Located a couple blocks down Hope St. from Brown's main campus, Champa is a Thai and Lao restaurant that was recently reopened this past December. Fellow Spoon photographer Jerry Lu and I had never tried Laotian cuisine before this, so we decided to give it a go!
Champa is named after the national flower of Laos, pictured in a large banner across the restaurant's cozy interior. The food comes out relatively fast, and we saw a handful of people come in and out for a quick, delicious meal. The menu offers a variety of options among Thai and Laotian cuisine. Except for the curry, all of the dishes we tried were Laotian.
Appetizers
To start, we had the crispy chicken wings, Laotian style crispy rolls, and Laotian style fried brussel sprouts. The crispy chicken wings were perfectly crispy on the outside but tender and juicy on the inside. There was a light coating of a subtly sweet, savory sauce that tasted similar to the sauce on the fried brussel sprouts. The brussel sprouts were standard, but the crispy fried bits paired with the sweetness of the sauce really brought it to the next level – I kept going back for more. The crispy rolls were simple but classic, with minced chicken, cabbage, and onion. Both the rolls and wings were paired with a sweet and sour sauce, and we liked it with the rolls as a nice flavor contrast.
Mains
For our mains, we ordered the Laotian roasted duck noodle soup and seafood curry. The roasted duck noodle soup had a very rich, clear broth that was similar to a pho bone broth, but with strong duck and shallot flavors as opposed to beef. Although it provided a unique taste to the broth, the duck was too roasted to the point that some slices were tough to chew through. The basil and lime provided a fresh herbal, acidic kick to cut through the richness of the broth. The bean sprouts added a great textural contrast to the noodles.
A Champa specialty, the seafood curry had squid, shrimp, mussels, imitation crab, peppers, celery, onion, and scallion in a yellow curry. The curry was sweet and spot on with the spices. The seafood components were quite strong, especially the mussels, but they worked well with the curry. The various vegetables provided textural contrasts and a bit of brightness to the overall heavier richness of the dish.
Last Words
We had fun trying Lao dishes at Champa – this introduction to Laotian cuisine was very promising. (For more Laotian foods, check out this article.) We would love to go back another time and try some of Champa's Thai dishes if possible!