Popular Lao pop-up finds a permanent home
SapSap, the popular pop-up restaurant that has sold Lao barbecue, egg rolls and more in Racine, Milwaukee and beyond for several years, is about to open its brick-and-mortar home.
It’s due to open its doors to the public June 17 at 2343 Mead St. in Mount Pleasant. That had been the home of Totero’s Italian restaurant, which the family closed in June 2014 after 75 years.
SapSap owner Alex Hanesakda says the location is meaningful for him.
He felt the Totero family operated its restaurant “for the love of it,” he said. “I kind of felt that’s how we were as well. We thought it was perfect for us.”
Initially, SapSap will be open for carryout only, while the dining room is completed, Hanesakda said. Customers can walk in to order or order online at SapSap’s Facebook page or website,
sapsapeats.com.
Look for indoor seating to start in July. In the meantime, hours will be from 11:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. Thursdays and until 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Also by July, the restaurant expects to have a beer patio in place. The restaurant plans to have its own beer on tap, Thum Phuk, brewed under contract by Low Daily Beer in Burlington.
The line’s first beer is a lager made with the sticky rice essential in Lao cuisine, and 5% of sales go toward eradicating unexploded bombs from the Vietnam War era in Laos.
Cocktails are expected later; nonalcoholic drinks will include salted makrut limeade.
Hanesakda said the restaurant’s look reflects his experience growing up Lao-American, and menu items often are interpretations of what he grew up eating, he said.
Diners will find appetizers such as Lao jerky, garlic chicken wings, and the Mamma’s Egg Rolls that launched SapSap.
There will be Lao-style barbecue, including charred skirt steak, riblets, a
half chicken or SapSap’s sausage, all served with sticky rice and a seasonal salad.
Several kinds of fried rice will be on the menu, including a vegetarian version; there will be noodle bowls, such as khao poon and beef pho; and banh mi will have sandwich fillings of fried chicken, blackened catfish or barbecued pork.
Desserts are being made by the Mid-Way Bakery team for SapSap — brownies will have caramel with saltiness from Red Boat fish sauce, and blondies will have the flavor of Thai tea.
Prices will range from about $6 to $8 for appetizers and $15 to $25 for entrees.
SapSap will be a work in progress, Hanesakda said. Loose ends were being tied this week at the restaurant, where last week a Buddhist ceremony took place to bless the site.
The ceremony partly was out of tradition and partly to make his mother happy, he said. Besides, Hanesakda said, it couldn’t hurt to have the restaurant blessed.
SapSap will post updates about the restaurant on Facebook and Instagram, at @sapsapeats. It also will post more information about an outdoor event July 18, a whole-hog barbecue at Iron Grate in Milwaukee with sticky rice and papaya salad where 1960s and ’70s Southeast Asian soul and funk will be played.