Kung's Cafe Lao — Restaurant in Vientiane Capital

I must have visited this restaurant on a bad day. First off, they seemed understaffed. When I arrived, tables were still covered in dishes of people who had already left. Most of the clients were tourists, but there was only one server who spoke English. The other one did not even attempt to take anyone's order. I seated myself and was brought a menu. After looking at the menu and waiting for 10 minutes for someone to come, I got up to place my order myself. This would have been OK had I not previously tried to get the attention of the server who did not speak English, who came back and forth to drop off dishes but ignored my raised hand. Then I waited for 30 minutes, and my fried noodles and orange juice still hadn't arrived. Then I noticed that people who sat down after me were getting their orders. I got up to ask about my order, which they seem to have forgotten about. I got my orange juice soon after, which was fresh and delicious. I waited again for another 30 minutes. I got up a second time to ask about my food because yet another table that had arrived after me got their food before me (and they had also ordered fried noodles). Ten minutes later, I had my vegetarian noodles, which were, in my opinion, just decent. As I got up to pay, the server who spoke English apologized for how late the food had arrived. To her credit, she was friendly and just seemed very busy. However, I do not think I would recommend others to come here based on my wait time alone (and the fact that they forgot...

We had lunch here based on the previous reviews and it didn't live up to our expectations. It was difficult to find as our experienced driver had never heard of it. The laneway you walk down to access the cafe is lovely and it's the first place I have encountered in Laos with authentic traditional buildings.

The cafe is small with small tables and has a lovely feel to it. It seemed to be frequented by ex-pat NGO people.

The food was cheap but interesting. Maybe we chose poor dishes but I have had much better at market stalls. My phat Lao was a stcky mess of noodle and the other dishes were equally ordinary.

I had the much praised sticky rice mango pancake. It wasn't at all light and fluffy but a heavy thick pancake with a couple of slices of mango.

However, I enjoyed my mango lassi

The lady who served us spoke some English but in any case my Thai wife was able to converse with her. She didn't seem to be very interested in serving us and was not...

We had the iced coconut coffee and ended up ordering more. It was a creamy coffee, lightly sweet, light roast flavor, almost like a coffee smoothie.

The menu has both Asian fusion and vegetarian dishes. Some items are marked with a star as recommended dishes. I asked for the most Lao dish she had and she suggested Laab. It came with a lot of herbs that complemented the meat flavor. It felt like an authentic Laos flavorful food.

The place feels like someone’s home, with an outside patio covered with a bamboo awning with plants and gourd hanging which added a natural and relaxing charm. It’s not a fancy restaurant. Nor the dishes aim to be sophisticated. But it’s a flavorful food prepared with kindness.

To find this place walk down the alleyway until the end where you’ll find the green wall of...