Lao’d Bar — Restaurant in Manor

Lao’d is a delicious restaurant with an identity crisis that, in spite of its many merits, ultimately leave the customer with a disorientation of expectation, which is what happened in my case. Is it fine dining or is it casual? The counter service would suggest casual, and you do need to get your water / utensils and handle garbage yourself, but when the iPad flips around, the minimum tip option is 18%. It’s not fun to be guilt-tripped into tipping that amount in a scenario with near-zero service — either set prices to where you can pay your people fairly or operate a full-service restaurant.

They have an exquisite $14 cocktail menu, but the guava margarita slush, while being an admittedly-potent potion, is enough of a quality drop to be worth well less than $12. Just a bit of Birds Eye chili or lemongrass or holy basil in there to make it less one-dimensional would have made a huge difference. It’s a super casual-looking bar with a snazzy speakeasy menu, and you can tell by how tragically dead the place is that in the process they’re not quite capturing the audience who wants cheap and tasty nor those who want a vibey romantic getaway with the exquisite bespoke creations that occupy most of the drink menu.

On to the gastronomy: the chicken larb was a slam-dunk, textbook rendition of authenticity, the toasted chilis served whole on top allowing my spice-fiend self and more-sensitive sister to both fully enjoy the dish (not to mention the comprehensive condiment bar). And thank you for not overcharging on rice to serve as its fluffy bed (a pet peeve)!

The ceviche brings us back to identity crisis territory, as it seemed to be straight out of the Uchi test kitchen. Deliciously cured inside of a coconut with precise presentation, yet the paltry portioned piscine pieces left me futilely pickaxing away at the coconut meat that could have been its saving grace were they to have liberated endocarp from endosperm or given me the tools to do so myself rather than my hopeless but thankfully compostable cutlery. Alas, my fond memories of snacking away at coconut flesh while wandering the streets of Bangkok were not to be relived (I know this is Laotian but 🤷🏻‍♂️ ). I would not have been so disappointed had it not featured its own section on the menu rather than just being listed as an appetizer. An extra couple pieces of fish would have been enough to not make this look like a frivolous waste of a coconut (which would have been at home at Uchi but not this big country shack vibe). The curry noodles were excellent flavor-wise but I couldn’t find the chicken they allegedly contained. And finally, the taro frites were an utter failure of a dish. Too sandy and wispy to eat and damn near impossible to dip into the included aioli. I don’t know how they could be so oblivious as to even allow it on the menu. I suggest either using something like egg or flour to clump the strands together before frying or eschewing the shoestring concept entirely and just making them a normal fry shape!

Overall I’d give it a 3.5 if I could. I wanted love this place since they clearly know how to cook and I don’t like the pretentiousness of fine dining save special occasions, but the little grievances did add up. This could easily be split into three incredible discrete business concepts (casual gastropub, cocktail bar, and fine dining tasting menu establishment) and the management is definitely shooting themselves in the foot by not taking a more firm stance on what they’re trying to be here. If they even just lowered prices by $2 across the board they’d be packed. I only hurt my fingers writing this much because they definitely have chops and vision, and I want them to successfully continue to bring more legit Asian...

We went to Lao'd bar for my husband's birthday after he saw it on the NYT top asian restaurants list, and it didn't disappoint! I love the vibe inside, it's fairly small but has a real family-cooking feel to it. The decor is fun, the staff were all super pleasant, and we got a (delicious) surprise birthday dessert! Ordering at the counter was a little different, but the staff were awesome and brought us our drinks even after saying that we should pick them up ourselves. My only small complaint is they were out of a lot of items; I don't know if they are still getting the hang of a brick-and-mortar place or if this is going to be the norm, but next time I'd go for lunch to make sure I get to try items I missed out on this time!

The food! We went at 7pm on a Sunday and there were a good number of menu items that were sold out, but I think we tried almost everything that was available lol! I'd love to come back and try some of the sold out items, especially the Lahbs.

Coconut Escolar Ceviche- It is on the expensive side for 5-6 pieces of fish, but it was delicious and fun to share. I poured the extra juice and onions on some rice and enjoyed every bit of it! We even snacked on some of the coconut.

Lao Sausage/Lao'd Dogg- A very unique sausage that reminds me a lot of Filipino longanisa; it is vinegary and delicious and I really enjoyed both the sausage by itself and as a hot dog (which had a lovely soft bun).

Nam Khao/Crispy Fried Rice- This one was a table favorite; flavor is on point and the crunchy bites of rice are super fun and tasty. We eat a lot of Persian tadig so this was a fun comparison!

Pork Bao Bun - This bun is chock full of tender juicy pork, definitely recommend. I find bao buns to be pretty bland, so having lots of filling is essential for me and this one hit the spot.

Waterfall Ribeye Lahb- Delicious, tender, juicy, great over white rice. The sauce was fresh and tasty, overall not super spicy but I did get some spicy bites of pepper in there. Great to share with the table.

Ribeye Steak Skewer- The ribeye was juicy and tender and I enjoyed their unique take on bbq sauce. A small snack especially if shared but I'd get it again.

Fried Chicken Wings with Caramel Fish Sauce- Super juicy chicken, some massive drumsticks included, and we really enjoyed the Carmel Fish Sauce. It is definitely salty and fishy, but with a big bite of chicken it's on point. It was great to share but might be a little overwhelming if you were eating all the wings yourself.

Surprise Birthday Dessert! The chef brought out a coconut ice with some sort of crispy cookie in it- apparently you cannot order this dessert; it's exclusively for birthday guests lol! It was super tasty, sweet and refreshing and coconutty! I'd order it again if I could, and this made up for them being sold out of mango sticky rice :(

The drinks- we tried several of the cocktails, just be aware most of them (except the ranch water) come in a short glass, several without ice. If you are looking for a cocktail that will last a little longer the options are limited.

Nam Kham - very good but it comes in a little cup with no ice so it's almost more of a sipping shot than a cocktail!

OOO-Bae frozen- very spiced, like others have said it has kind of a horchata vibe. Fun but I don't know that I would drink an entire one myself.

There is plenty of parking, and its right next to the Sign Bar so you could bar hop to another cool place if you weren't in a food coma at the end like we were. Food is a bit pricey, but we ended up spending about $65/person which isn't wild for a lot of great food and 2 drinks each.

No flies when...

I was very excited to try Lao'd Bar and went there on a Friday evening. It was not as full as I had anticipated which was great. We couldn't figure out whether to seat ourselves but were then told we could order, take our seats and order more food later. The place looks funky (not air-conditioned though I think) and I liked the openness of it.

We got our drinks, the orange blossom & kin ya yen. They were decent albeit a little over priced for a place where you have to go and get your own silverware and water.

Anyway, we ordered our food in two rounds. 1st we ordered the fried lao sausage, beef skewer & larb. It took about 10 minutes for the skewer and sausage to get there. We decided to order more food right away and ordered the garlic chicken wings, pork bao, smash burger and mango sticky rice.

The sausage was just okay, a tad salty. The skewer was tender but again, just okay.

As we were waiting for the larb, a server brought forth the mango sticky rice. We were a little confused because we weren't expecting dessert. On asking her about whether we were going to get our larb, she looked confused and asked us for all the items we were waiting on. She said she would go check and came back later saying the kitchen was backed up and they would be out shortly.

We decided to just eat our dessert and I am glad we did because that mango sticky rice was the only good thing about that evening.

After several minutes waiting, the pork bao arrived. Again, very average and I couldn't find anything remotely Laotian in flavor about it (I've had Laotian food before). We also got the wings. They were quite spicy but lacked flavor.

Anyway, in the meantime we see several tables who were seated after us receiving several plates of larb. Us, not yet. We asked the person who had taken our order to just cancel the order of larb at this point. Note, we were still waiting on the burger . After another 10 minute wait we were too tired to wait around. We asked them if our burger was coming out and got non committal answers. At this point we asked them to cancel that order too. Ironically enough one of the servers came around and asked us if we wanted to place any more orders since the kitchen was closing to which we mentioned we still didn't get the food we ordered.

A generic sorry and "we'll take the food your tab" (I mean obviously!) was all we got.

I understand that they are new. But the service was beyond underwhelming and I could have still made allowances for that had the food been any good. I found the food to be quite average and disappointing and that...