Lao Lane Xang 2

Lao Lane Xang 2 sits on Avenue d'Ivry in the heart of Paris's largest Asian district, the 13th arrondissement's Chinatown, an area built up by waves of Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian immigration, much of it following the aftermath of the Indochina and Vietnam Wars in the 1970s. The restaurant distinguishes itself within a crowded field of Asian restaurants along Avenue d'Ivry and Avenue de Choisy by specialising specifically in Laotian cooking, a cuisine considerably less represented in Paris than its Vietnamese and Thai neighbours, while also offering well-executed Thai and Vietnamese dishes that broaden its appeal. The Laotian-style crispy rice salad, combining fried rice, fermented pork sausage, herbs, and a sharp lime dressing, is one of the dishes most cited by longtime patrons as distinctively Laotian rather than interchangeable with the wider regional cuisine found elsewhere in the neighbourhood, while Laotian rice crepes filled with shrimp offer a lighter, more delicate counterpoint. A spicy lemongrass shrimp soup, closely related to Thai tom yum but with its own regional inflection, rounds out a menu that rewards diners willing to move beyond the more generically 'pan-Asian' options toward its specifically Laotian dishes. The restaurant operates in a straightforward canteen-style dining room, functional rather than decorative, consistent with the practical, high-turnover character of most restaurants along this stretch of Avenue d'Ivry. Weekend lunches, particularly Sunday, draw large crowds from across the wider Asian community in Paris and its suburbs, making the neighbourhood considerably livelier at that time than on a typical weekday, and reservations are worthwhile for dinner given the restaurant's strong and consistent local reputation across several decades of operation.