Turning East, Finding Larb

A Lao salad for hot nights, a cool Austrian white

Fish larb for hot nights, or any night

Turning east off the I-15 in the direction of Palm Springs, it is not long before the Arby’s, Ford dealerships and Self-storage facilities give way to the low rolling hills and prickly scrub of the high desert. You are some 90 miles northeast of San Diego and 120 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Unless you are some of the few thousand people who live in the area, the only reason to be on this stretch of road is if you are headed somewhere else. Which is why you could be forgiven for thinking you are seeing things when out of the tan and beige and russet landscape, emerges a tall sign in rich, dark wood with white lettering: “Taste Of Asia Bar & Grill, Thai Laos Vietnamese”.

When I first saw that sign, I was in the car with my family, on our way from San Diego to the desert for a weekend of winter sun and a heated swimming pool. Even though I grew up in the valley on the other side of the mountains from Anza, this unincorporated stretch of earth, I couldn’t recall ever having driven this road, yet it was familiar. A couple of taco shops and a local diner, clusters of mailboxes at the end of long dirt drives, the occasional sign for a ranch with a lonely structure – it is a type of California town that feels if not forgotten, then frozen in time. It is a land that billboards and strip malls have yet to infect with their relentless commerce. Yet without that commerce, there is only the land, in this case, adjacent to the Cahuilla Reservation, a pass through for those traveling by foot on Pacific Crest Trail and those coming by car on their way to mountains, sea or the glamorous desert resort town 3000 feet below.

Of course we stopped. We had to. We would have stopped for Thai or Vietnamese but it was the Laos that really hooked us. If it said Laos on the sign, then most likely it was not truly a Vietnamese or Thai restaurant, but a Laotian restaurant in disguise. And if it was a Laotian restaurant, they would have larb.

It is a timeworn move for restaurants owned by individuals hailing from countries with cooking less familiar to Americans to co-opt another adjacent, more familiar cuisine. Think of the Bangladeshis who created Curry Row in New York. Opening their tiny storefronts on East 6^th Street in the 70’s, New Yorkers were starting to know their Tikka Masalas from their Biryanis thanks to the actress and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey, but no Bangladeshi figure had broken through the culinary consciousness in the same way. So all those restaurants on East 6^th Street owned and staffed by Bangladeshis stuffed their menus with saucy curries and became Indian.

A Southeast Asian restaurant appears like a mirage in the desert town of Anza

My guess was that Taste of Asia was up to something similar. Inside the restaurant was empty but loud from two TV’s mounted on the wall playing basketball highlights. A man with the relaxed slouch of a local huddled over a beer at the bar while chatting with a man bustling from phone to cash register to kitchen and back again. The smell of lemongrass and onion hitting hot oil in a wok let us know we were in the right place.

The menu, a single sheet shroud in plastic delivered on its multi Southeast Asian promise of pho, pad thai and even Crab Rangoon. Under the heading “Salads”, was the larb. Ground pork, chopped chicken or Beef were all on offer, mixed with ground toasted rice, green onion, mint and cilantro.

With a population of 7.4 million in a country roughly the size of France, Laos is dwarfed by the neighbors that lock it in – China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It makes the success of larb, its export to and appropriation by some of these neighbors all the more remarkable. That you can find larb in the United States shouldn’t be as surprising given that this country is home to approximately a quarter of a million people of Laotian descent, many of whom settled in California during or after the Vietnam war. Yet it is still easier to find pad kra pao and bánh mì than a decent, authentic larb.

Playing bocce ball while waiting for our larb order

In fact, my first experience of larb was at a Northern Thai restaurant. The salty, crunchy, spicy, limey, herbaceous combination in a warm salad of hand chopped pork was the perfect antidote to a hot and sticky summer night, a night not unlike ones I would later have while visiting tropical Laos. It is a dish I crave on such sweltering days, days we have been having too many of this year as the summer temperatures drag on into the fall months. It is weather where you don’t want to be over a hot stove for any longer than necessary – a few minutes is all you need to cook the meat before tossing it with the dressing and greens. It is weather where if you don’t want be weighed down any more than you already are by the heat, you can skip the sticky rice that is traditional, and pile the minced meat in cups of lettuce.

The man bustling around the dining room at Taste of Asia confirmed the restaurant was owned by Laotians, that they had suppliers of Southeast Asian ingredients who drove out this dusty highway from Orange County or San Diego to deliver what they needed. When we asked for recommendations, he pointed us in the direction of the chubby Lao sausages and Kao Piek Senh, a Lao version of chicken noodle soup. And of course we ordered the larb, one to eat there and another to take home, because sometimes it is the dish adjacent, or the place in between, where the real treasure lies, hiding in plain sight.  

Recipe

Fish Larb (or Koy Pla)

My pocket-sized Lao cookbook from the restaurant and cooking school Tamarind in Luang Prabang tells me that many things I have thought are larb are not, but to make it easy for us non-locals they will call it larb anyway. So here is my take on fish larb, though more closely related to Koy Pa, made with ingredients you do not need to travel to Laos to source.

• 12 oz. firm fish like mackerel or mahi mahi

• ½ tsp. salt

• ¼ tsp. pepper

• 3 T. vegetable oil

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 4 oz. green beans, trimmed, cut into 1cm pieces

• 1 lemongrass stalk

• 2 green onions

• Handful of mint leaves

• Handful of cilantro

• 1 T. ground roasted sticky rice (optional, see note)

• 3 T. lime juice

• 1 T. fish sauce

• 1 T. grated ginger (from 2 inch piece of , peeled ginger)

• Pinch sugar

• 1 – 2 Thai chilies, minced

• Green lettuce leaves

• Additional lime wedges for serving

Remove any bones in the fish as well as the skin (or ask your fishmonger to help). Cut the fish into a small, even dice, about ½ inch by ½ inch. Season the diced fish with salt and pepper.

Heat the oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add minced garlic and sauté for 2 minutes until tender but not browned. Add fish and green beans. Cook stirring frequently for 4-5 minutes until fish is just cooked. Turn off heat and let cool while you prep the remainder of the ingredients.

Trim and discard woody ends from the lemongrass. Bash the stalk a few times with the back of a knife to release the aromatics. Cut in thin strips then finely mince. Add to a large bowl.

Thinly slice whites and green of onions. Roughly chop mint and cilantro. Add onions, mint, cilantro and toasted rice to the bowl with the lemongrass. Toss to combine.

In a small bowl, whisk together lime juice, fish sauce, ginger, sugar and chilies.

When fish mixture has cooled slightly, add to the large bowl with the herbs and pour over the lime juice mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary with more salt, pepper, sugar or lime juice.

Serve piled over green lettuce leaves with extra lime wedges and large bowl of steamed sticky rice or jasmine rice.

Note: You can pick up a bag of already toasted and ground sticky rice from the spice section in 99 Ranch or other Asian markets. Or you can make your own by toasting a ¼ up of sticky or jasmine rice in a hot dry pan for about 10 minutes until toasted by not burnt. Then grind in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle. You can save the extras for your next larb.

To Drink…

Schloss Gobelsburg, Gruner Veltliner, 2021, Kamptal, Austria

This fish larb goes best with an icy Beer Lao but if it is wine you crave, a citrusy, mineral Gruner Veltliner from Austria might be just the thing.

From one of the oldest wineries in Austria, Schloss Gobelsburg was founded by Cisterian monks in the 12^th century. Winemaker Michael Moosbrugger took over in 1996 and has continued the legacy of this estate. This Gruner is made from young vines from the best vineyard sites. Linear, mineral and steely with lemony freshness, it is undeniably old world but with a freshness that makes for easy drinking fun. Not only is this a terrific pairing with the fish larb, this is an excellent wine to seek out for those Sancerre lovers looking to branch out. If you can find it, the Reserve Gruner is a step up in complexity that should interest unoaked chardonnay lovers.  

Around $18 from many wine shops.