Comfort food with home-grown chilies: Meet a new Thai-Laotian restaurant in Fort Worth
Fort Worth has never been shy about trying spicy Thai or Laotian food.
But at first, it required a drive to Haltom City and somewhere like the old original Bangkok Cuisine or Sikhay Thai Lao.
Family restaurants finally spread to small locations across the city, from south side mainstay Spice to west side insiders’ pick Thai Terrace.
Now, Thai and Laotian food have come to a contemporary upscale shopping center.
Meet Zaap Kitchen Lao & Thai Street Eats, a new counter-service shop at 1621 River Run in the WestBend shops near HG Sply Co.
The Singharaj family is moving Thai and Laotian food into the 21st century with fast-casual service, an easy-to-read menu and online ordering via smartphone app.
The Thai dishes have become familiar: pad thai, panang curry, spicy basil with rice.
Zaap (Laotian for “delicious”) uses Thai dishes as the gateway to introduce Laotian cooking such as the distinctive Lao green papaya salad, larb and garlic wings or riblets.
“Laotian food is more like comfort food,” Tony Singharaj said.
An aunt had opened a Thai restaurant in Collin County, Sticky Rice, and soon other Singharaj family members left corporate jobs to open takeout shops.
“We want to take Thai and Laotian food mainstream,” Singharaj said.
He’s proud of the spicy-sweet-tangy flavor.
(I explained to him that Fort Worth customers like their food spicier than in Dallas, whether it’s curry, jambalaya or molcajete.)
Zaap can dial up the spice level and sometimes has fresh chiles from the family garden, he said.
There’s a Laotian combo ($14.99) featuring sausage, wings, jerky or riblets with sticky rice and Laotian papaya salad. A spicy jeow som sauce is available on the side.
The Thai menu offers familiar soups, curries, noodles and rice dishes with chicken, shrimp, beef, pork or tofu, all for $10.99.
Before his family opened restaurants, they went to Thai Noodle Wave, a popular Collin County restaurant chain.
In Tarrant County, he had tried the distinctive Thai boat noodles at Thai Charm Cuisine in Haltom CIty and the dishes at Asiannights Lao Thai Cuisine, near Sikhay.
“We love the family restaurants,” Singharaj said. “Our goal is to target the younger demographic.”
Zaap is a few doors from HG Sply along the same sidewalk, so that won’t be difficult.
Zaap has Dallas locations and chose a Fort Worth spot along South University Drive near the Fort Worth Zoo and the Trinity Trail.
There is no other Asian restaurant nearby, unless you count the sushi bar at Pacific Table in University Park Village.
On Monday, the restaurant’s few tables inside and outside were already filled, mostly with young women having veggie rolls, Lao iced coffees or Thai tea.
In the old PopBar space next door to dessert haven SusieCakes, Zaap offers its own distinctive chilled sweets: JOY Macarons ice cream sandwiches from with French macrons in eight flavors.
It’s open for lunch and dinner daily; 682-255-5752, zaapkitchen.com.
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
