Fayetteville food truck Some Ting's Cookin' is popular for its small menu of Asian dishes made to order from scratch.
Vongsavanah Sananikone, 59 — better known by his childhood nickname, Ting — and his wife, Deloris "Lola" Sananikone, 48, own and operate the truck. Occasionally, their three teenage daughters chip in.
The pair were at their usual spot Wednesday afternoon, preparing for the dinner shift at Haymount Truck Stop, where the chef whips up dishes like bulgogi, pad Thai and drunken noodles while his wife takes orders. The couple serve hundreds of customers each week, Lola Sananikone said.
“It's not just Thai, it's not just Chinese, we have a little bit of everything,” Lola Sananikone explained. “It’s Ting’s heart. He loves food from everywhere.”
She said they have a loyal group of regulars, mostly people who live in the neighborhood or stop for dinner on their way home from work. But they get plenty of new customers, too, and it's not uncommon for her husband to peer out of the truck window to watch customers take their first bite.
"Right away, you see the reaction,” he said.
The best compliment is when customers do a little happy dance in their seats, his wife said.
Their days are long — and sometimes brutally hot, with temperatures inside the truck reaching 115, even with air conditioning — but it’s clear that they love what they do.
“I’ve always loved serving people and making them happy,” Lola Sananikone said.
While the truck got its start in Hope Mills about a year and a half ago, it has roots in Laotian home cooking, a 1980s Paris restaurant kitchen and a cross-country move on a whim.
Ting’s long road to a Fayetteville food truck
Born and raised in Laos, Ting Sananikone said he learned to cook from his six aunts. He started by prepping ingredients each night for dinner and slowly learned his way around the kitchen.
"All six of them, they were the best cooks in the world,” he said.
Sananikone said he and his family emigrated to France when he was 8 years old to escape the communist regime of their home country.
In his early 20s, Sananikone worked alongside Chinese chefs at his cousin's restaurants in Paris — where he learned how to run a galley.
"I learned from a real Chinese chef,” he said. "That’s how I learned to operate a restaurant, and that’s exactly how I run the food truck now.”
He said he looked up to his cousin, who was just 29 at the time, and thought about opening a restaurant of his own.
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But, as Sananikone put it, life got in the way.
He eventually joined his mother in Minnesota, served four years in the Marine Corps, and settled in San Diego, where he worked as a police sergeant.
That's where he met his wife and business partner, who worked as a police dispatcher for nearly 20 years.
In March 2021, after Ting retired from his 28 years in law enforcement, he and his wife came to North Carolina to visit her nephew stationed at Fort Liberty. They were inspired by the food truck scene at Dirtbag Ales.
"We just fell in love with the food trucks, the ambiance, the people, everything,” she said.
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A few weeks later, they packed up their California home and moved to Hope Mills to start a food truck. By November, they were up and running at Dirtbag.
“It was really a full circle moment,” she said.
What’s next for Ting’s?
By next summer, the Sananikones plan to launch a soft-serve ice cream truck, Some Ting Sweet, that their daughters will operate.
Until then, they are happy to keep serving the favorites that have made them a mainstay of the Fayetteville food truck scene.
"It feels like home now. I just love all my customers,” Lola Sananikone said. “It’s like a little food truck family.”
The details
On the web: sometingscookin.com
Phone: 951-790-8453
Hours and address: Search " Some Ting's Cookin' " on Facebook for an updated schedule
Food, dining and culture reporter Taylor Shook can be reached at tshook@gannett.com . Want weekly food news delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the Fayetteville Foodies newsletter .
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: A popular Fayetteville food truck serving Asian favorites has roots in Paris kitchen
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