Bukit Batok Hawker Stall Draws Long Queues For $2.50 Menu With Nasi Lemak & Mee Rebus

An order of Mee Rebus gets you a bowl filled to the brim with sumptuous gravy, chewy yellow noodles, tau pok bits and a whole hard-boiled egg. It’s filling and moreish; we couldn’t get enough of the gravy-drenched noodles topped with fresh cut green chillies.

Speaking to 8days.sg, Nurul Delights’ second-generation owner, Mohamed Fadli bin Basir, 41, says he has not raised his prices for the past 10 years. “We try to keep our costs as low as possible so our elderly customers can afford our food,” he explains. “Our profit margin is not much, less than a dollar [per plate]. But we’re not going for profit here.”

When Fadli’s parents started Nurul Delights in 2001, they served their dishes at only $1.50 each. “Then it became $1.80, $2, $2.30 and now $2.50,” he says, citing rising ingredient costs and inflation for the price changes.

Fadli’s mother, Halipah Kadir (pictured above with Fadli), 69, was initially resistant when he brought up the subject of raising prices. “She said, what about the residents? What about the elderly? But I told her we had no choice, and she understood,” Fadli shares.

It helps that his family also owns the minimart next door called Nurul Pasar Mini, which has been around for 32 years and is named after Fadli’s younger sister Nurul. It sells a range of wet and dry ingredients like poultry, veggies, frozen food and spices. “The minimart supplies most of our ingredients,” Fadli says. “My mum used to sell food at the minimart, so my parents decided to open their own stall later.”

A father of seven kids (with ages ranging from 20 to 2), Fadli has been cooking at Nurul Delights since he was 21. His parents are now retired, and occasionally help out at the stall. “It’s quite challenging to find manpower, so I appreciate those who are working for us. Without them we are nothing,” says Fadli humbly.

The average waiting time at Nurul Delights is around 15 minutes on weekdays. “It’s around 40 minutes or even up to an hour on weekends; you can see the queue going all the way out of the coffeeshop. We have customers from Changi coming here three times a week,” says Fadli. In the evening, he also mans a satay grill out of his stall selling skewers till 10.30pm.

For now, the stall doesn’t offer delivery, though Fadli says he’s considering partnering food delivery services like GrabFood and Foodpanda. “But I’m still trying to figure out the prices, because [the services] charge a commission, so it’ll be very hard for us to earn anything [if we sell the food at $2.50],” he says.

The seemingly insatiable demand from customers led his family to open a second outlet in the same coffeeshop in 2019, right beside the original Nurul Delights. Run by Fadli’s sister-in-law, it has an almost identical name, Nurul Delight, with a flashy signboard and neon signs advertising the stall’s offerings.

The menu is slightly different from the original stall’s, though. There are fancier dishes, and the prices are a tad steeper: there’s Ayam Penyet ($4.50), Laksa ($3.50), Nasi Sambal Goreng ($3.50) and Nasi Campur (Indonesian-style mixed rice). There’s also a selection of snacks like Karipap, fried Cempedak and Goreng Pisang.

But you can still find some overlaps like Nasi Lemak going for the same price here. The dish is so popular that it frequently sells out, and customers have to wait for 20 minutes for a new batch to be cooked. “We serve it at both stalls so people can go to either stall to buy if the queue at one stall is too long,” explains Fadli.

Fadli and his family are planning to open more Nurul Delight outlets outside of Bukit Batok (the stalls are currently located to close one another so they could conveniently get supplies from the family minimart). “If possible, we hope to open an outlet every two years,” he shares. “We’re looking to open in places with low rental, so we can keep our prices low.” And it will all be family-run: “We have a big family. My parents have 17 grandchildren, so we can have our family members take care of everything!”

Nurul Delights (original stall) & Nurul Delight (outlet)

Address: #01-00 Abundance Eating House, 413 Bukit Batok West Ave 4, S650413

Opening hours: Open daily 7am-9pm. Closed on Hari Raya and Chinese New Year.

Website: Facebook

Nurul Delight (second outlet)

Address: 233 Bukit Batok East Ave 3, S650223

Opening hours: Open Wed-Fri 7.45am-2pm, Sat & Sun 8am-2pm.


Photos: Yip Jieying

Main photo: source, source