Trying a new Lao-thai restaurant in Canberra

I had the chance to go back to Canberra last weekend and on Monday my former colleagues and I went to a new restaurant called Zaab on trendy Lonsdale Street in Braddon. The owner is my colleague's friend and we wanted to support this new venture of hers (she's originally from Laos). Interestingly Zaab means delicious food in Lao and in Thai it means extra spicy. Zaab is pronounced "sahp". My friend ordered for us and I forgot to take photos of some of the dishes because I was so hungry but here are a few shots taken with my Samsung Galaxy s5. It was a bit dim in the restaurant so I adjusted the brightness of some of the photos.
We had several different entrées. This place is known for street food so we had the following:

(Laotian sausage: it was served with ginger and tastes a bit like Italian sausage but less oily. The flavour was subtle)

(Prawn carpaccio: spicy with a hint of lemon. I think I prefer a sweet Japanese ebi if I was going to eat raw shrimp)

(Chicken laarb: a classic dish that I have tried before. It was a bit too salty on its own but went well with the coconut rice)

(Chicken satay sticks: I skipped the satay dipping sauce because I am allergic to nuts. The marinade was tasty enough without the sauce. Chicken was tender

(Beef skewers: at first we couldn't tell if it was beef or pork but the dipping sauce was fantastic. It was a bit sweet, sour, and spicy)

Not pictured was the red duck curry, pad thai, puffed rice salad, seafood platter, papaya salad platter and grilled pork.

The service was friendly but the waitress got some of the orders wrong and forgot to remind the kitchen of my nut allergy so we had to send the Pad Thai back and I couldn't eat the puff rice salad. It was a full house on a Monday night and very noisy. The street food atmosphere was certainly there! We were so full at the end, and I think I will go back to try other dishes next time.