Restaurant: Green Champa Garden
City: Fremont, CA

Green Champa Garden has a sister restaurant, Champa Garden, in Oakland.

I treated the parents out to dinner to celebrate Mother’s birthday! She picked Thai/Laos food over ramen, which turned out to be a good move, as we could eat family-style at this restaurant.

My apologies if the photos from tonight’s dinner are blurry; I didn’t have my 60D on me, so the photos were taken from my Galaxy Nexus. I’ll try to update the photos in this series of posts next time I go there…so if you notice a subpar photo, you’ll know why it’s crappy!

Oh, I found a close-up photo I took in 2010 at Champa Garden. Yay for Flickr!

Fried rice ball salad – crispy fried rice, mixed with preserved pork, green onions, and lime juice. Served with lettuce wraps, mint, and cilantro. Lime wedges were also included.

Nam khao (Lao: ແໝມເຂົ້າ), also known as Lao crispy rice salad, Lao fried rice ball salad, nam kao tod, naem khao thawt, nem khao, nam khun or naem khao, is a salad from Laos and is made with deep-fried rice balls, chunks of Lao-style fermented pork sausage called som moo, chopped peanuts, grated coconut, sliced scallions or shallots, mint, cilantro, lime juice, fish sauce, and other ingredients. Nam khao is traditionally eaten as a wrap by filling individual leaves (i.e. lettuce) with a spoonful of the tangy Nam khao mixture and then topping it with fresh herbs and dried chili peppers. The traditional Lao method of making Nam khao involves seasoning a batch of cooked rice with red curry paste, sugar, salt, and grated coconut, and then forming the mixture into tightly packed large rice balls to be coated with eggs and then deep-fried to form crispy rice balls. Prior to serving, the crispy rice balls are broken into little chunks of rice and then mixed with the rest of the ingredients to form the eventual crispy rice salad. Nam khao is a very popular Lao appetizer that is gaining popularity in the West. (Wikipedia)