Last summer, Food & Wine magazine named St. Petersburg as “One of America’s Next Best Food Cities”, but editors maybe should’ve extended the search a few miles north to Pinellas Park. Within the county’s fourth-largest city are dozens and dozens of small, family-owned and operated restaurants that deliver striking and sometimes unfamiliar flavors from all corners of the globe.
Sap Sap Street Eats, run by Chef Johnathon Phaengvisay and several of his family members, is just one of many Southeast Asian restaurants that call the city of less than 60,000 people home. “Sap” means “delicious” in the Lao language—and Phaengvisay and company deliver exactly that.
Lao cuisine is famously aromatic and deliciously pungent, often characterized by the use of fresh herbs, chilies, seafood pastes and fermented fish sauces.
Sap Sap Street Eats is carryout only, but not for long
The newly-opened (or re-opened) Sap Sap Street Eats shares a carryout restaurant space with Sumo Hibachi Express at 6975 66th St. N, but packs a flavorful punch out of its communal kitchen.
Its first few months of service have been to-go only, but its ownership hopes to change that soon with the forthcoming addition of a shared dining room.
When carrying a meal out of the small Laotian restaurant, even the sheer weight of the plastic and styrofoam containers feels impressive and indicative of a great dining experience. The package fills your car with an intoxicating, intensely-fragrant smell that can make a driver quickly speed back home.
Sap Sap Street Eats menu
Sap Sap’s menu combines traditional Lao eats with popular Thai dishes like panang curry, basil stir fry, and pad see ew—a common blend of cuisines considering the two countries border each other. Fast casual favorites like fried egg rolls, crab rangoons, battered chicken wings and loaded fries also have their place on the approachable menu.
Vietnamese food—found throughout the Northern Pinellas city much easier than its Laotian counterpart—is often represented by popular dishes like pho and banh mi. A few stalwarts of Lao cuisine are sai gok (aka Lao sausages) laab, a chopped meat salad with fresh herbs and a spicy papaya salad. This trio is a great place to start when ordering at Sap Sap, especially for diners stepping into the restaurant a bit unfamiliar with Southeast Asian cuisine.
Sai gok ($8.99)—which goes well with a side of sticky rice ($2.50) and spicy dipping sauce jeow som ($2.50)—is tender pork sausage with a thin, crispy dark brown skin. The plain sticky rice balances the aromatic sausage spiced with sizable chunks of lime leaves, garlic, ginger and lemongrass—while the spice and acidity from the dipping sauce cuts through the fattiness of the pork.
Smaller-format dishes to add to an introductory spread at Sap Sap include its housemade beef jerky ($8.99), sauteed green beans ($8.99), spicy tofu bites ($7.50) and sticky, fried pork ribs ($9.99)—but save room for larger dishes including soups, curries, stir fries and salads.
Thum mak hoong ($10.95) or Lao papaya salad is typically a bit more pungent and spicier than its Thai counterpart, often incorporating fermented fish sauce and crab paste that packs intense umami notes. Goong sae mam pa ($14.99) is commonly referred to as “Lao shrimp ceviche” and can offer a raw, chilled respite from the intensely-savory flavors of Sap Sap’s curries or stir fries—despite packing a spicy punch from bird’s eye chilies.
And those with a high spice tolerance can always order any of its Lao salads “baw phet baw sap”—which roughly translates into “if it isn’t spicy, it isn’t good.”
Nam khao ($12.99), one of the more popular dishes at Sap Sap, is a must-order item for a good reason. It’s salty, fresh, texturally interesting and simply fun to eat. Chunks of crispy coconut rice are mixed with a pink, tangy fermented pork sausage called som moo, cilantro, scallions, dried chilies and fried shallots—all dressed in a tangy lime and fish sauce dressing.
You can’t go wrong with common Thai soups like tom yum and tom kai gai, but opt for khao piek sen with a side of crispy pork belly ($13.99) for its homemade, pillowy tapioca noodles alone. Thicky, slippery tapioca noodles sit in a simple chicken broth and are garnished with cilantro, green onions, fried garlic and fried onions—a warm, simple soup that can help balance all of the intense flavors happening elsewhere in the meal.
But when the noodles sit in the chicken broth for a bit too long, they can start to become gummy and overly-soft. So keep that in mind when placing a to-go order at Sap Sap.
A new generation in the Sap Sap Street Eats kitchen
Folks may recognize Sap Sap Street Eats as its former iteration, Sap Sap Cafe that was located on Park Boulevard N before it quietly closed in 2023. For about two years, Pinellas Park lived without the Phaengvisay family’s no-frills, flavor-packed Laotian cuisine, but the family business reopened in the spring of 2025—less than three miles from its flagship restaurant.
When Sap Sap Cafe was still open, Johnathon’s mother Chanh helmed the kitchen as its head chef, but at Sap Sap 2.0, Johnathon runs things with the help of his sister, wife and other family members. For the most part, he still cooks the same dishes that were featured at the restaurant’s previous iteration, but he told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that he wants his customers to know that this business is starting fresh.
He also wants to add a few of his own dishes onto the menu eventually.
There’s even a handful of dishes that Chef Johnathon ate during his childhood that he regularly re-creates for his customers. He said that as a child, he didn’t even know that the stuffed coconut crepe known as bánh xèo was even a Vietnamese dish, since his mom often cooked it for the family.
The Phaengvisay family version, dubbed the Sap Sap omelet ($13.50), is stuffed with minced chicken and shrimp, bean sprouts and green onions, and has been a menu mainstay since Sap Sap’s original iteration.
While Sap Sap Street Eats only offers to-go service for the time being (unless you’re lucky enough to snag one of the few bar seats), Phaengvisay tells CL that he and his family are working creating a shared dining room next door.
While it’s clear that all of Sap Sap’s dishes are made to order and are delivered piping hot, the restaurant will definitely benefit from its forthcoming dining room. The ability to sit down and enjoy a full spread at the restaurant will give diners a better chance to customize their eating experience and enjoy its comforting fare without having to endure a drive home first.
Despite the restaurant mainly focusing on Lao and Thai cuisine, several different cooking techniques can be found scattered throughout Sap Sap’s menu—from high-heat sauteeing in woks and dehydrating meats to pounding in a mortar and pestle. Its dynamic menu is designed to attract both Laotian families looking for a taste of home and local residents that need to fulfill their fried cravings.
Pinellas Park is lucky to have the Phaengvisay family back in business—its matriarch may not be leading the kitchen anymore, but her traditions and recipes still reign supreme at Sap Sap.
Follow Sap Sap Street Eats
Since Sap Sap Street Eats doesn’t have a website just yet, follow its Facebook at @SapSapLaoCafe or Instagram at @sapsapstreeteats for more information. Sap Sap is now open from noon-3 p.m. and 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday.
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