Turning on the lights before another late night at Gayang.
Photo: Tammie Teclemariam
Last winter, while he was still the head sushi chef at the Upper East Side restaurant Casa Tua, Ivan Ramos and a fellow cook were on their way to Queens after their shift. On the late-night train, the men became the target of an attacker, who hit them both for no apparent reason and fled. Shaken, they got off at Grand Avenue in Elmhurst to regroup, which is when Ramos remembered Tommy Thai, a dive-y restaurant known for cheap beer and late-night service. “I hadn’t been there for five years,” he recalls, but the two ended up drinking there until 6 a.m. as it started to snow outside. “The owner talked to us and told us they were planning to sell the restaurant,” Ramos says, “and I considered it.”
It took less than a year for Ramos to take over, opening Gayang, short for Guinayangan, his home municipality in the Philippines, in October. The menu presents his Filipino dishes alongside Tommy Thai’s greatest hits such as som tum and kra pow moo grob. And the space remains visibly unchanged, meaning that the current restaurant at 85-33 Grand Avenue is best identified by the former’s royal-blue awning, which still bears a white cursive “Tommy” in the middle. It wasn’t until I approached the vestibule that I could make out the updated information from its sidewalk chalkboard: “Gayang NYC by Chef Ivan, Thai and Filipino cuisine.”
Another holdover from the Tommy Thai days is karaoke. I had intended to bring an entourage of willing crooners along but could only manage to convince one other person, from neighboring Jackson Heights, to come out with me on a blustery Friday night. Without a full backup choir, I hoped Gayang would be busy enough to prevent me from having to awkwardly serenade my friend all night. When we arrived, one of the mismatched wood tables was occupied by a group of seven women who were all in the process of eating. We were seated at an adjacent table by the window with a direct view of a TV in the back showing John Mayer performing a live cover of “Free Fallin’.”
My friend ordered Singha while I asked for Yuengling, but chef Ramos, who was also our server, proposed that we split a bucket of six instead: “It’s a better price.” We committed to three beers each as fuel for singing our hearts out and started to scan the food menu. I contemplated sisig when something unusual in the description caught my attention: “sizzling pork with lemon, onion, chili, egg, and,” … mayo? When Ramos returned with our beers nestled into a bucket of ice, he told me that he uses the mayonnaise as a substitute for brain. An accurate sisig includes a hodgepodge of an entire pig’s head, he explained. “It’s scarce to find any snout, ears, and mouth of the pig but especially the brain.” Gayang’s version is primarily pork belly and “instead of brain we use mayonnaise to give it creaminess,” he said, having been inspired by recipes from the Philippines.
In the end, we skipped mayo sisig in favor of grilled pork skewers that seemed better suited for double fisting with a microphone as were the spring rolls and chive pancake. For mains, we chose chicken inasal and a quarter-duck in tamarind sauce rounded out with papaya salad and crab fried rice, an order that seemed to please the chef after confirming we were in for a large amount.
A red beanie’d woman sitting next to me on the banquette took control of the TV with her phone, and another diner kicked off karaoke with ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me.” The appetizers hadn’t even arrived before we were being hustled to sing as well; our participation did not seem “optional.” My friend had been inspired to sing a version of “Free Fallin’” while I provided backup until our food started to appear. We were allowed a reprieve from the ladies who were now joined in the dining room by a table of two tall young men they seemed to know, both of whom were eating identical orders of sisig. (Ramos told me later it’s their regular order.)
Our skewers carried an impressive char that I’d later learn was the result of a torch, and we demolished the pile of diagonal-cut spring rolls, which Ramos specified as Shanghai rolls, filled with pork and an assertively savory amount of celery. The crispy charred leg of chicken inasal, whose skin sees the same flame as the skewers, plated with a mound of fluffy plain rice was reassuring upon sight, giving way to steamy, juicy meat underneath the tangy lemongrass-, vinegar-, and soy-marinated crust.
When our singing resumed, I performed a hoarse-voiced Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” to support and cheers from our new friends. “It’s okay. Take a break, then you come back,” I was told before they switched to Tagalog pop songs. When the first notes of my own next request, “Lovefool,” hit the room, someone in the background said, “I think it’s time to boogie now.” By now, we were actively chatting, and I asked them why Filipinos are so good at karaoke. “I think it was invented there!” someone replied.
Ramos says the Filipino regulars preceded his arrival at Tommy Thai’s; they started coming for the karaoke. Even still, the former operators offered Ramos a provisional three-month pop-up to sell his food before they agreed to sell it. His agreement with the previous owner means they maintain a presence, as well, such as the Thai half of the menu that’s still cooked by Tommy Thai’s chef, Saoworth Nuamcharoen. “They’re helping me to not fail, and they’re teaching me a lot of stuff because I’m young,” Ramos said. Then, as business began to slow, he grabbed the karaoke mic and belted out his version of Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing.”
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