In February 2019, we visited our friends living in Vientiane, the capital of Laos for a week. We had previously visited Laos in 2016, but had only stayed in Luang Prabang further up north. Laos is very much a developing country. There are still plenty of dirt roads, some with no names, but new concrete roads are being paved. There are also no house numbers in Vientiane. How do you get something posted? Drop a pin on googlemaps. I’m not sure how it worked pre-Google. One of the stand outs are the exposed black internet cables bundled up high and strewn across all the lamp posts along the street. In Australia, this is all underground and hidden.
We were lucky that our friends were able to drive us around the city so we didn’t need to worry about haggling with a tuk tuk driver. Being formerly colonised by the French, Vientiane has a few French bakeries, cafes and restaurants around town. We explored some of these French bakeries/eateries pretty much every day for breakfast – Café Vanille 1 and 2, Annabelle 2, (when a sister eatery is opened, they are simply given the same name and a number to reflect if it was the first/second/third etc), Bakery by Boris, and Le Banneton 1 and 2.
Suzette
Our first breakfast was at Suzette in the city for crepes. Suzette also do waffles but I was more interested in the crepes.
I chose the Crepe Suzette (44,000 kip) which came with home made salted butter caramel, fresh orange, lime jus and Grand Marnier flambe. I don’t drink alcohol so it is rather strange that I ordered this, but in most places the alcohol burns off. Not in this instance. It was still drowning in Grand Marnier which was quite overpowering for me. Mr FPJ and I ended up swapping breakfasts. I was happy to find out that most eateries in Laos have matcha drinks on the menu!
Mr FPJ ordered one of the breakfast galettes with scrambled eggs, tomato and ham (around 35,000 kip mark). It was really nice and simple with plenty of scrambled eggs inside.
Le Banneton
The next breakfast was had at Le Banneton Café Bakery, which I remember had a sister site in Luang Prabang.
The pastries on offer apart from croissants are other vennoiseries, various danishes and scrolls. There were two types of regular croissants – a version for 8,000 kip and a ‘pure butter’ croissant for 9,000 kip. I’m guessing the pure butter croissant is a lot flakier to bite in to, while the other version might not have butter or a smaller portion of butter in it. Some of the more unique pastries were the pistachio and strawberry plié, and a chocolate chip croissant.
On the menu there’s a Petit Dejeuner a la carte – breakfast a la carte. Croissants, baguettes with various combinations of condiments, French toast, yoghurt and muesli, iterations of eggs with ham/bacon, fruit salad. The breakfast combinations were better value for money – you could get a continental breakfast for 40,000 kip, the sucre sale (Sweet and Salty breakfast) for 48,000 kip, and a gourmand breakfast for 55,000 kip.
Most drink menus have a selection of coffees. Drinks are separated into hot, cold, shakes/frappes. You really need to specify if you want a hot latte, as opposed to a cold icy latte. I chose an iced matcha latte (unsure of price).
I love my pastries and decided to get a mix to share for breakfast. Mr FPJ wanted his favourite, the pain au chocolat (11,000 kip), and I chose the chocolate banana vennoiserie (11,000 kip), and an almond croissant (unsure of price). The pastries were buttery, flakey, and delicious. Biting into the chocolate vennoiserie was heaven – a thin layer of chocolate (almost as good as Nutella) with caramelised bananas on top that left a hint of the banana flavour on the chocolate. I wasn’t able to capture the beautiful glaze in the photo, but it was magnificent. The almond croissant was also delicious with a soft and not too sweet custard filling.
Café Vanille
Cafe Vanille 1 is frequently visited by our friends who have a 2 year old. This is because there is a large room covered in rubber mats and filled with toys. The large windows allow parents to peer in while enjoying a coffee in the main dining area. The entrance is via the cafe’s small shop section where wines, jams and packaged/boxed goodies can be purchased. The front counter displayed freshly baked baguettes, croissants, danishes, and tarts.
Similar to Le Banneton, the a la carte breakfast options included yoghurt, fruit, eggs and bacon or ham, muesli and the various pastries available that day. There were also breakfast sets, as well as sweet and savoury crepes, and a list of drinks.
The breakfast set is good value so we ordered the sucre sale (sweet and salty breakfast) again for 45,000 kip. I chose a cafe latte and fresh orange juice as part of the set. This was basically identical to Le Banneton’s menu minus the butter croissant in the set and it was 3,000 kip cheaper. I also had to have another iced matcha latte (20,000 kip) since it seemed to be available everywhere.
Seeing the crepe menu, I also ordered the apple, caramel, and salted butter crepe (28,000 kip). This was huge (the plate was about the size of a medium pizza) and filled with delicious cinnamon dusted warm stewed apple, salted caramel and whipped cream. Delicious!
I also couldn’t resist one of the fresh pastries at the front counter. I chose the peach feuilleté (20,000 kip). A feuilleté means thin layers of puff pastry which this was – flakey light layers topped with sweet peach slices and set in a light custardy cream. A beautiful balance of tart and sweet, and such good value!
We also tried Cafe Vanille 2, a much smaller cafe than the original. The sweet and salty breakfast set suited us and we shared fried eggs, ham, a half baguette with jam and butter, a cafe latte and a fresh orange juice.
Bakery by Boris
I spotted Bakery by Boris, another French bakery across the road from PVO after picking up some banh mi to go (more on that in the next chapter). We went in to check it out and found lots of pastries – croissant jambon, pain au chocolat, plain croissants and an olive ciabatta.
There were also freshly baked baguettes for 10,000 kip.
Plus a large cake display with macarons and eclairs. Heaven.
I didn’t get a chance to see the dine-in menu as we were only getting some take away goodies. I chose the long chocolate swiss croissant and a hazelnut chocolate éclair. Unfortunately, we never got a chance to go back.
Annabelle 2
Our friends purchased some pastries from French bakery Annabelle 2 for breakfast at home with some fresh fruit. All the pastries were flakey with crisp edges and delicious fillings. The matcha croissant was my favourite of course. I was looking forward to visiting the bakery in person.
Our friends told us that Annabelle 2 had only recently opened in the last few months when we visited Laos, and it still looked brand new. The building is nestled in a garden with a small water fountain at the front, some outdoor seating, and elegant and French provincial décor inside.
There are lots of tempting goodies from the front counter – bread, croissants, pastries, macarons, and various cakes and tarts. The all day breakfast menu included photos of each dish. I decided on the healthy pancake by gift (45,000 kip) which looked like a small portion with lots of fresh fruit, peanut butter, granola, honey, yoghurt and blueberry filling. The reality was quite different to the photo and description that I wonder if they gave us a different dish by mistake. It was more of a pancake stack with a little bit of fruit and yoghurt on top. There was a slight drizzle of honey with some granola dusted on top. However there was no peanut butter to be seen.
The two-stack of blueberry pancakes were quite tasty and very filling. I’m not sure if it’s the ‘healthy’ breakfast that I was after. As the breakfast looked small in the menu, I also ordered the matcha almond croissant (20,000 kip) with a butterfly pea iced latte (about 15,000 kip).
The matcha in the croissant is subtle and it’s basically an almond croissant with matcha flavouring. Crunchy but not as flakey as I would have expected. There was also a chocolate almond croissant which I would have loved to try.
MR FPJ ordered the French toast (39,000 kip) with fresh fruit, yoghurt cream and blueberries. There was a little bit of chocolate sauce too. Very filling.
There was more to Annabelle 2’s menu that I wanted to try out, and we walked there one morning in anticipation of the sweets we would need to work off. It was around 9.30am on a weekday, so there were plenty of tables to choose from.
We chose a two-seater couch towards the front of the café overlooking the garden outside. This time, I ordered the light breakfast with granola, yoghurt, milk, fresh fruit and honey (39,000 kip). Thankfully it was much lighter and looked like the photo in the menu. We only ordered one dish to share as I knew I wanted to try more pastries and cake. I also ordered the Thai milk iced tea which was a new eye opening kind of sweet.
Mr FPJ chose the long viennoiserie (15,000 kip) filled with chocolate chips. The manager asked us if we wanted them to cut it into slices and we agreed. I much prefer this to a pain au chocolat and so does he!
The cakes available included cheesecakes, tarts, and a Parisian flan (around 29,000 – 40,000 kip mark) plus chocolate, strawberry or coffee eclairs (25,000 kip). I decided on the strawberry millefeuille (40,000 kip) as it looked pretty decadent. It was filled with lots of fresh cream, slices of fresh strawberries and strawberry jam. I love the pastry layers which were think and flakey. I found there was too much cream for me but was able to leave some of it on the plate.
Baguettes cost 10,000 kip. Butter croissants are also 10,000 kip, pain au chocolat are 12,000 kip and danishes and raisin rolls are around 15,000 kip. The cakes on the other side of the counter were between 25,000 – 35,000 kip. It just happened to be Valentine’s Day and I received a red rose from the kind owner (as well as the other ladies in the eatery). How nice!
I could happily eat croissants every day for breakfast! That’s it for the bakery side of eating. More on eating in Vientiane in the next chapter…
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