Goyea Deeow

Thailand had/has street food everywhere. On every street there seems to be someone with a cart full of ingrediants and a wok set over a burner blasting on ultra-high. They whip up fried-rice, pad-thai, sauteed veggies, cheaply, quickly and semi-healthaly. (They use a lot of oil. One might say too much oil.)

But here in Laos, there aren't as many street vendors (street markets aside). And in neither spot are there "Stir-friers". But. What they do have is noodle soup. They have it like it's nobody's business.

I rode around the other night on my bike looking for some stir-fried. But instead found like 10 soup places in a matter of 45 minutes.

Granted it is pretty, well, really good. Fresh noddles. Fresh greens. Roasted garlic. Good chicken broth. (I think it's usually chicken, but sometimes I'm not so sure what kind of stock it is) And some meat on top of it. Garnished with a big chunk of lime, some scallions and a bit of lemongrass stalk cut up. And then you toss in some oily chili paste, a bit of soy-sauce, sugar, maybe some fish sauce if you're really feeling Lao. Basically condiments aboud at these places.

Oh, as an aside. I had Goyea Deeow at this one spot the other day they also gave out some peanut sauce (think satay sauce) and a bowl full of raw veggies to dip in the sauce. Wholy crap talk about good. The place was in an alley and totally funky. And for some reason, even though the satay sauce came from a plastic tup sitting on the rickety bench that served as a table, it was warm...that was very peculier.

Any way.
Some places give you a pretty good handful of noodles. But I had to have three bowls after my ride today to even get close to being full. It's hard to imagine having one bowl and thinking, "Dang. I'm full up. Won't need to eat again till dinner time, six hours from now."

Even though it's really good, and I love noodles like tweens love Uggs, I just can't eat it every meal. I think once a day will suffice, and the search for cheap stir-fry will continue.