Spicy Lao Kitchen - Soft Opening Visit

**** You can find an updated post on Spicy Lao Kitchen here.

In the comments section of  an old post, "FOY" Junichi mentioned that Spicy Lao Kitchen had gone into soft opening mode. And a few days later info was posted on Eater stating the same thing. I mentioned this to the Missus who was excited at the possibility of having decent Lao food within 5 miles of the house. The question was whether to wait a bit, or to just check things out while the place was in soft opening mode? Well, the answer was easy, we'd been waiting for this place to open since March of 2022. Yep, we were going to make the time to check the place out!

We arrived at around 1230, the place currently opens at noon.

And the place was fairly full. I guess we're not the only one's waiting for Spicy Lao to finally open? In fact, we had to cool our heels at the doorway waiting to be seated. A couple behind us, pushed their way past us and just took a table. After about 15 minutes or so, the super busy young lady told us we could have a seat, but it would be at least 30 minutes before we could place an order. The couple who cut in front of us heard this and immediately left. The Missus and I didn't need to be anywhere, so we decided to have a seat and wait things out.

We watched and waited as food trickled out of the kitchen. The young women were working quite hard, but it was easy to see that they ere quite under staffed. On the good side, the Missus and I saw Xiāngjiāo and her hubby MichaelFC at a table! Man, it had been so long since we'd seen them! It was nice to have some time to chat, I've really missed them! Eventually, we placed our order and just decided to wait things out. Having to look the menu over several times; well, we ended up ordering quite a few items.

After about another 45 minutes, our dishes started trickling out.

Starting with the Sai Oua ($13), Lao sausages.

  The sausage had a firm, "snappy" casing. The filling had some good herbaceousness but was quite dry and overly chewy. Not a bad version by any means, but definitely not great. We tasted the Jeow Mak Len, the tomato dipping sauce provided which was mild, tasting like a weak tomato salsa and decided not to use it.

From here, it was another 30 minutes before our next dish came out; the Chicken Larb ($15). We ordered all dishes at a heat level of "3" on a scale of 1 to 5.

While a bit on the sweeter side of things for Lao larb, this was pretty good. The roasted rice powder added that touch of nuttiness and the lightest of crunch. There were slices of toothsome chicken gizzards in the larb, which while mild in flavor really added another toothsome dimension. I thought the heat level was pretty good, but the Missus told me that I had gotten whimpy in my old age. The young lady was dropping off our next dish and laughed when she heard this!

The Lao style Papaya Salad had arrived ($14). The young lady who delivered this was the one working the register and seating folks. We had noticed that she delivered all the papaya salads and inquired about that and was told that she makes all the papaya salads! Oh my....

You could tell that the papaya was cut by hand. The pounded tomato tasted quite good. Nice spice, at least for me (see the Missus comments above). While it looked the roll, this missed the mark a bit as it wasn't quite a pungent-funky as we're used to for the Lao version and like the larb was a bit on the sweeter side for this style of papaya salad.

Next up was the Goong Nam Pla ($17), the "naked shrimp".

This was a winnah! The shrimp was very tender and perfectly "cooked" in a lime forward "dressing". This could have been a bit more spicy for me and perhaps it could have used more pungency; but the texture of the shrimp was what made this a good dish. We'll definitely have this again.

And of course, you know we had to get the Nam Khao ($15). 

This was nice and crunchy; the Nam was spot on fermented sour which the Missus loved...in fact "XJ" sent me a text later on saying that while she was eating the nam khao all she could think about was the Missus's obsession with Nam! Lol! There was a hint of coconut, mild pungency, and spice. And while this was also a bit on the "sweeter" side and could have used some herbs and pork skin for added textural contrast; this was possibly the best version we'd had in San Diego in a while. And while the nam khao isn't even close to what we had on the banks of the Mekong in Vientiane or even Vientiane in OC this was quite good.

All in all we left the restaurant at around 230pm. It had kind of emptied out by then. So, I'm thinking until they get things under control, we'll be visiting during "off hours". Yes, we will return.

And hopefully, things will keep getting better. Right now it seems that you should probably plan on a nice slow, long lunch when you visit.

Spicy Lao Kitchen
5375 Kearney Villa Rd.
San Diego, CA 92123
Current Hours:
Daily 12pm - 8pm

Comments

[kat]

nice!

[RedDevil]

Man, that’s a fast review! Also, winnah and spot on are rare sightings in your SD reviews! High praise and excited to try this place.

[TFD]

I have to agree with you on the sausages. I can't figure out why they were dry and dark? Maybe they air fried them. Mr. C brought home a bunch of jerky from them. The spicy one is deadly!

[Kirk]

The food was quite good Kat!

They still have a lot to work out RD. So if you visit right now the wait might be really long.

The sausages were quite dry TFD. Really liked the shrimp; though I wouldn't do that takeout.

[Dereck]

I really hope that they get the Sai Oua more in tune with good taste because those look great to me.

[Junichi]

I'll probably give them a try tomorrow after the lunch rush. Can't wait!

[Kirk]

I hope they do Dereck!

Let me know how things turn out Junichi! I'm hoping your wait time isn't too long.

[Som Tommy]

Good! I’m going to try this place next week

[Kirk]

Hope you enjoy ST!

[Stephanie]

Have been thinking about trying this spot and now I will (when I have time)! Nice post, thanks.

[Kirk]

Hope you enjoy it Stephanie!