Taking over this week is associate restaurant critic Cesar Hernandez.
The way Millennials talk about shopping at Target is how I feel when I visit Oakland’s Southeast Asian grocery stores: I always end up walking out with much more than anticipated.
Recently, I went to International Lao Market in Oakland’s San Antonio district, searching for makrut lime leaves. I ended up leaving with all the ingredients needed for a glorious Lao-style summer cookout.
“Check that freezer straight ahead,” the clerk instructed me before I found a plastic bag filled with fragrant leaves. I made my way toward the register, thinking I had everything I needed, when a container with a dark maroon-hued paste distracted me. Since it was unmarked, I asked what it was. The cashier walked over and clarified that it was jeow mak kok, a paste with sour notes made from fermented fish, chiles and a key ingredient: Lao olives (sometimes referred to as hog plums). I had to grab one.
On my way to check out, I noticed a papaya salad kit contained inside a plastic cup — complete with the necessary sauce, prepped fruits and a small black crab. “Do you make this here?” I asked. “Yes,” the cashier responded, pointing to a fridge full of prepared food, sauces and desserts. He gave me a brief tour and pointed me toward a two-toned orange Thai tea pudding. I snatched one and stacked it over the paste and bag of leaves.
As the clerk rang up my serendipitous bounty, my mind could only think about Lao sausages, like the immaculately crisp ones from Vientian Cafe, a few miles away. Before I even finished saying the word “sausage” out loud, the clerk read my mind and directed me to the back freezer.
One last time, I roamed the mart, this time carefully scanning all the spiced beef jerky, bundles of holy basil and sticky rice steamers. The back freezer was almost bursting with frozen link packages. I picked one that was made locally in Oakland.
“Ah, you got the good ones. These are made by a nearby restaurant,” the cashier proclaimed. The restaurant in question is late-night lounge Everything But Hugs and Kisses, which tucks the sausages into tacos and sliders.
On the drive home, my mind raced with ideas for how to utilize this unintentional haul. A cookout seemed like the most fitting option. (Though, I did also put the sausage on a pizza to great effect.)
I fired up my grill and roasted the long links over white-hot charcoal with a combination of direct and indirect heat. The flame shrunk them to stout stubs, but the mesquite smoke was a perfect fit, providing a brazen backdrop for the lemongrass and chile-flavored juiciness. I paired it with onion and pepper skewers brushed with oil and a bit of Lao olive paste — a little goes a long way.
To go along with everything, I whipped up a quick jeow som dipping sauce — made with fish sauce, cilantro, MSG, garlic, Thai chiles, lime juice and sugar — and white rice. I sliced the links on a diagonal and served them with flame-kissed veggies. All the flavors played off of each other harmoniously: the deep spice and smokiness of the grilled items complemented by the tang and piquancy of jeow som and jeow mak kok. I capped the meal with the Thai tea pudding, which tasted of caramel and the tea’s aromatic spice.
As I savored the market’s wonderful offerings, I thought about the value places like this offer to the community. I visited on a whim but now consider myself a loyal customer, which, in my experience, is usually the deal with Oakland’s many grocery stores that cater to immigrant communities. International Lao Market has been providing customers with regional Thai and Laotian products since the 1970s. Today, the mart still offers ingredients you probably can’t find at Whole Foods, Safeway or even farmers’ markets.
International Lao Market. 1619 International Blvd., Oakland. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.
Reach Cesar Hernandez: [email protected]; Twitter: @cesarischafa
