Opinion | Toronto duo behind Lao Lao Bar share both backstories from their home country and a love of hosting

Boy meets boy. In a club. Ding: the suburbs of Toronto.

Boy later finds out that they were both — unbeknownst to them — in the same refugee camp when they were children. A long time ago. In a land far away.

Boy and boy become entwined in life and in love and in business, and — fast-forwarding many years later — reign today as the very winsome duo behind one of the city’s buzziest new hot spots.

That spot? The fun-to-be-at and fun-to-say Lao Lao Bar on St. Joseph Street near Yonge Street. A place that not only manages to splay a spotlight on a relatively unexamined body of cuisine, but also brims with that most elusive of natural resources in restaurant-land: joy.

“Kismet,” I mouthed to Seng Luong and Jason Jiang when sitting down with them in a corner of their eatery earlier this week, picking up more of their story. As has been the case since it opened its doors in February — complete with one pretty fun party — the 100-plus seat restaurant was packed, even early on a Monday night, on a rainy, miserable night. No better time to book a mental flight to Southeast Asia … right?

Certainly the plan, in recent weeks, for a good cross-section of in-the-know enthusiasts and culinary buffs (many of them following Luong and Jiang from their Bloor Street East crowd favourite Sabai Sabai, which closed last summer). Ditto: a good smattering of the gay crowd (this being a space that sits on the periphery of the Village and also on a nostalgic stretch of that once housed several gay clubs. Remember Club Colby?). Olympic medallist skater Brian Orser has been spotted at Lao Lao Bar. Likewise: celebrity fashion guru and “Canada’s Drag Race” judge Brad Goreski.

Just the other week, Canadian star on the rise Adam DiMarco rang in his 33rd birthday there, amidst the flying saucer-meets-French-Colonial light fixtures and the menu that includes Tapioca Dumplings. The actor, who starred as the adorkable Albie on the recent blast of “The White Lotus,” is a friend and was a Sabai Sabai regular, too.

Say Lao. Now, say it again. But first, perhaps, a primer?

The country from which Luong and Jiang both hail is Laos — pronounced like mouse, they confirm. And although the term “Laotian” is sometimes thrown around, it is out of vogue, with its colonial inferences. When describing something from Laos, it is just Lao — Lao food, for example.

It was the plan from the beginning to clearly “define it as a Lao restaurant,” Luong started to tell me. Missing for years from the food discourse, or camouflaged within the parameters of Thai fare, the cuisine is having a moment, as even the New York Times noted in a piece last year, musing that “while Lao cuisine in the United States has been almost hidden from outsiders … that’s changing as more and more cooks share their food at markets and in restaurants, at pop-ups and events, on Instagram reels and in YouTube tutorials.”

How would these guys describe it?

“Fresh. Herbaceous. Not particularly protein-foward,” Luong rattled off. Also: “You eat what you grow” and “nothing is wasted.” The cuisine, he added, grew methodically but also out necessity, from Laos being a landlocked country (the only one in Southeast Asia): northeast of Thailand, northwest of Vietnam; surrounded, too, by China and Cambodia.

Not as rich or as oily as some cuisines, a lot is “steamed or boiled or grilled,” Luong and Jiang continued. A lot of open-fire cooking. A fair bit of fermenting. Sticky rice is, of course, king.

“Lemongrass … lime leaf,” they came back, when asked to name some of its more prominent ingredients, Jiang jumping in to single out the Mok Pa (fish in banana leaves). A classic dish. And one that they are obviously proud of on their menu: a slinky showpiece, gift-wrapped in green.

Incidentally, said Luong, the Mok Pa has a discernible dill presence, which is not a flavour profile typically associated with Southeast Asian cuisines, but itself probably a relic of the French bringing dill to the nation when they were colonizers.

Even more interesting, perhaps: a staple like Papaya Salad (Thum Mak Hoong). Though it is, yes, usually associated with Thai restaurants, it is actually a Lao thing and emblematic of how Lao food, in general, has been interpreted over many decades. Smooshed under the more easy marketing veneer of Thai, “for many Lao immigrants establishing a new business … the worry was that a Lao menu would be too obscure for American diners,” as the Times reported, many Lao immigrants deigning to open Thai restaurants in the U.S. This occurred in many parts of the world.

For Jiang and Luong, it is clearly personal. With both of their backstories stretching to the camp they were both in as boys — after the political disruption that occurred during the Lao Civil War, the rise of a Communist government causing many to escape — it is meaningful to finally have a place that puts their heritage up front.

Pressing them for more details on their intersecting personal narratives, they told me they only pieced it together that they were refugees in the same place years later (there were memories of a fire that once swarmed the camp). Amazingly, too, they realized that after their families had respectively moved to Canada, both boys were in the same middle school in the Junction area of Toronto. Still, they did not interact, or know each other, back then.

“We have had so much support from the Lao community. It has been touching,” Luong went on, mentioning some of the special visitors they have been getting.

With their differing specialties — Jiang worked in hospitality; Luong has an IT and finance background — it is obvious to me how much they complement each other. But also the one thing that makes Lao Lao Bar sing: almost everyone who walks in while we are talking seems to know them. And they seem genuinely happy to see their regulars. They are consummate hosts.

“We just love hosting our friends. That is how we see the restaurant,” Jiang finally said.

Shinan Govani is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist covering culture and society. Follow him on Twitter: @shinangovani

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