Vientiane residents don’t need to travel to the Xeno area of Savannakhet province to buy the famous grilled chicken since a new restaurant opened in Vientiane last month.
In Savannakhet, the Pingkai Xeno (Xe no Grilled Chicken) restaurant is located along Road No. 13 South in Outhomphon district where passersby can stop to ge t their fill of chicken before heading further south or north.
But now the restaurant’s owner, Mr Khamphan Xanaphane, has opened another outlet at the PTT station, a Thai petrol station, in Naxay village, Xaysettha district, making it the first shop to sell this much-desired chicken in the capital.
Mr Khamphan told Vientiane Times over lunch at his shop, “I am the first one to open the shop in Vientiane after I got a copyright certificate from the Association of Xeno Grilled Chicken in Savannakhet province which allows me to be the only person to bring in chickens from the Xeno area.”
“As part of the regulations of the association, if it’s found that Pingkai Xeno has taken chickens from other areas or other prov inces, they will be fined about 3 million kip per chicken. This means the chickens have to be sent from the Xeno area by bus to my shop every day,” he added.
Mr Khamphan says 50 chickens are sent to his shop every day, all of them already on wooden skewers and ready to grill and that most sell out daily.
Along with serving grilled chicken, he adds a dry chilli sauce to eat with the chicken as well as the traditional sticky rice inside a bamboo container.
Another surefire order is the long green bean salad and papaya salad.
Mr Khamphan said the price for the chicken he buys ranges from 35,000 to 65,000 kip per bird, which he sells for 49,000 kip to 79,000 kip each.
To satisfy customers, the shop also has a free delivery service for all orders of grilled chicken but only for customers within 10km from the shop.
The shop also serves more delicious dishes such as xuakai (chicken soup), bamboo shoot soup, laap kai , laap makjong (laap made with local fruit), steamed vegetables, grilled buffalo skin with fermented fish sauce and jeo maengda .
Mr Khamphan says “We plan to open another branch in That Luang village next month because it is also a location crowded with people eating along the roadside.”
“We also plan to build stalls in other markets in Vientiane in the very near future,” he added.
The shop is decorated with bamboo and has air-conditioning. You can also visit the shop on Facebook at www.facebook.com/PingkaiSeno.
Source: Vientiane Times
