Lao Café

"Perhaps a wild card. Lao Café does not in fact serve Burmese food at all, but those in the know flock to this bright cafe in Charing Cross. Regularly packed with Burmese diners, its hotpot dishes, especially tom zaap gadook moo (spicy sour pork ribs soup) are a close relative to the Burmese soup family chin yay hin, which might be regarded as Burmese penicillin. Lao Café’s spicy salads known as soops are also more redolent of Burmese a-thohk than the more well-known Thai yams or larbs. Order a hotpot, a salad, some grilled meat and some rice and it’s a more than decent approximation of a Burmese spread." - MiMi Aye