KHAMAI CAMBODIAN SURPRISES BY REVEALING A SECOND MORE CASUAL RESTAURANT

Chef Mona Sang is deep into preparations ahead of the hotly anticipated return of her lauded Cambodian restaurant, Khmai, in a larger and more modern space. Quietly, she’s been working on a complementary concept, adding to the fervor around Khamai’s May reopening. Kaun Khmai, a casual sister restaurant that specializes in Cambodian street food will share the Rogers Park location near Loyola University’s campus.

Since its founding in 2022 on a quiet street in Rogers Park, Khmai has rocketed to local and national fame when it was hailed that year as one of the 15 Best New Restaurants in America.

Sang’s new restaurant within a restaurant — Kaun Khmai, or “child of Khmai” in Khmer — will offer a livelier atmosphere, cocktails with mixers like mango and lychee juice, and a street food menu that reflects staples from roadside vendors found throughout the Southeast Asian country.

The menu will feature skewers — like grilled beef, chicken, or squid — plus smoked chicken wings, and frog legs stuffed with ground chicken or pork, vermicelli, wood ear mushrooms, and lemongrass. Frogs are a popular and versatile street food favorite in Cambodia, often transformed into sausage or barbecued whole. Sang also teases options like Cambodian rib tips marinated in lemongrass, shallots, and palm sugar; a smash burger made with twa ko (spicy and sour Cambodian sausage); and Cambodian desserts like noum kon (a relative of the doughnut made with rice flour and caramelized brown sugar).

Kaun Khmai provides an on-ramp for younger Loyola students and locals unfamiliar with Khmer cuisine — potential customers who may be reluctant to invest in an upscale dinner at Khmai. She’s noticed her children and their peers sometimes shy away from the unapologetically funky flavors. She’s hopeful that without Americanizing anything, that Kaun Khmai’s fun street food will serve as a gateway toward traditional Khmer flavors. “For newer generations wanting to know what Cambodian food and culture is all about, we want to introduce it slowly,” says Sang.

The restaurant will seat around 40 inside and another 30 on an outdoor patio, is scheduled to open simultaneously with Khmai in May at 6580 N. Sheridan Road on the ground floor of the Hampton Inn. The space, previously home to Onward Chicago from ex-Grace and Yugen owner Michael Olszewski, is divided into discrete bar and dining room sections, thus lending itself to Sang’s dual-restaurant strategy.

Sang’s source of inspiration is her mother, Sarom Sieng, 80, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide — the totalitarian Khmer Rouge’s systematic murder of between 1.5 and 2 million people between 1975 to 1979. In 2023, Khmai earned a semifinalist nod from the James Beard Foundation. When the restaurants open, Sang’s daughter will join the two and work in her spare time ahead of her freshman year at Loyola in the fall.

Kaun Khmai, 6580 N. Sheridan Road, scheduled to open in May.

2024-04-16T20:55:24Z dg43tfdfdgfd