First off, we can definitely say that the food here tastes fantastic. If you want Spicy, there is Lao Spicy which is definitely SPICY! There is also plenty of complexity when it comes to other flavors.

This is a Thai/Vietnamese/Laotian restaurant so there will be peanuts/nuts/soy/other allergens in the kitchen so be advised of cross contamination although during our visit, we had no issues.

Now to the allergen experience. The menu at Eat A Lao has multiple pages. There are allergen indicators especially for peanuts and seeds. There was a discrepancy, but we’ll get to that soon. Each dish also had a list of their main ingredients and for the allergens, they made sure to add them in all capital letters to make them more obvious. Good stuff!

There were two servers that came by for food orders. We mentioned a peanut and tree nut allergy and they both acknowledged. When we asked about some appetizers, the waitress pointed out two dishes that had an allergen that we specified. One of them was clearly labeled with peanuts. The other, however, was listed as having a Zing sauce that must have had the peanuts in it. There was no indication of this on the physical menu. That should definitely be fixed. Having the waiters know that though did give us some assurance that we would be safe.

When we ordered the entrees, we weren’t greeted with a confirmation that they did not contain nuts but since they did note problematic dishes previously, we felt safe with the dishes. The dishes that we ordered did have their ingredients listed and there was no unknown sauces that could’ve contained the nuts.

When the dishes came out there wasn’t an indicator that they were nut/peanut free.

Overall, the food was fantastic and the wait staff was very helpful. There could be improvements to the physical menus to give more assurance to guests that the dishes have or are free from certain allergens. They could have more indicators for other allergens as well. They could elevate the experience as well by confirming the dish was allergen free upon delivery.