Kampar is back with two concepts in one building, a bar, and no saté — but it still has the fire

I can still smell the skewers of meat sizzling over the glowing hot coconut coals at the original Saté Kampar. There are few foods lost to the pandemic that I miss quite as much. So I’ll admit to an initial pang of disappointment when I first sat down at the long-awaited reboot at its new location in Bella Vista, nearly four years after the first one closed on East Passyunk. I quickly realized there would be no saté at Kampar 2.0.

The Saté has even been removed from its name because, unfortunately, there’s simply no exhaust hood suitable for such a smoke show in the bi-level corner building where Angelina “Ange” Branca and her husband, John Branca, opened the latest edition of their restaurant in March. The good news is that Kampar was always about so much more than saté.

The skewers were delicious, but they were also a teaser to grab our attention. The deeper story here is about the Malaysian foods of Branca’s youth, from the array of fresh sambals, tangy with tamarind and a flicker of chile heat, to the milky streams of spiced coffee and tea she relishes pouring back and forth between blended pitchers into frothy cups of cham to finish the meal.

The spirit of those classic elements — and many of her other previous hits — has remained very much intact in the second floor a la carte dining room and bar of her new space, which she calls a kongsi, or Kampar-style social club. (The ground floor and the wood-fired pizza oven of the old Nomad Pizzeria is being used for Indian tasting menus by one of Kampar’s chefs in residence, Reuben “Reuby” Asaram.) The airy, raftered room upstairs is now hung with miner’s lanterns and bare light bulbs that illuminate a mural depicting the market in Kuala Lumpur where Branca’s aunt once operated a noodle cart. It was salvaged from Kampar’s former spot on East Passyunk and restored with more color and stitched batik fabric patches by local artists Rashidah Salam and Jared Bader.

Longtime Kampar fans can once again savor spice-encrusted strips of fried chicken thighs, ayam goreng berempah, whose curry leaf and lemongrass notes mingle with the spicy zing of tomato sambal. There is also nasi lemak, the Malaysian national dish, whose tidy banana leaf-wrapped packages unfurl with a gentle tug to reveal fragrant treasure inside: a steamy mound of sweet coconut rice layered with the crunch of crispy anchovies and roasted peanuts, and a hard-boiled egg face down in a jammy red smear of sambal bawang. This was the flavor-packed wake-up bundle Branca ate for breakfast as a kid in Kampar, bought from a singing street vendor before even the roosters crowed.

The nasi lemak is best served alongside Kampar’s fabulous beef rendang daging, braised to silkiness in coconut cream spiced with galangal, cinnamon, and coconut flakes. A dish of Kampar’s spicy nyonya pickles on the side, her auntie’s recipe, cuts through the richness. The achat veggies are twice pickled, first in the Chinese manner (a nod to Branca’s Hakka roots) then re-pickled with the Indian-influenced swagger of chiles, cumin, lemongrass, and candlenut oil.

The brine from the achat is also used by Kampar’s distinctive new bar program for its take on a pickletini (along with some vodka, sherry, and Maggi). It’s one of several Malaysian culinary references used by general manager Sam Pritchard to extend Kampar’s signature flavors to the drinks — a major addition (and revenue boost) to the experience at a restaurant whose first incarnation was a BYOB. Pandan infuses the rummy Hornbill; Malaysian coffee, roasted with butter and sugar, gives a dark caramel jolt to the coffee martini. The refreshing Karbonat spritz is sparked with black pepper and a charred banana leaf shrub.

There’s an appealing list of international wines, too, from Portugal to South Africa, Slovenia, and Lebanon to complement a well-rounded list of beers, local ciders, and nonalcoholic options to complete the bar program’s mission of lending this street food menu its own thirst intrigue.

There are also a series of new dishes that work in tandem with a Malaysian tavern theme. I loved the Dragon Meat, the sweet pork jerky squares that are cured in soy and fish sauce before they’re grilled into thirst-stoking, chewy morsels best paired with a Ploughman’s cider, Tonewood Freshies, or a draft of Guinness, which has its own history as a British colonial import to Malaysia. The crisped tofu triangles stuffed with shredded veggies and drizzled in a peanut sauce (an echo of Branca’s saté) are one of the lighter bites.

But the dish I can’t stop thinking about most is the Ramly, which has fast become one of Philly’s most special burgers. It’s a reference to the Malaysian food cart favorite (inspired by the halal burger manufacturer of the same name) that wraps two patties with shaved cabbage and sambal mayo inside a sheer omelette that contains all that sauce. Snug in a sweet potato bun, it’s a meaty juice bomb that takes burger comfort for an international ride. Add a side of thick-cut chips drizzled in Chinese curry — a throwback to Branca’s university days in Edinburgh, where her first job was at a Chinese takeout— and you may agree: The burger and fries is reason alone to come to Kampar.

A desire to share her family’s Hakka roots, a Chinese clan that migrated to her corner of Malaysia to work the tin mines, is reflected in the chili pan mee, the broad wheat flour noodles her mother taught her to make with a pork and mushroom gravy tinged with faintly smoky dark soy and the funky spice of dried shrimp pounded into red chiles. There are crispy anchovies for texture, and once you break the soft Smith Poultry egg and mix it in, the bowl takes on a luxuriously savory gloss.

The chewy, coin-sized taro dumplings called suen poon chee are another rarely seen Hakka dish, fermented vegetables and house oyster sauce tossed with morsels of certified Japanese Wagyu (trendy here now, but long accessible in Malaysia) and its rendered, buttery fat. . A notable improvement in the execution of this dish between visits — a better balance of ingredients, a crisper singe of “wok hei” from a searing hot wok — showed a kitchen getting up to speed.

By that follow-up visit, more new dishes had appeared to supplement what initially seemed like a limited selection. A late-night menu offered snack-size $10 rice bowls after 9 p.m. topped with flavorful minced pork, chicken, tofu, or sardines in a tomato sauce punched up with shallots and chiles. My favorite late treat, though, is the roti canai, the flaky, multilayered flatbread laced with ghee served with a fragrant bowl of lentil dal scented with cumin and turmeric.

Branca has also found another fantastic use for the wood-fired oven left by Nomad, at least when Asaram isn’t using it as a tandoor for his Indian tasting menu. On Sunday and Monday nights, Branca brings a market selection of sustainable whole fish to cook ikan bakar style, lightly seasoned with salt and turmeric, slathered in the sambal of your choice (go for the belacan with fermented shrimp paste) and roasted over a banana leaf at 700 degrees. My blue fish emerged crisp and juicy from the heat, with a lingering whiff of smoke from the singed banana leaf.

Branca’s renewed embrace of live fire cooking, and its echoes of Malaysia, adds another chapter to the globe-hopping story of this fascinating chef, who’s used her time in Philadelphia over the past decade after leaving corporate consultant life (at Deloitte and IBM) to become one of this city’s most eager culinary collaborators, business mentors, and organizers.

When Branca’s restaurant closed during the pandemic, she provided a platform at a commissary called Kampar Kitchen for chefs from diverse backgrounds to produce meal boxes, which continued until early this year. She has carried that collaborative spirit forward into the new space, reserving the ground floor for chef Asaram’s tasting experience, served four nights a week under the name Sunny’s Table. Pastry chef Cote Tapia-Marmugi (a.k.a. Mole Street Baker), also a chef in residency and a Kampar Kitchen alum, has been producing desserts for the kongsi, where, aside from sago pearls in coconut cream, her offerings are largely traditional Chilean sweets, like the excellent Brazo de Reina cake, a Swiss roll laced with the caramelized condensed milk jam called manjar.

The combined culinary forces, despite their seemingly disparate themes, are a small step toward the kopitiam-style concept popular in Malaysia — an open space filled with diverse specialized food stalls curated by the owner — that Branca has always aspired to recreate. But her vision of Malaysian cuisine, expansive and ever-evolving, is already enough to fill this stage.

611 S. Seventh St, Philadelphia, 19147, 215-989-2202; kamparphilly.com

Kongsi upstairs: dinner served Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday, until 11 p.m. Closed Tuesday. Sunny’s Table tasting menu downstairs: Wednesday through Saturday, one seating at 7 p.m.

Kongsi plates, $12-$32. Chef Reuby’s Sunny’s Table, $90.

There are several gluten-free options.

Menu highlights: nasi lemak; rendang daging; Ramly burger; chips and curry; chili pan mee; ayam goreng berempah; ikan bakar whole fish; roti canai with dal.