In each country we are trying to go to a cooking class. Culture and all that. Today was the turn of Laos.

We booked with a cooking school / restaurant called Tamarind, which was highly recommended online. First thing in the morning we took the long and arduous journey to the restaurant for our transportation (literally four buildings away).

The first stop was the local market, to understand a bit more about Laos ingredients. As you can imagine, given the proximity and movement of people and borders over the years, Laos and Thailand share quite a few flavours. We did get to see fish sauce being made (tip: you don't want to see, or smell this). It's essentially a gravy made from leftover fish bits, and this one was so thick, the large metal ladle just rested on top. Couple that with 35 degree heat, yummy!

We also got to spend time going through the butchering section. That was particularly unpleasant. The smell just hits you right in the gag reflex. For me it wasn't so much the butchering itself, just more the fact of how 'unclean' it all looked. I can't imagine all the surfaces are cleaned properly or anything. I was especially careful of where i was walking. I was wearing flip flops and didn't want mushy pigs guts in between my toes.

We also saw a stall which were selling grilled rats on sticks, she only had about four. My question was did she only have four, and sold none; or did she come with more...

So after that ordeal we headed to the cooking school. It was a little outside of LP, about 15 minutes. There were seven of us in total, 3 Singaporeans, 2 Brazilians and 2 pasty white English people. It was set outside, but under cover, with most of the cooking being done on old school coal ovens. We didn't have a menu selection this time, just 5 or so Laos staples. We cooked Chicken stuffed lemongrass (not a typo, as we assumed), Laap (mince meat salad), Black sticky rice, steamed fish, Tomato and eggplant Jeow (dipping sauce)

It was a really fun class, guy who took it was quite good. This one seemed a bit more prepping than actual cooking, but i suppose with coal fires, a little more expertise is required.

It was very nice because we cooked everything and all sat down for a feast together afterwards. Made especially nice as the Brazilian couple were on their honeymoon, so we all had champagne and shared stories of various travelling anecdotes and people we'd met along the way as we consumed our mornings work. 

We headed back and chilled until dinner. There is a highly recommended bakery in Laos (thank god for the French) which had great bread. Thailand seemed exclusively American Bread (read: sliced cake). Hannah had a spaghetti carbonara (very average) and I had a pizza (great - they had a proper stone pizza oven outside). They also had a great patisserie selection, so we shared a Tarte au citron and chocolate dome.