Public Village — A Home Away from Home
Kiyomi Wang (right), chef and co-owner of Public Village, and her wife, Kyo Pang (left)
If you’ve known me for long enough, the you’ll know that I have a soft spot for Sichuan restaurants. My hometown of Chongqing was part of the Sichuan province from 1954 to 1997 (after which it split off into its own provincial-level municipality), so I grew up eating all of the traditional Sichuan dishes. When I got the opportunity to interview Kiyomi — one of the owners of Public Village — for Welcome to Chinatown’s Business Spotlight series, I was ecstatic. The items on her menu — wǎn zá noodles (a noodle dish with yellow peas similar to chickpeas), stinky tofu, bīng fěn (ice jelly), tomato egg noodles, etc. — are all items I grew up eating. Similar to how Kiyomi used food as a way to cure her homesickness, food was a way for my parents and I to connect to our culture after emigrating to the US. As I scrolled through the mouthwatering pictures of noodles and Sichuanese snacks on Public Village’s Yelp page, a wave of nostalgia washed over me.
As English is not Kiyomi’s first language, her wife, Kyo, acted as the translator for our interview. Kyo is actually the executive chef and owner of Kopitiam, a super delicious Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown. I went there last weekend with Patrick and our friend Stu, and we were all blown away by the flavors. Public Village is right around the corner from Kopitiam, and I am planning on paying them a visit very soon (super excited — will update this post once I’ve had a chance to visit the restaurant).
During this time of uncertainty and elevated violence against Asians in America, it’s more important than ever to give Asian communities a voice and tell their stories. I hope that Kiyomi’s story can provide an additional perspective and help build the bridge of understanding and acceptance that we so desperately need.
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Public Village is a Sichuanese restaurant that specializes in homemade noodles and Chengdu-style street food. Chef and co-owner Kiyomi Wang opened Public Village with her business partner, Karen Song, on March 15, 2020 — two days before the stay-at-home orders went into effect in NYC. Through her cooking, Kiyomi has been able to pay homage to her hometown of Chengdu by putting her whole heart into everything that she makes. Read on to learn about how Kiyomi went from being a model in China to a chef in NYC and why she decided to name her restaurant Public Village.
Spinach Noodle Soup with Scrambled Egg and Tomato
Tell us about your business and who you are!
My name is Kiyomi Wang, and I am the chef and co-owner of Public Village. Public Village is a Sichuanese restaurant that specializes in homemade noodle dishes and street food from Chengdu (where I am from) and Northern China (where my co-founder, Karen Song, is from). Karen and I opened the restaurant on March 15, 2020, which was two days before the stay-at-home mandate went into effect in New York.
Most of our food is vegetarian friendly, and we are also sensitive to people who are gluten free or vegan. We pair different types of homemade noodles with different soup and sauce bases so that we can accommodate all kinds of dietary restrictions. For example, our tomato egg noodle dish is made with spinach noodles, and our beef noodle soup is made with squid ink noodles. Our mung bean noodles are great for people who can’t have gluten.
Why did you name your restaurant Public Village?
We named the restaurant Public Village after the xiǎo qū – or “little districts” – that are common in China. The xiǎo qū is a specific type of residential development that consists of many multi-story buildings with their own facilities such as gyms, daycare centers, parks, etc. Most of the people who live in the same xiǎo qū will know each other, and there are typically courtyards where residents can gather and bǎi long mén zhèn, which is colloquial for “gossip” or “chit-chat” in the Sichuan dialect. In that sense, the xiǎo qū are like “public villages” where people can congregate and exchange stories. We wanted to create a space for people to eat, drink, and chat like in the public villages of Sichuan.
Drunken Braised Beef Noodle Soup
What are your favorite dishes from your menu?
Everything on the menu is my favorite! Karen and I both love noodles, since noodles are a staple breakfast food in Northern China. If I had to pick one dish, it would be the Drunken Braised Beef Noodle Soup. It’s a super unique dish: we need to cook the broth with the bone in for sixteen hours to get the flavor without using any preservatives — it’s very addictive because we add Sichuan peppercorn to it. It comes with homemade squid ink noodles topped with beef that has been braised for six hours in order to achieve optimal tenderness. I also make my own chili oil, and I put in at least twelve different spices. The oil needs to cook for over an hour so that it absorbs all of the flavor from the spices.
Could you please tell us a little about yourself?
My mother is part of the Yi ethnic minority group in Sichuan, China, and she always cooked a lot of traditional Sichuan dishes for me and my brother when we were growing up. My father is from Northern China, where Karen is also from.
I used to work as a model and news anchor in Chengdu, China, before emigrating to New York. I met my wife, Kyo Pang – the founder and executive chef of Kopitiam, a popular Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown – during an interview that I was conducting for the news station. I moved to the US about four years ago in order to be with Kyo, and we got married last year.
Street Style Chilled Spicy Noodle
Kiyomi Wang
What inspired you to start your own restaurant?
When I first moved here, I had some trouble adjusting because I wasn’t familiar with the food in the US. I was really homesick and missed Sichuanese food a lot. To help cure my homesickness, Kyo would take me to all of the Sichuan restaurants in NYC. Eventually, I started making some dishes myself. Even though I had no formal culinary training, I sort of knew how to make most of my favorite foods because I had watched my mom and brother cook while I was growing up. Also, everyone in Chengdu knows how to cook a little bit, since it’s part of the culture, so I knew some of the basic skills.
When I first started out, it was a lot of trial and error. I would invite friends over for dinner all the time and have them try out my dishes. To my surprise, people really enjoyed my food! Over the years, I met many people through these dinners, including my business partner, Karen. Karen had been friends with Kyo for many years, and we hit it off right away. We realized that we had so many things in common. For example, we are both Capricorns, and we both love noodles. Karen is from Northern China, and my father is also from Northern China. That’s why you’ll sometimes see dishes on our menu that are common in that region, such as the Grilled Chilled Noodle Wrap and the Chicken Skeleton.
Grilled Chilled Noodle Wrap
Chicken Skeleton
One day, one of my friends, the owner of Coffee Project New York, asked me if I would do the catering for an event that she was hosting. I agreed, and the event ended up being very successful. Soon after, when Karen, Kyo, and I were having dinner, Karen asked, “Why don’t we just open our own restaurant?” Maybe it was the red wine that we were drinking that night, but I immediately said yes, and everything after that happened so quickly. Karen was working as an assistant manager at another restaurant at the time, so I thought her managerial experience would make her a great business partner.
At the restaurant, I do all of the cooking, and Karen does all of the business stuff. Together, we make a great team. Kyo has also helped us a lot and gave us some good business advice from her experience running Kopitiam. She introduced us to the contractors that we used to renovate the space and she also introduced us to a lot of our suppliers.
What was it like opening a restaurant during a pandemic?
It was scary. Everything happened so quickly, and we pretty much didn’t have a choice except to open when we did. We had walked by the space so many times, but it was always occupied by another tenant. Then, one day, we passed by and saw a “for rent” sign in the window. Right then and there, we decided to bite the bullet. We toured the space at the end of November 2019 and signed the contract in December 2019. Right after we signed, the pandemic hit. The moment I received the keys to the space, I was so excited, but my excitement was soon shattered when COVID tore through NYC.
The renovation for our space was completed in February 2020, and we officially opened on March 15 that same year. Two days after we opened, on March 17, New York went into lockdown, and we had to rely solely on delivery and to-go orders. After fourteen days of being open, we shut down because it became unprofitable to keep operating. Also, Karen found out that she was pregnant around that time, so we decided that it would be best to put the restaurant on pause for a bit until we got more information from the CDC. We re-opened on May 5, 2020.
Bīng fěn (ice jelly)
When COVID first hit NYC, what kinds of thoughts were running through your head?
It was complicated. I had been really excited about the restaurant opening. For many nights, we stayed up to paint the walls ourselves and painstakingly went over so many details.
Then, one night at midnight, I read some news about COVID spreading in Asia, and I became so scared. I called home right away to make sure that my family was doing ok. People in China were having issues getting masks, so we bought a lot of masks and shipped them to China. My mom and brother started to distribute them to people in their xiǎo qū who were also having trouble getting masks. We also shipped a bunch of masks to Kyo’s family in Malaysia and made sure that they had enough supplies. But shortly after, COVID hit the US, and the tables turned. Suddenly, Asia had more masks, so our families began sending masks back to us. Looking back, even though it was a tough time for everyone, it was great that we were able to help each other out.
How has Welcome to Chinatown (WtC) helped your business?
WtC has helped us immensely. We opened our restaurant during the worst possible time, and we didn’t qualify for most SBA loans, such as the PPP loan. There wasn’t much traffic in the neighborhood because of the pandemic and also because we were so new. Our landlord was still charging us rent, so we had to pay fixed costs without generating much revenue. The Longevity Fund grant and the WtC Block Walk event helped us to pay off many utility bills and took some of the burden off our shoulders.
How did you use the Longevity Fund grant?
We primarily used the grant to pay utilities, rent, staff, and outdoor dining buildout. Additional funding can help improve our outside seating, because our existing one has been quite damaged by graffiti and late-night crowds.
Any advice you would like to give to other small business owners trying to survive during COVID?
Try your best to stay healthy and try to help others through this difficult time. While trying to survive ourselves, we’ve also tried to help the community in any way that we can. For example, Kyo’s restaurant, Kopitiam, has partnered with Rethink Food, which is a non-profit organization that utilizes donated food from restaurants to create meals for those in need. Public Village has also partnered with some smaller private organizations who have helped us deliver free meals to people — there is one guy that works as a nurse who sometimes comes in and tells us how many meals he needs, and then we just give him the amount he asks for and he drops it off to people in need.
Thousand Layered Bing
What are you the most proud of as a business owner?
It feels great to start something and then get good at it – especially when it’s something I never knew I could be good at. The people in the neighborhood always call me the “model in the kitchen” because I had no restaurant experience prior to starting Public Village, and I’m proud that I’ve been able to prove myself through my cooking. I have grown and changed so much throughout this journey, and I am proud of who I have become.
What is something interesting that most people don’t know about Public Village?
A lot of people come to Public Village to play Mahjong and chit chat. We’ve become friends with a lot of our neighbors this way! You probably won’t find another restaurant in Chinatown where people come to play Mahjong.
Any plans for the future?
I want to try doing fresh, packaged food that people can cook easily at home (similar to meal kits). I would package things like the chili oils and sauces that I make. Currently, I’m trying to package the Drunken Braised Beef Noodles so that people can eat it fresh in their homes.
What do you hope your legacy will be? I.e., 50 years from now, what do you want people to remember about Public Village?
I want people to remember the Yi minority group and appreciate the uniqueness of Sichuanese food. I started this restaurant to share the taste of my hometown with people in the US. There is a saying in China that Sichuanese food “là kǒu bù là xīn,” which means that it burns your mouth but does not burn your heart. I make every single dish with love, and I hope that people can feel that and remember Public Village as a place that is filled with “heart.”
How can people support your business?
Call us and come pick up our food rather than use third party delivery apps! Third party delivery and pickup apps charge a lot – up to 30%! Since everything we serve is handmade and very time consuming to create, we’re not making very high margins on the food to begin with.
Tofu Skin Salad
Sichuan Pepper Beef
Anything else you would like people to know?
I want people to know that you can do anything if you set your heart to it. I had the guts to open a restaurant without a cooking background – if I could do this, you can achieve your dreams too.
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Chinatown establishments like Public Village are what makes the spirit of our neighborhood. We need your support — now more than ever before — to keep that spirit alive. Please consider making a donation to our small business relief fund, The Longevity Fund, or help us spread the word of what’s at stake. Together, we can preserve Chinatown businesses and help say Chinatown will always be open for business.
Photo Credit: Fuxuan Xin