With Kancil, a Veteran Chef Showcases Malaysian Cuisine Like Never Before

Back in 1996, when New York swells were grazing on stylized spring rolls amid expensively exotic decor at places like Vong or Indochine, and traditional southeast Asian cooking was mainly relegated to Chinatowns, Wong opened Cafe Asean in the West Village. The unassuming little spot, dishing up undiluted Vietnamese, Thai, and Malaysian flavors, earned a devoted following and had a successful two-decade run before it closed in 2016.

In 2010, after opening and closing his fine-dining restaurant Jefferson — which famously made a cameo in “Sex and the City” — the chef launched Wong on nearby Cornelia Street. Riding a new wave of the city’s chef-driven Asian places and marrying bold flavors of shrimp paste and chiles with cool downtown vibes and a zeitgeisty greenmarket ethos, Wong earned raves from New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells: “It’s been a long time since Asian fusion cooking has promised thrills of this sort,” Wells wrote in his debut review for the paper, praising Wong’s duck tongue meatballs, and sea cucumbers in a “slightly demented Bolognese,” served in a room that was “half Williamsburg, half Salvation Army.”

A few years later, the chef transformed Wong into Chomp Chomp, his boisterous personal ode to Southeast Asian street food, named after a famous hawker center in Singapore. His guests (myself included) couldn’t get enough of his prawn noodles, his lamb shank rendang, and his Hainanese chicken rice. The reviews were once again stellar but by 2018, Wong had shuttered all of his restaurants, seemingly disappearing from New York’s restaurant radar and leaving his regulars pining for his shrimp paste-lacquered chicken wings.

Kancil will be Wong’s return to his roots, with a wide menu of street snacks such as cassava croquettes, spicy noodles, and shareable dishes that will update the foods of his Malaysian heritage with modern techniques and seasonal, organic ingredients. The airy 40-seat space with huge windows, which was most recently Wau, is a collaboration between Wong and New Delhi-born Salil Mehta, the prolific chef and restaurateur behind Fungi Hospitality Group, which includes such spots as Laut, Kebab Aur Sharab, and Kanyakumari. There’ll be killer cocktails for sure, plenty of low-intervention wines, and cross-cultural desserts like jackfruit trifle, or kuih bahulu, from pastry chef Heidi Stanley. Plus, ice cream in flavors like pineapple tart and mala cocoa from Wong’s own Two Rabbits brand.

“The time is right,” Mehta tells Resy. Of Wong, Mehta says: “He’s rejuvenated. He’s had a break for a while, and I think that makes a difference.” Mehta says that, initially, he asked Wong to work on just a few dishes for Wau, but then realized they should go all in together on a new menu and concept for the restaurant. “It’s kind of risky on our end, but at this moment and at this time, I think the consumer is really ready for something that’s truly Malaysian and represented by someone from that region, and who’s had an opportunity with so many different spaces to really kind of figure it out,” Mehta says.

Recently, Resy caught up with Wong while he was on an extended trip through his native Malaysia. We talked to him about Kancil, growing up near the jungle, tongue-numbing noodles, his career trajectory, and his high hopes for Malaysian food in New York.

Resy: You are in Malaysia as we speak, doing research for Kancil. Set the scene please.

Simpson Wong: I’m in Kuala Lumpur, near the area where I used to live. It’s near Jalan Alor Street, which is full of restaurants and hawkers of street food. It’s closed to traffic at night and it’s bustling like crazy, and the smells are intoxicating.

This whole trip is for eating some of the foods I grew up with. Tonight, I’m going back to my hometown to eat at this restaurant that’s been around for probably 55 years. I’ll be having their famous rice noodle dish that some call “inedible” because it’s so spicy with Sarawak peppers. You boil the sauce for hours with pork bones until it’s crazy-intense. Last time I was there was maybe 20 years ago? So, I want to reconnect and see how it feels to me now.

What are some other inspirations you might bring to New York from this trip?

There’s this rice vermicelli dish called lala bee hoon, which I had yesterday in KL. It’s packed with soft shell clams in a delicious broth flavored with a Shaoxing wine and a ton of ginger. I want a version of it at Kancil, and the Sarawak laksa, pungent and rich with spices like coriander, fennel, and nutmeg, tangy with tamarind, and thick thanks to the candlenuts added to the paste, is it. This afternoon, I’m trying out claypot rice that might end up on my menu, and tonight, yet a different noodle dish. I’m revisiting old places and checking out new ones.

You were raised in Tanjung Malim, about 50 miles north of KL. What was that like? What are some early food memories?

I actually grew up in a small village outside Tanjung Malim, a kind of place with 70 houses where you knew everybody and there was one phone booth for the whole village. It was at the foot of the rainforest, with snakes everywhere, and tigers.

People in my village hunted wild boar and ate it in curries with a ton of ginger and garlic. You cooked the meat forever in soy sauce and oyster sauce because it’s so tough. There were lots of cassava leaves, too, sautéed with chiles, ginger, and turmeric. Also pig lungs and other innards because we were so poor.

What did you do after you came to New York in 1988?

All sorts of things. I worked at the UN, and at Penthouse magazine (laughs), and practiced shiatsu massage at a holistic center downtown. Meanwhile, I was doing a lot of catering with my roommate, cooking Asian food for film crews and Soho art galleries. Plus waiting tables on the side.

What drew you to the kitchen?

Food was always in my life, I learned to cook from my mother. She essentially worked for my dad, who was in the lumber business deep in the jungle — in the middle of nowhere, two hours from the nearest village. So, my mom would go there and cook three meals a day for the crew. We also had a plot of land in the jungle, growing chiles and vegetables. Everything was so natural; we’d have sweet potatoes, eating both leaves and flesh, or pandan leaves. There was nothing for me to do, so I started to help my mom cook to kill time.

And your New York restaurants?

I opened Cafe Asean in 1996, then Jefferson, a fancier place, which was a success — until I had a heart attack [in 2005]. I followed with Wong, then Chomp Chomp with Singaporean street food. I felt incredibly fortunate that my places were so well received from day one.

But still you closed Wong in 2014, Cafe Asean in 2016, and Chomp Chomp two years later. What happened?

Cafe Asean’s space was practically crumbling; you could see through the walls, and the landlord was no help. We closed Wong to turn it into Chomp Chomp. Then the lease expired on the Chomp Chomp space.

What did you do after 2018 when Chomp Chomp closed? Did you leave the professional kitchen?

Not really. I went to China for a culinary diplomacy job, went back to Malaysia to be with my family, then was consulting for the food company, Nature’s Fynd that develops sustainable proteins. I did lots of catering and private dinners as well, still staying very much in the food business, since I don’t know how to do anything else. Meanwhile, I was looking for the right space in New York. But the pandemic didn’t make it too easy. In 2023, with my life partner Dr. Henry Wu, I launched a healthy Asian-inspired ice cream project, Two Rabbits.

The New York restaurant scene has much changed since you opened Wong. Asian food is almost the default idiom now. What do you think of Malaysian/Singaporean food in the city today — since you were such a pioneer of these flavors?

Well, Singaporean food is still almost non-existent in New York except for the Urban Hawker Singaporean food court. As for Malaysian, it’s Flushing, Queens, or Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Outside of these Chinatowns, what are the well-known Malaysian places? Thai food, on the other hand, is having a “moment,” with so many wonderful, beautifully decorated restaurants. My idea is to do the same for Malaysian food, to basically reintroduce this cuisine to the city, but with a modern approach and better ingredients.

Do you think Malaysia’s “moment” is coming?

Definitely. For many years, our cuisine was underrepresented on the international stage. Now, a new wave of chefs and restaurateurs — many from Malaysia’s diaspora — are reintroducing the world to our food culture with its mix of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy elements, and that rich fusion of Malay, Chinese, and Indian influences. Restaurants in Kuala Lumpur are getting Michelin and World’s 50 Best recognitions. Malaysian food is already happening in places like Melbourne and London. It’s puzzling to me why it hasn’t yet gone mainstream in New York.

OK, people might know the “top 10” dishes from the Chinatown Malaysian places: roti canai, nasi lemak, char kway teow. But with Kancil, I want to bring something different and less obvious, direct from Malaysia. That’s why I’m home now, researching and eating. There’s so much to discover: the foods served at nasi campur [mixed rice] stalls, for example. All the noodle varieties. Yesterday, I had a noodle dish in a fish broth made with fish bones and salted cabbage; it was tangy and savory and sweet and briny all at the same time. Nobody is serving such food in New York.

Tell us more about Kancil, starting with the name.

It’s pronounced kan-chil. We named it for a clever and cute mousedeer that’s famous in Malaysian folklore for outsmarting the crocodile.

And why did you decide to open this restaurant now?

I was looking and looking for the right space, as I mentioned, but I also needed a rest. It was nice for a while to enjoy spring and summer seasons without having to work in the kitchen. But then Salil [Mehta] asked if we should do a project together. And it sounded just great. Because in my mind, I never really left the restaurant world.

What will be the vibe at Kancil? The food, the design?

The decor will have a “less is more” look that I like. Fairly minimalist and modern, no knicknacks hanging around. Food will be modern as well, but with robust Malaysian flavors. Saucy, savory, and exactly as spicy as it needs to be. It will be authentic Malaysian, but with local greenmarket ingredients, since I live on 10th Street in the Village and go to the farmers market.

What dishes are you particularly excited about? And should former Wong and Chomp Chomp fans (myself included) expect any of your signature hits?

I’m Hakka and my mom used to make this Hakka dish of gnocchi-like taro root dumplings called abacus seeds. She stir-fried them in ground pork, dried shrimp, garlic chives, and wood ear mushrooms. I’m planning to serve it with a ragu of chanterelles from a Hudson Valley farm of a friend, with Sarawak black peppercorn — kind of like a cacio e pepe.

I’m also planning a Dungeness crab dish, since you can’t find Sri Lankan crabs here. Whole crab will be cooked in salt, then I’ll use the shells, roe, and tomalley to make a rich sauce — hopefully the Upper West Side is ready for this. [Editor’s note: The crab dish isn’t on the opening menu, but you might see it on the spring menu next year.] Or something based on the clam noodles I mentioned earlier, with a beautiful broth cooked with young ginger and Shaoxing wine, full of steamers, periwinkles, and littlenecks. Imagine a very soupy Malaysian vongole dish. I’m also thinking shrimp in their shells cooked in butter with curry leaves until they get crispy and lacy.

I won’t have any Chomp Chomp or Wong dishes at Kancil; everything will be new. But I might still put some on occasionally as daily specials.

So the food will draw on your childhood?

A lot of it, yes. Inspired by the kind of places in my hometown that open late and sell one kind of dish. My mom used to sell noodles, so there’ll be many inspirations from her. And from the “aunties” who sell stuff like bitter melon with fish in the villages. So, I’ll serve pickled bitter melon sautéed with fish at Kancil.

What are your expectations at Kancil?

I hope people will come and give us a try and tell me what they think, and share their honest opinions and feedback. I have no ego in cooking, I want my guests to be happy.

Kancil is open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 2 p.m. for lunch, and from 5 to 10:30 p.m. for dinner.

Anya von Bremzen is a James Beard Award-winning book author and journalist based in Jackson Heights, N.Y. Her latest book, “National Dish,” was published last year. Follow her on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.