e sse nt i al dining
Thum Som—pounded in a mortar, Fresh Garlic, Chili, Shrimp Paste, Tamarind, Lime, Cherry Tomatoes, Thai Eggplant, Fish Sauce, and Unripe Papaya served with Chicken Drumsticks and Sticky Rice
Lao Laan-Xang by Kyle Jacobson
How often do we really think about where our food comes from? Not the ingredients themselves, but the dishes. Why a hamburger? Why nachos? Why devil an egg? Sometimes the story behind the food is amusing (like the legend of the potato chip), but more importantly, it’s always culturally relevant. It wasn’t too long ago people were limited to the ingredients their regions afforded them. It’s why the foods of some areas are rich in herbs and spices. Why some focus on seafood or vegetarian dishes and others favor red-meat-heavy diets. Lao Laan-Xang is Madison’s 30-plusyear-old Laotian restaurant whose food not only distinguishes its flavors from 6 | madison essentials
Chinese and Thai, but also raises the bar of what we should expect from East and Southeast Asian cuisine. Bounyong and Christine Inthachith, mother and daughter founders of Lao Laan-Xang, came to the United States as refugees in 1980 along with Bounyong’s three other children when Christine was in grade school. “That was after the war in Vietnam and the civil war in Laos,” says Christine. Though history books note those conflicts ended in 1975, for those living in the region, the Pathet Lao communist takeover was responsible for over 100,000 Laotian refugees only five years later.
“We crossed the border from Laos to Thailand,” says Christine. “We were in the camps waiting to be processed, and we were in the Philippines through the U.S. base. Our family was sponsored by Catholic Relief Services. The couple that sponsored us were like another set of parents. They were older; their kids were out to college. My father served in the army helping the U.S. side, which helped us get processed as refugees a little bit more quickly.” When they eventually arrived in Madison, Christine and Bounyong opened the first Lao Laan-Xang in 1990 on Odana Road. There were
