Ready for Laotian food in Charlotte?

By Tom Hanchett

Is Charlotte ready for a restaurant featuring Laotian food? That’s the question that Roger Kongkham and his brother Robert asked themselves when they opened Hibiscus across Woodlawn Road from Park Road Shopping Center in 2016.

Laotian pork sausages come with sticky rice and optional dipping sauce.

“Lao food is a little more spicy and salty,” Kongkham muses. Less of the sweetness of Thai; “more umami, bolder flavors.”

Even when Hibiscus opened, the brothers held back. But as Robert moved on to another restaurant this spring, Roger finally added a “Lao Street Food” section to Hibiscus’s pan-Asian offerings. Together with an inventive cocktail program — some aficionados call Kongkham one of the city’s most under-rated mixologists — the new menu is attracting a growing stream of customers.

Like spice? Get the larb, a signature dish of Laos. Minced chicken, flavored with mint, lime, onions, chili and roasted rice, is served cold. It comes with lettuce leaves that you can use sort of like tortillas: scoop and munch.