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Founder of noted Queens restaurant dies

BY JENNIFER MALONEY | jennifer.maloney@newsday.com

January 7, 2008

Jimmy Eng (Handout / January 6, 2008)

Jimmy Eng charmed the patrons of his landmark Queens restaurant, King Yum, for more than five decades.

Serving heaping platters of classic Chinese-American dishes amid the Tiki masks and cut bamboo of his Polynesian-themed dining room, "Uncle Jimmy" passed from table to table, night after night, welcoming generations of New Yorkers. And on Wednesdays and Fridays -- karaoke nights at King Yum -- he sang to them in Cantonese.

Eng died of a heart attack on New Year's Eve, just after donning a suit for his annual bash. He was 87.

"He considered every customer who went in there family or a friend," said his daughter, Mimi Lam, 58, of Fresh Meadows. "He was so proud. He'd say, 'This is the fourth generation that I'm serving.'"

Eng was born in Toi Shan, China. His parents were farmers. They moved to New York when he was 12 years old, and he went to work in the family's laundry business. Though he never completed high school, Eng taught himself English and built four businesses -- two noodle factories in Chinatown, a live chicken market in Brooklyn and King Yum, his Flushing temple to old-school Chinese-American delights.

He sent much of his profit home to Toi Shan, paying for roads and schools.

"He always sent money back," Lam said. "I think my father was interested in building schools because he himself was not an educated man." A Newsday restaurant review in 2004 praised King Yum's potent Mai Tais, flaming Mona Loas in totem-pole glasses and festive pu-pu platter, complete with butane tiki torch.

It described Uncle Jimmy, then 84 as "a neat, spry man" in a gray suit and wide-lapeled, tropical-print sportshirt who pulled from his pockets newspaper clippings and pictures of himself singing in Atlantic City.

Looking at a table cluttered with plates and platters, Eng joked to the reviewer and his friend: "Did you get enough food?" "We're going to take it home," the friend replied.

"How about you take me home?" Eng kidded, nudging her arm.

One wall of King Yum displays photos and accolades: a grinning Eng standing at a fundraiser with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a plaque from the New York State Assembly commemorating the restaurant's 50th anniversary and a proclamation from Congress declaring April 4, 2005, James Eng Day.

In addition to his daughter, Eng is survived by his sons, Roy Eng, 57, of Glendale, Ariz., and Robin Eng, 56, of Flushing; his grandchildren Brian Lam, 30, Jonathan Lam, 27, Adam Lam, 23, Jennifer Ciriello, 32, Christina Lovette, 31, Erica Eng, 24 and Jessie Eng, 20; and his great-grandchildren Samantha Ciriello, 8, and Kylie Purtell, 1 month.

A wake will be held Sunday from 2 to 7 p.m. at Ng Fook Funeral Home, 36 Mulberry St., in Manhattan. A funeral service will be held at the same location from 9 to 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 14, after which a cortege will drive from Chinatown, past Eng's Flushing home and restaurant to Evergreen Cemetery in Bushwick.