Dyen Sabai Restaurant — Restaurant in undefined

Beautiful candlelit ambience and fantastic Lao food

Even the walk to this restaurant is an enchanting experience. Cross a bamboo bridge glowing with lights across the Mekong (5k kip entry fee - worth it). As soon as you cross the bridge you will see Dyen Sabai glowing on the left bank.

The next thing that you will notice is incredible ambience. Each table is special from the private nooks to the traditional floor seating with lantern lighting next and enchanting views of the Mekong.

The menu features Laotian cuisine, with the star being the DIY grill (a hot coal grill placed in the center of your table with your choice of meat / fish / tofu + noodles and veggies). I opted instead for the pork and bamboo stew, which came with crispy rice cakes. The real standout for me was the appetizer sampler, which came with seaweed (it’s good, trust me) paired with buffalo skin chutney (also good, try it), crispy fried pork, buffalo sausage, and eggplant dip.

During my meal, the power went out. Short of being an inconvenience, this was a beautiful gift from nature. The staff immediately covered the restaurant with hundreds of candles, continuing service through the night albeit candlelit. The site was mesmerizing, causing me to linger for an extra beer.

Don’t skip this experience while you are in...

Setting: Beautiful location with view on the river. All tables are on different niches set on different levels. To get there, we had to cross a nicely illuminated bamboo bridge (5.000 Kip pax).

Service: The staff was very friendly and spoke very good English. Our orders were taken quickly, the food was served in the order the waiters explicitly asked us for, they kindly explained the different dishes. In the beginning we even got a wet lemongrass scented towel to clean our hands.

Food and Drinks: We went during happy hour (2 for 1) and got some tasty cocktails. To eat we had the Platter 1 (different Lao starters) and the Lao Fondue, where they put a basket of coal into a hole in the table and a big bowl filled with soup on top, where you can dip your dishes in. Very similar to Chinese hot pot. The food was nicely presented, very fresh and the flavors where distinct from what we had tried in other places so far.

Price: 4 people. Each of us had 1 beer, 1 water, 1 cocktail. We shared the platter and 2 fondues (they are for 2 people). Ended up paying 100.000 Kip per person, which is a little bit more than the other restaurants we have been to so far, but seemed very reasonable for the high quality, great service and special place.

I would definitely recommend...

I am totally shocked at tehis restaurant having made my decision from the reviews. Lets start with the view, there is non, unless you are very excited by looking through bamboo filled with mosquitos and overlooking dirty tea-towels on the line and a rubbish pit that is part burned. It would take a lot of gardening to get a view of the river. WIne quality below anything on the Mekong side but here they have managed to have a higher price for the same wine. Food just bad, bad flavors, cheap ingredients, bad use of spices, using liquid smoke rather than actual smoke, which would require skill. I tried the signature dish 70,000, for a bag of black sticky rice, a tasteless sausage, chemically flavored eggplant and deep fried river weed, tough and cold buffalo meat and bacon rind in tamarind sauce that you can buy ready made in the supermarket. Being a caterer who has chef'd in Luang Prabang and I would average the cost of my meal at about 7000 total, including staff time. Dont waste your time, eat any street food as it is so...