Fatty Crab may not be coming to the Upper West Side, but locals need not fret — we’ve learned that Jeffrey Chodorow and Zak Pelaccio are in discussion to do a Malaysian place called Kopi Tiam in the neighborhood. A kopi tiam is what Chodorow calls a “Malaysian coffeehouse,” and this one would occupy the 77th Street space that formerly housed Fishs Eddy. Kopi tiams, Chodorow tells us, “are popular throughout Malaysia and frequently serve both Malaysian and Western foods…this restaurant would be very different from Fatty Crab.”
We would think so: Malaysian kopi tiams are pretty casual affairs, more likely to serve charcoal-grilled toast with butter and coconut-milk jam then the kind of full-size dishes you get at Fatty Crab. Chodorow declines to give a time frame, as there has been no formal agreement with Pelaccio. If it does go through, this would be the third collaboration between Chodorow and Pelaccio, the first two being Suka in the Sanderson Hotel in London and the soon-to-open Borough Food and Drink on 22nd Street.
