Our cooking class at Tamnak Lao Restaurant in Luang Prabang

We decided to take a cooking class in Luang Prabang. Luckily, we were the only people to sign up that day, so we got the whole day to ourselves with the teacher/chef. The school was part of the Tamnak Lao Restaurant in LP. The restaurant has a website, www.TamnakLao.net

The class is from 10 to 5, but because of our ëxpertise" we finished around 4. We paid 25 dollars each, and got to spend the entire day one on one with the chef, asking him all the questions we want, and doing our best to squeeze every last bit of detail from what he was saying. The day started out with a trip to the Phousy Market, or LP's supermarket. Here was all the ingredients needed to cook basically any kind of Lao or Thai food. The chef showed us around himself, answered all our questions, helped us bargain, and even waited around while we found some more water buffalo jerkey. Jin piqued his brain constantly, trying to figure out what the contents were of the multitude of unlabeled bags of food which were everywhere. The market was fun, and was certainly much more interesting than the previous trip we had made alone, when we were totally clueless.

Jin certainly got the most out of it, and i'd be pretty confident to say that we could cook some pretty legit Lao cuisine now, especially given all the right ingredients. We watched the chef cook lunch, then made same dishes ourselves, then ate them! After lunch, we watched the chef cook 3 more meals, then chose 2 of them to cook ourselves. We then cooked a third meal, Laap, or an amazing Lao meat salad(Soooo Good!) We will post some recipes soon. We got to make 3 meals in total, then got to eat them for dinner! So all in all, we had 5 full dishes, a personal tour of the market and a few hours of private cooking instruction one on one with a professional chef, not too bad!

Our class began with a trip to the Phousy Market in Luang Prabang. This market is a collection of fake tshirts, fake electronics, fruit, vegetables, meat, more fake stuff, pharmacies, drug stores, and anything else one could possibly find in Laos. It is generally referred to as L.P. only "supermarket." Every other market in town is no bigger than a UPS delivery truck.

The chef, mincing chicken on his little 3 legged tree trunk cutting board!

Lunch!

Our dinner. On the left was a curry dish, and the right the Laap(amazing meat salad.) This was the patio outside the school were we got to eat and take our tea breaks. Across the walkway of the tiny alley you may be able to spot the signs for the book exchange where I picked up the Dharma Bums and Twilight!

Ben pretending to be a Lao chef!

Jin waiting for me to quit taking pictures so we could eat!