Sometimes the best things emerge from the worst moments. For Chef Ivan Ramos, formerly the head sushi chef at Upper East Side's Casa Tua, that moment came last winter on a late-night train to Queens.
After their shift, Ramos and a fellow cook became targets of an unprovoked attack. 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," Ramos recalls. The two ended up drinking there until 6 a.m. as snow fell outside. When the owner mentioned they were planning to sell, Ramos saw opportunity.
Less than a year later, Gayang opened at 85-33 Grand Avenue — the name short for Guinayangan, Ramos's home municipality in the Philippines. The restaurant presents his Filipino dishes alongside Tommy Thai's greatest hits like som tum and kra pow moo grob.
The menu showcases Ramos's creativity, particularly in his sisig adaptation. While traditional sisig includes pig's head components including brain, Ramos uses mayonnaise as a substitute. "Instead of brain we use mayonnaise to give it creaminess," he explains, inspired by recipes from the Philippines.
One key holdover: karaoke. Filipino regulars had been coming to Tommy Thai for the singing long before Ramos arrived, and the tradition continues nightly. The former operators offered Ramos a provisional three-month pop-up before agreeing to sell, and the original Thai chef, Saoworth Nuamcharoen, still cooks that half of the menu.
"They're helping me to not fail, and they're teaching me a lot of stuff because I'm young," says Ramos. As nights wind down, don't be surprised to find the chef himself grabbing the karaoke mic, belting out his version of Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing."