{"id":336335,"date":"2026-09-02T21:50:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T21:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/336335\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T21:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T21:50:29","slug":"m-star-cafe-will-become-lucas-sins-lok-kee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/336335\/","title":{"rendered":"M Star Cafe Will Become Lucas Sin\u2019s Lok Kee"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Lok Kee<\/a><\/p>\n

\n 19 Division St., at Catherine St.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sin with his mochi French toast inside M Star Cafe.
\n Photo: Scott Semler\n <\/p>\n

After growing up in Hong Kong, the chef Lucas Sin appeared on this city\u2019s culinary scene in 2017 with Junzi Kitchen<\/a>, a fast-casual Chinese chain with homestyle noodles he started developing during his senior year at Yale. He has hosted several popular web series (including Street Eats<\/a> on YouTube) and spent time abroad researching his first cookbook, Cha Chaan Teng: Comfort Food From Hong Kong\u2019s Iconic Diners<\/a>, which will be published this fall. Coinciding with the book, he began hosting his own pop-up dinners in the city, serving dishes such as dual-sauced yin-yang fried rice, tofu-skin shrimp rolls, black-pepper brisket with potatoes in a clay pot, and mochi French toast that\u2019s battered, deep-fried, and draped in a thick layer of condensed milk.<\/p>\n

Sin reveres cha chaan tengs \u2014 the Hong Kong diners that are paragons of efficiency \u2014 the way any New Yorker might cherish our local greasy spoons. \u201cYour favorite diners are ones that give you free coffee and the waitress calls you \u2018hon,\u2019\u2009\u201d says Sin, sliding into a seat at M Star Cafe<\/a>, the Chinatown cha chaan teng where the 150-plus-item menu features, among other dishes, breakfast congee, macaroni-and-ham soup, and baked pork chops with rice. The restaurant is also where Sin has hosted his pop-ups in the past, and it is soon to be the permanent home of Lok Kee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although he\u2019s been a regular at M Star for years, he was hardly a shoo-in to become its next proprietor: Most restaurants in Chinatown are passed down familially, generation to generation. Chinese aunties caught wind that there was a Hong Kong kid walking into open restaurants and asking if anyone had leads on spaces opening up. Then a few months ago, Sin got a call from another restaurant owner asking him to \u201ccome down to meet me in two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

The d\u00e9cor includes cerulean tiles inside, with a faded pixelated Google Map rendering of Hong Kong island across an entire wall, overlaid with caricatures of Chinese celebrities such as Jackie Chan, Yao Ming, Chow Yung-Fat, Steven Chow, and Andy Lau. (Sin can spot the building where he grew up painted onto the mural.) Sin isn\u2019t planning to change too much. \u201cIf you take a cha chaan teng away from Chinatown, you have to give one back,\u201d he says. That means maintaining a version of the current menu, including dim-sum mainstays including soy-braised chicken wings and M Star\u2019s cheung fun rice rolls, as well as the yuenyeung, the mix of coffee and milk tea that is crucial to the cha chaan teng experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel the pressure to do 150 items \u2014 otherwise, you\u2019re not a diner.\u201d He does want to upgrade certain sauces and spice blends, though he\u2019ll take full advantage of canned ingredients like evaporated milk, ketchup, cream-of-chicken soup as a sauce, and Spam, all of which were first employed as cost-efficient shortcuts but are now pantry essentials for any true cha chaan teng. \u201cNot everyone thinks cooking with ketchup is cool,\u201d Sin says, but \u201cthis is not fine dining; it\u2019s the most democratic stuff. I don\u2019t think it will feel very cheffy.\u201d He points out that the average order at a typical cha chaan teng takes the kitchen only a minute or two to prepare and customers can be in and out in 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no set date for the handover yet. It will happen before the end of the year, Sin hopes, and he\u2019s grateful for the unhurried pace: \u201cNot many places will let you spend time in the restaurant before signing the lease.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Nam Yu pork belly.
\n Photo: Scott Semler\n <\/p>\n

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