit to Luang Prabang and likely at Paste Bangkok on our next trip there.

Dinner the next night at Green Bamboo was OK but we were disappointed they did not have a couple of the dishes we had enjoyed so much on a previous visit.

The following night we returned to our old reliable favorite Tamarind for another great meal. As best I can recall, this is the only restaurant that we’ve eaten in on each of our 7 trips to Luang Prabang.

We enjoyed Stuffed (pork) lemongrass, a dipping plate with smoked eggplant & mango jam, a Miang Kham platter with killer garlic & tamarind sauces, Pumpkin & ginger soup and a delicious sticky rice with coconut milk, coconut shavings & fruit for dessert. Lots of other reviews of Tamarind from different trips are available on the website if you’re interested.

On a couple afternoons, I grabbed the free shuttle from the in-town OPT Heritage Shop out to the OPT Crafts Centre for lunch with M.A. at Silk Road Café, located at the Centre on a covered patio overlooking the river.

The most memorable of those meals was excellent duck crepes (which could have passed as tacos if listed that way on the menu) and golden veggie samosas for lunch.

On one of our last full days in the city, we accepted an offer from Mr. Vong to take a drive out to the countryside and after a full morning that first took us north of the city center and then to the south, we eventually found ourselves almost all the way to Kuang Si Waterfall to the excellent Carpe Diem restaurant.

It’s a long ride from town but once there, diners are treated to a beautiful setting with decks and tables extended out over a stream with waterfalls in every direction.

Both International and Lao dishes are served and while the Lao portion of the menu reads the same as a typical local restaurant it is prepared and presented with a refined technique and with service that runs like a fine Swiss watch (as one would expect from a Swiss owned establishment such as this.)

We shared an excellent meal of stuffed lemon grass (shown in the photo below left), a (moderately) mild papaya salad, chicken larb and Lao Beer.

On our two mornings at Villa Santi we enjoyed the very nice breakfast with a view from the balcony overlooking the main street. It presents a different perspective than overlooking the Mekong at Chitdara 2 but we enjoyed watching the city street awake and the morning noodle soup venders heating up their stocks.

Before our trip we had been looking forward to having drinks at the Icon Klub, our favorite bar in the entire world! Owner Lisa is an expert mixologist and has created a friendly atmosphere where strangers from around the world share tales of travel and seem to become friends very quickly.

The bar banter at Icon Klub has kind of a funny dynamic. Most everyone is trying to be casual and cool while also trying their best to mingle. For the most part nobody knows anybody else outside their own party so there is a new audience for their best travel story and on occasion a wee bit of the travel one-upmanship game might work its way into the conversation. Of course, there aren’t too many places in the World better than a friendly bar in Luang Prabang, Lao for meeting travelers with interesting stories.

So we had high expectations when we turned the corner at Sakkaline Rd on our second night in the city but we found a note on the door explaining that Lisa was in Cambodia running a marathon from Angkor Wat to Siem Reap and the bar was closed till she returned in couple days.

So on the night of her return, we had a plan: dinner at Café Toui followed by drinks directly across the narrow street at Icon Klub.

The bar was crowded when we arrived but we were warmly greeted and treated to an excellent slightly dirty Hendrick’s Gin martini and a Russian Standard Vodka Tonic…or two. We walked back to the hotel with smiles on our faces.

A couple nights later we were back at Ikon again for after dinner cocktails. When we walked in we found pretty much the same crowd as on our previous visit but everyone was on a different stool/chair. There was an interesting ebb and flow to the crowd; one group would leave and almost immediately another group would show. On this night there were some especially bad jokes from the peanut gallery.

Not that it was a big deal but the next day we started our journey back to the U.S. with a flight to Bangkok.  On that flight was a guy who we had seen and talked to on both nights we had been at Icon where he had been friendly and engaging but when we stopped to say a brief hello onboard the flight, (now sitting next to his wife) he seemed a little nervous and acted like he had never seen us before.  It made me wonder if perhaps she was unaware that he had been hanging out in bars?