Terrence Feng (Kin Kao, Song, TOUK): from software to Michelin
The meal that changed everything
In 2013, Terrence Feng was between jobs. He'd left a career in software and marketing without a clear plan, just a vague sense that he needed something else. When a friend invited him over for a home-cooked Thai meal, he went expecting dinner, not a pivot point.
The food floored him. He'd eaten Thai before, the food court version, and assumed he knew what it was. He didn't. Months later, that same friend proposed opening a restaurant together. Feng's response surprised even himself: why not?
He spent his entire life savings on it. He had zero restaurant experience. He'd never worked a service, never managed a kitchen, never balanced a cash drawer at 1 a.m. What he did have was a 10-month finance-for-restaurant-owners course, a friendship with Bangkok-born chef Tang Phoonchai stretching back over a decade, and the specific advantage of not knowing how hard it would be.
Better guest experience. Bigger nights. $299. Once.
Twenty-five seats on Commercial Drive
Kin Kao opened in February 2015 at 903 Commercial Drive. The name means "eat rice" in Thai. The kitchen had four burners and a single wok. The room held 25 people. Scott and Scott Architects designed the space: minimalist, clean-lined, a sweep of cerulean paint on the bar and an antique Bangkok map above the counter. No silk wall hangings. No kitschy trappings.
Phoonchai, who'd trained at Vancouver Community College after growing up in Bangkok, ran the kitchen. Feng managed the room. The menu was tight: pad Thai, green curry, Thai stir-fries, a northeastern-style steak salad. But the pairing was unusual for Vancouver at the time. Kin Kao was one of the first Asian restaurants in the city to pair dishes with craft beer, rotating taps from Strange Fellows and 33 Acres alongside bottles of Singha and Chang.
It worked. The room was packed from month one. And because the space was so small and the kitchen so constrained, Feng learned the business through sheer compression. Every problem was immediate. Every mistake had an audience.
Song: the restaurant they didn't plan
They never intended to open a second restaurant. The original goal was singular: do one thing well, keep people coming back. But over six years, the Kin Kao team accumulated creative energy that couldn't fit inside a one-page menu of Thai staples.
Song opened in November 2021 at 317 East Broadway in Mount Pleasant. Where Kin Kao is comfort and repetition, Song is exploration. About 70% of the menu stays consistent while the rest rotates with seasons and impulse. The team operates without a rigid playbook: new dishes get tested, some fail, most teach something. It's the restaurant equivalent of a R&D lab that also needs to pay rent.
Feng's personal obsession with natural wine shaped the program. He admits he'd serve twenty Rieslings with Thai food if the market would tolerate it. The cocktail list expanded from four or five drinks into a thoughtfully curated program that plays off bold Thai flavours.
Then, in October 2022, Vancouver received its inaugural Michelin Guide. Song landed a Bib Gourmand, the recognition reserved for quality cooking at moderate prices. It held the distinction in 2023 and 2024 as well. Three consecutive years.
The first announcement hit like a wall. Reservations flooded in every 30 seconds. It continued for months. For Feng, who'd entered the industry because he didn't know what else to do, the recognition was surreal. He's candid about it: he doesn't want to imagine a world where they weren't included.
Fire, GoFundMe, and what comes after
On July 27, 2025, a fire tore through the building at 317 East Broadway. Song was forced to close. Everyone was safe, but the staff, the people Feng calls the heart and soul of the restaurant, were suddenly without income and without a timeline.
Within days, Feng launched a GoFundMe campaign. It raised just over $13,300. Every dollar went directly to employees for rent, groceries, and transportation while repairs proceeded. Song reopened August 29, roughly a month after the fire.
That speed says something about the team Feng has built. And about the community around the restaurant. When you're a 25-seat Thai spot that grew into a Michelin-recognized operation without a PR machine or a celebrity chef, your regulars become your infrastructure.
TOUK: the next bet
Four months after Song reopened, Feng opened TOUK on Alberni Street. A contemporary Cambodian bistro, it's a partnership with Chef Chanthy Yen (Top Chef Canada Season 11 winner) and Dave Loeuy. Cambodian and French influences, locally sourced ingredients, refined technique. It opened December 19, 2025.
A decade in, Feng's portfolio now spans three restaurants across two cuisines. Not because he had a growth plan, but because the people around him kept revealing possibilities he hadn't imagined. The pattern holds: someone proposes something unexpected, Feng says yes before fully understanding what he's agreeing to, and then he figures it out.
The naivety advantage
There's a specific kind of advantage in not knowing how hard something will be. Feng is honest about this. Had he understood the restaurant industry before entering it, he might have been too cautious to try. The ignorance wasn't reckless. It was structural. It removed the hesitation that kills most good ideas before they start.
His restaurants reflect this. Kin Kao is approachable because it was built by someone who loved eating Thai food, not someone performing expertise. Song is ambitious because the team gave themselves permission to experiment, knowing that some dishes wouldn't land. TOUK exists because Feng keeps saying yes to collaborations that interest him more than they scare him.
In Vancouver's food scene, which Feng himself describes as moving slowly because the city is too expensive for blind leaps, he keeps leaping anyway. The difference is he doesn't do it alone. Every restaurant is a partnership built on years of trust before a single lease gets signed.
For independents watching from the sidelines, calculating whether the risk is worth it, that might be the most useful pattern here: the leap doesn't require certainty. It requires a collaborator you've known long enough to trust, a meal that changes how you think, and the specific stupidity of not Googling how hard it's going to be.
Sources: DINR, Georgia Straight, Vancouver Is Awesome, Noms Magazine, Michelin Guide.
