Lil’ Laos: From a Refugee Camp to Little River
As a child growing up in a refugee camp in Thailand near the Mekong River, Sayarath remembers the meals they ate: “Fish a lot, chicken cooked on a stick over a typical pit fire – there was no electricity, so you cooked and ate before sundown. Watercress, jackfruit, mango and papaya, chilies everywhere. There were rice fields everywhere,” she says. “I loved it.” Today, at 37, Sayarath and partner Curtis Rhodes create authentic Lao dishes from family recipes in their food stall, Lil’ Laos, at The Citadel food hall in Miami’s Little River neighborhood. Her early experiences and strong family work ethic fueled her journey. The youngest of four, she remembers playing games like hacky sack and badminton in the camp. An uncle in the United States sponsored the family, and when she was 8, they moved to Virginia. There, she found it difficult to adjust to American foods.
“All I wanted was rice. I don’t know what cereal is! And I hate milk,” Sayarath recalls. Because her parents worked a number of jobs to provide for the family, they weren’t around a lot. “Our parents taught us how to cook for ourselves. In Laos, everyone cooks. I watched how my mom washed vegetables and how dad chopped,” she says. “I would go with them to grocery stores.” She learned to adapt in her predominantly White school and shared her culture through food. “Every time there was a pot luck, we brought foods like kua mee (fried noodles).” When her uncle opened a Thai restaurant in the neighborhood near the school, “everyone loved it.” Her best friend was Mexican, and Sayarath found herself eating Mexican, Greek and Salvadorean meals with friends, rather than American foods. And she continued learning recipes from her mother – beef jerky and shredded chicken noodle soup.
After high school, Sayarath studied marketing at a community college, became interested in the arts and at 23, she moved to Miami to study at the Art Institute. Along the way, she worked at different restaurants, including Oceanaire in Brickell, where she, a server, met Rhodes, a chef. They built a friendship and started dating, and shared their knowledge about foods. Sayarath never stopped cooking her Laotian foods at home – “my love language was food” – and brought meals into the ad agency where she worked. When the two moved into a duplex in Midtown, they shared meals with neighbors Lucia Giangrandi and Alex Meyer, of the former La Pollita pop-up in the Design District and the current Boia De! in Little Haiti. “You should do something!” they said.
Sayarath created a small menu – crispy pig ears, beef noodle soup, laab, among other traditional Laotian foods – and hosted pop-ups at Sixty10 in Little Haiti, BoxElder in Wynwood and Fooq’s for takeout. During the pandemic, Sayarath was still working at her marketing job. “While I’m in Zoom meetings, I’m cooking laab,” she recalls. When she was furloughed, the couple and their dog took a road trip where they took notes on the drive to plan future endeavors. Rhodes, who had worked at Cafe Roval, The River Oyster Bar and Oak Tavern, wanted to open a fish market. Sayarath wanted to keep sharing Laotian food to South Florida. In September 2020, they opened Lil’ Laos at The Citadel, and in May 2021, The Shores Fish Market.
Today, Lil’ Laos has become a popular spot for locals, tourists, restaurant industry friends, and members of the Laotian community in search of foods from home. Recently, chef Donny Sirisavath of Khao Noodle Shop in Dallas, one of the pioneers of Laos food, paid them a visit. So did Sayarath’s parents, and she is making them proud. It may be just a food stall, she says, but the spicy, salty flavors of Laos are also filled with powerful memories of her family and their collective experiences ready to share, lovingly, with the world.“I have to bring that back,” says Sayarath. “That’s the message.”
– Gretchen Schmidt
LIL’ LAOS
The Citadel, Little River
lillaos.com
