Chef-owner King Phojanakong is still serving up some seriously tasty morsels easily washed down with sake. King, who grew up in Stuy-town and went to Bronx Science, opened Kuma Inn a year and a half ago, after stints at Daniel, Bouley, Danube and The Grocery. He was about to take a job at Chez Panisse when he found this second floor space on a lonely stretch of Ludlow. It was a risk—no street signage and a sleepy, dark block—but he decided to hang up his own shingle and try his hand at a unique brand of Asian fare, an amalgam of the food he grew up on—his dad is from Thailand and his mom is from the Philippines.

We began with some sake, poured into Lucite boxes set on saucers. The sake is poured over the edges of the cube, overflowing into the saucer, as a symbol of hospitality. As we drank, and slurped, we ordered up a slew of food from the tapas-styled menu. First came a plate of plump steamed shumai filled with wasabi spiked pork ($5.50), and then a platter of sautéed spicy Chinese sausages ($7.50) sliced into oblong circles so they are easily swished through a Thai chile lime sauce that King makes using a mortar and pestle. King’s version of Tonkatsu ($8)—a Japanese fried pork cutlet—shows off his training at Danube under Schnitzel Man, Kurt Guttenbruner. The pork is pounded down so it is lean and thin, and then gets shallow-fried to a golden crunchy crisp on the outside, but it remains moist on the inside. It is sliced into slivers and drizzled with a soy-mirin glaze and served on a warm bed of watercress salad dressed with lime butter. This Asian-spiked pork schnitzel is comfort food at its most simple and most effective.

Another bottle of sake was opened, and we plunged our chopsticks into a tangle of Bihon, a silky Philippine rice noodle dish, tossed with mushrooms, hunks of soft pork, bits of sausage, and bean sprouts. Then came a crispy whole red snapper with Thai chile mango sauce. We made quick work of it, leaving a sparkling clean cat-ready fish bone in less than 15 minutes. The restaurant had emptied out at this point and Steven, Quentin and I were saturated with sake, but when King came over poured us some new sakes to try we could not turn him down, and so we indulged in a little bit more. Funny, I thought you could not get a hangover from sake. WAS I WRONG! I was a useless mess the next day. But that night, I was feeling no pain. As we passed around the sake bottles, King turned up the music—he was shuffling through a great 80s collection—and soon, we (well mostly me) were belting out the words to Wings, Steve Miller Band, Foreigner and more. (Really, who needs a Karaoke machine when you have enough sake?) I love Kuma Inn and that King, well, he can cook, and he is a fierce DJ. Kuma Inn is located at 113 Ludlow Street, 2nd floor (Delancy and Rivington Sts), 212-353-8866. Cash Only.

Andrea Strong