This Malaysian couple – founders of bakery Lady Wong in Manhattan – is winning New Yorkers over with their kueh

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Kueh defies easy categorisation. How does one succinctly define these bite-sized morsels, which are steamed, baked or grilled, that are mostly sweet, sometimes savoury, and share core ingredients like glutinous rice, coconut, and pandan? What is undeniable is that while they are delicious, making them is not an easy art to master, which is perhaps why this Southeast Asian delicacy has still not entered the mainstream in the West. This may be changing as more hyper-focused shops like Lady Wong in New York City’s East Village are anything to go by.

The business, which started as a kueh delivery service by Malaysians Mogan Anthony and Seleste Tan during the pandemic, was so successful they set up a permanent storefront at 322 East 9th Street in 2022 and were invited to open an outpost at Urban Hawker in Midtown this year.

It’s interesting to note that neither Anthony nor Tan has formal training in making kueh but combined experience at fine dining spots like Wylie Dufresne’s WD-50 and Jean-Georges Vongerichte’s Jean-Georges. Anthony, originally from the northern Malaysian state of Perlis and Tan, who hails from Johor, had met at the Four Seasons Singapore, where Mogan worked front-of-house and Tan as a pastry chef.

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