Eating grilled food at Luang Prabang night market.

Located in northern Laos, the ancient capital of Luang Prabang is remarkably peaceful. Here, one feels immersed in another world. It's not as crowded as Hanoi's Old Quarter, and even less like Saigon. Instead, it evokes a sense of a bygone era in Hoi An.

During the day, Luang Prabang is peaceful, but at night, the old town comes alive with a night market selling handicrafts and food. The food area is located at the far end of the night market, in a small alley, shrouded in gray charcoal smoke.

The barbecue stalls are rows of tables, covered with fresh, green banana leaves stained with grease from skewers of meat. Skewers of food are piled high on the tabletop.

Here are grilled snakehead fish skewers, there are grilled sea bass (or snapper) over charcoal; chicken thighs, wings, or even whole chickens are skewered or clamped with bamboo skewers, golden brown; glistening quail, and chunks of crispy pork belly lie neatly on still-green banana leaves.

The portly stall owner, wearing an apron, was grilling skewers of meat and fish over a charcoal fire, occasionally brushing them with a sizzling layer of fat. The woman asked us what we wanted to eat in broken English, then quickly pointed to the different kinds of meat and quoted prices.

A chicken leg skewer costs 30,000 kip (about 90,000 VND), the same goes for a fish skewer, smaller pieces of meat are 20,000 kip… We chose several different kinds and sat down at the tables along the road.

The owner quickly placed all the skewers of meat on the glowing charcoal grill to heat them up. Gray smoke rose as the fat dripped onto the hot coals, but a large fan blew it away, leaving only the fragrant aroma of grilled meat, tinged with the smell of the kitchen smoke.

The people of Luang Prabang eat salty food (their taste is somewhat similar to Northern Vietnamese cuisine), but they use many aromatic herbs, especially lemongrass.

A typical example is grilled fish: the fish is cleaned, gutted, stuffed with a few stalks of lemongrass, seasoned with salt and chili, and then grilled over charcoal.

Grilled fish, already fragrant, becomes even more enticing when infused with the aroma of lemongrass, prompting passersby to stop and stare, wondering what this delicious dish is.

The pork, though not as firm as the "piglet carried under the arm" from the Northwest region, was still tender and juicy. The pork skin, grilled over the fire, dripped fat onto the glowing coals below, sizzling and releasing an intoxicating aroma.

The grilled pork belly, with its slightly crispy and chewy skin, firm meat, and smoky aroma, is truly irresistible, making it hard to take a bite followed by a sip of Lao beer, only to then exclaim how delicious it is.

Besides various meats, there is also Lao sausage made from pork, called "sai gog". This dish is made from ground pork, rice, lemongrass, and other spices.

This type of sausage can be fried and then heated on a charcoal grill. It has a slightly bitter taste similar to our Vietnamese pig intestines and is a specialty of the people of Luang Prabang, alongside Labb (a salad consisting of finely chopped meats).

Amidst the summer air of the highlands, we sat in an alley bustling with tourists. The warm yellow light from the incandescent bulbs under the plastic tarp roof created a cozy and magical atmosphere.

At night in Luang Prabang, what could be better than strolling down a small street, sipping some Lao beer, and savoring the fragrant charcoal-grilled meat from this mountain town?

And suddenly I felt a pang of nostalgia for the bustling atmosphere of Hoi An at night, the charmingly noisy little street corners of Saigon...

Alex Tran

The Thanh