Tam Nam Taek puts the spice in your papaya salad

Tam Nam Taek restaurant has spruced up the traditional papaya salad by adding seafood, making it one of the most popular dishes on the eatery’s menu.
In keeping with the restaurant’s name, it’s owner, Ms Toumkham Phonsaya, adjusts her style of making papaya salad by focussing on a spicy taste.
Tam Nam Taek literally means hot and spicy, with its dishes making customers sweat and sometimes bringing on the tears.
The aroma of fermented fish salt, a key ingredient in many Lao dishes, adds to the taste of the spicy salad.
Tam Nam Taek is located on the outskirts of Vientiane, in front of Bo O secondary school, and is open from 10am to 9 pm. Guests in the open air.
The atmosphere is friendly, and the cool breezes help customers enjoy as they tuck into the spicy food.
Every item on the menu at Tam Nam Taek was created by Ms Toumkham. She made the new variant of papaya salad in response to the trend of youngsters loving creative dishes.
Her papaya salad features a mix of sea food and other ingredients that make this humble dish worth another taste.
Tam Nam Taek is best-known for its papaya with seafood. It also has variants with chicken feet, sausages, hotdogs, meatballs and vegetables.
The papaya salad with chicken feet is mixed with noodles and fermented fish salt, which results in a delicious flavour that is spicy, salty and a little sour.
The dishes are very colorful - the yellow corn, green vegetables, and, of course, the red peppers that make most items very spicy.
If you have a low tolerance for spicy food, you can tell the chef to reduce the amount of chili.
The dishes at Tam Nam Taek cost from 5,000 kip to 30,000 kip but they are worth the price as the portions are large and enough for three to four persons.
You can follow Tam Nam Taek in the Lao language (ຮ້ານຕຳນ້ຳແຕກບໍ່ໂອ) on its Facebook page.

By Times Reporters
(Latest Update September 29, 2018)