On January 2, the New York chef King Phojanakong died at the age of 54. Over the course of his career, he maintained, in the words of Time Out, a “cult following” with his restaurants, Kuma Inn on the Lower East Side and Umi Nom in Bed-Stuy. Phojanakong had been in and out of NYU Langone’s Kimmel Center after visiting the Philippines over the summer and experiencing headaches and double vision there. Since September, he had remained in the hospital, and in December, he was diagnosed with an extremely rare case of granulomatous amoebic encephalitis, a serious infection of the nervous system and brain. Born to a Thai father and a Filipina mother, Phojanakong grew up in New York City and worked at restaurants operated by chefs such as Daniel Boulud and David Bouley. In mid-2003, he opened Kuma Inn in a tucked-away Lower East Side location. Phojanakong went on to open Umi Nom in 2009, a restaurant that specialized in drinking food like fried chicken wings seasoned with fish sauce, lime juice, and Anaheim peppers and wok-roasted Manila clams in black-bean-butter sauce. In 2015, Phojanakong took over the kitchen at Jimmy’s No. 43, Jimmy Carbone’s now-closed East Village bar. Kuma Inn stayed open for several more years until closing in 2020 during the pandemic. Over the past decade, the chef also launched a hot-sauce company, Small Axe Peppers, taught at the Institute of Culinary Education, and launched Cook Like King, through which he taught classes and put on events. Head to the link in our bio for more on the late chef.