I didn't know about this but this is exciting, especially for Napa folks. There's a Javanese- Singaporean chef who works in a nice restaurant in Napa who also sells Singaporean / Malay / Indonesian food on the side
Personally I'm excited that what I'm seeing in the Bay Area, even though the Bay Area has never been exceptionally strong on SE Asian food other than Filipino and Thai and Vietnamese, is that so many chefs from Singapore / Malaysia haved moved here and are starting things up.
Also that their backgrounds make it such that it's not just Chinese Singaporean food that is featured (as is often the case back home), it's Malay and Indian Singaporean and Malaysian foods too
Nora Haron in Walnut Creek with Kopi Bar, Jai Kandayah at Curry Leaves Bistro in Pleasanton (best mee goreng mamak and assam laksa in the area)
Chefs like them truly are a cut above the existing Singapore / Malaysian restaurants that had to change their flavors for a market that didn't know about our food.
https://voyagela.com/interview/hidden-gems-meet-jai-kandayah-of-curry-leaves-bistro/
There's also a convoluted google spreadsheet food ordering thing on a facebook group for people from sg / my, across the peninsula and south bay, but I don't think I'll share that. It tends to be homecooked food that people are sharing with each other and it's very informal and mostly for people in the community
Everywhere outside of Singapore and Malaysia I’ve lived I’ve found that communities usually form with BOTH countries together. Makes me sad knowing how back in SE Asia we feel so separate and different these days but abroad there’s still a sense of kinship that our food is similar and we seek out each other’s company. Like I saw recently in a video: whose chicken rice is better? Who cares, just eat, let our politicians fight but we eat together (we used to be the same country until 1965)
I think even in our politicians fighting, it’s funny coz like a quarter of Singaporean politicians were born in Malaysia or something, possibly more. A sizable number for sure