Explore Sandy’s World of Eats: Surfside Laotian pop-up a hit in Half Moon Bay
By: Sara Hayden
Tags: Bay Area, Restaurant Business, Silicon Valley, Foodies, Laos

Distributing love, food and culture

Thongsavat-Potter was born in Thailand at a refugee camp in Nakhon Phanom. “My pops, Boun Senior, was in the Laotian army...His role was a (military) police officer. He fled the country to give Mama and I a better life due to communism and escaped a concentration camp,” Thongsavat-Potter says, referring to repressive camps that forced “re-education” with communist indoctrination and imprisoned tens of thousands of people.

A sponsor family brought Thongsavat-Potter family to their first U.S. destination in Hereford, Texas, before they moved to California’s Central Valley where her family sold homemade food in Merced and beyond.

Her parents converted a “Scooby Doo” style van into a mobile restaurant, taking it to different parks and neighborhoods. When they heard about food fairs happening, they’d register, pack up and travel up and down California to sell their fare for 50 cents or a dollar.

“My parents back in the day were slinging food out of that,” Thongsavat-Potter says. Sometimes they’d take breaks from traveling and sell from home. “They’d take off the screens to the house, and people would pop up to the window and order papaya salads and noodle curry bowls.”

Family fare: Sandy Thongsavat-Potter (right) with her mother Somchanh Thongsavat, and brother Adam Thongsavat during a pop-up event at Breakwater Barbecue in June 2021. (Image via Sandy’s World of Eats Instagram page)

They shared khao poon with vermicelli, coconut milk, curry, mint, lime and cilantro, as well as nam van with coconut jelly, pandan, fresh fruits, coconut and maple date syrup. Everyone who came got fed; “It didn’t matter what culture you were from,” Thongsavat-Potter says.

Thongsavat-Potter recalls learning to cook with her mother, Somchanh. She stood on a wooden stool and learned how to make her first egg, chop and pack. She watched and learned as her mom made Laotian treats like sai oua, and helped stuff the sausages using the ends of recycled plastic bottles.

“We used to sit down on a Laotian saat mat because the tiles were coming off and the concrete was coming up. The woven mat made it feel like home. (My mom) laid that down, and we’d have a big pa kao dish and we’d hand stuff the sausages.

“Here I am, just chasing after it now,” Thongsavat-Potter says. “Even without that much, what my mom did and poppa did, we always gave food to families. We always distributed the love and our food and our culture and shared it with other people.”

Helping others, particularly those impacted by Vietnam War-era events in Laos, is something Thongsavat-Potter remains passionate about, including through the September 18 Legacies of War benefit event in Berkeley. “As a Laotian immigrant, and also first generation coming to the States, I hope to see more of the unexploded bombs cleared out of Laos and create a safer future for the next generation. I live here in the States, but Laos is my root,” she says.

She’s also driven to support community through Sandy’s World of Eats, which she’s grown out of Half Moon Bay where she lives with her husband, Craig, and their two boys. She connects with other Coastside creators to source her ingredients and share her food.

“I’m a community person…It’s a little rough right now for people, and human kindness is just so important. We all need to support each other,” Thongsavat-Potter says.