EXCITING LAOTIAN AMERICAN RESTAURANT OPENS WITH SOUTHEAST ASIAN BURGERS AND SKEWERS IN AUSTIN
A highly anticipated modern Laotian American restaurant is gearing up to open very soon. Lao’d Bar will be opening at 9909 Farm-to-Market Road 969, Building 4 in the far east Austin neighborhood starting on Wednesday, April 24.
Through the counter-service restaurant, owner and chef Bob Somsith will highlight his own Laotian American background. The chef, who grew up in Dallas, opened his first food truck in Austin in 2018, which had been known as SXSE and renamed as Sek-sē•Füd•Kō (pronounced “sexy food co.”) sometime in 2022. That’s where he served a Southeast Asian-Southern American food menu. Ahead of this restaurant’s opening, the food truck closed this past March.
Lao’d Bar’s new dishes include a smash burger with a Laotian pork sausage patty, rice-fermented pickles, bacon, American cheese, and a jeow bong-aioli slaw on a potato bun (which was featured in Bon Appetit); a fried Laotian sausage with that same jeow bong-aioli and a take on sauerkraut on a brioche bun; the coconut escolar ceviche; the Waterfall rib-eye where the grilled angus rib-eye is accompanied by crying tiger sauce and lahb seasoning (made up of fish sauce, roasted rice powder kefir lime leaves, lemongrass, Thai chiles, mint, and cilantro); and the poke bowl with ahi tuna, a sesame fish sauce, jasmine rice, wasabi furikake, cucumbers, charred lime, pickled vegetables, and that lahb seasoning. For smaller bites, there are taro fries, fried pork rings, and fried spring rolls too. Dessert is mango sticky rice.
Also expect familiar food truck items such as skewers with rib-eye steaks or chicken, pork bao buns, and chicken wings. “I’m excited to expand the menu and share these dishes reflecting my Lao-American heritage with more people out at Lao’d Bar,” Somsith shared via a press release. “It’s time for me to really embrace both of these cultures that I grew up with and to showcase them through food and beverages.”
This is the first time Somsith’s food business is serving cocktails, which also take on the same Laotian American approach. the Muang Royale is the restaurant’s cocktail take on the popular mango sticky rice dessert in negroni form with a Thai rice-washed Japanese whisky, mango liqueur, and vermouth. The Liquid Jade with a coconut oil-washed vodka, barley shochu, triple sec, a pandan-coconut water, and sparkling water. The Kin Ya Yen is made with tequila, a lychee liqueur, cucumbers, tamarind, and a bird’s eye chile tincture.
There are also frozen cocktails like the cucumber margarita and the Mekong Sunset Freeze with mango, coconut, pineapple and rice milk. The restaurant is also serving popular Laotian beer Beerlao, a jasmine rice lager, as well as beers from Austin breweries like Vacancy Brewing and Zilker Brewing. The cocktail menu was developed by beverage consultant Staci Shon, who is the lead bartender at Austin Mexican restaurant Bulevar
Physically, the restaurant is meant to feel like a Laotian night market. There will be garage doors, string lights, a mural of an elephant who the team calls Ellie team dressed up in Laotian attire, and floral oilcloths on the walls and tables. There are indoor and outdoor dine-in spaces; the alfresco area includes a bar rail for dining purposes found in the back of an old pick-up truck.
The address is managed by the same group that operates next-door Sign Bar: the Topo Development Group, which is run by former Hai Hospitality partner Daryl Kunik. Therefore, much like Sign Bar which showcases old and reproduced signs and furnishings from iconic Austin businesses, it takes a similar salvaged goods approach. There are shelves from the closed Nau’s Enfield Drug, which feature photographs of Somsith’s family photographs. as well as the physical bar that is made from doors sourced from Elgin.
Lao’d Bar’s hours are from 4 to 10 p.m. Monday and then Wednesday through Friday; noon to 10 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday.