barbeque fish

On the road ten minutes out of Nong Kiaow, just past the school is an unmarked thatch and bamboo building. Someone said the food is delicious here so we have come to try it out. We are dubious. It is dark. There is no one there but a very smiley Lao man. He gives us a tattered menu, the same one we have seen all around town. We say: Barbeque fish? He repeats: Barbeque fish? We say: vegetables? He says: vegetables? We say: rice. He says: no rice. At this point, we realize that we are not in control of the situation at all. The language barrier is too great. We shrug and surrender to the moment. He goes to the back. We sit around a table in the cold shack and wait. After a while, Marie and I go back to see the kitchen. There is no kitchen. Our host is feeding briquets into a wood fire. The fish is sitting in filet slices on a plate. Oh, we think, somehow he is going to grill the fish here. But no. He now takes the hot coals and places them in a clay container. He brings the container to a wooden table prepared outside. There is a hole in the centre and three plates around it. Each has a small bowl of red sauce. He puts the clay container in the centre hole and places an upside down homemade metal collander over the coals. He brings a big bowl of vegetables - cabbage, leaves, carrots tomatos, the fish on its plate and a container of broth. He lays some fish on the collander, ladles some broth around it and puts in some vegetables. He shows us how to continue. We cook and eat, eat and cook. The fish grills, the vegetables stew. The man plays petanque in the sand nearby. It is very tasty. What is that slab on top of the collander? I ask. It is a piece of pork lard. Gives the grease and flavour to the fish and vegetables. Oh, I say.