Hawker Family Wears Cute Peranakan Outfits Daily To Serve Nonya Chicken Dishes At Pasir Ris Stall

Even though Leon is not Peranakan, it hasn’t stopped the Teochew chef from mastering the challenging cuisine that involves complex flavours and painstaking cooking methods. Interestingly, his wife Eleanor is a nonya, but does not know how to cook Peranakan dishes. “We always joke about how my dad won her over with his cooking,” quips Sarah.

“I learned traditional French and Western techniques in SHATEC, which is usually focused on the meat and sauces. I’ve always liked Peranakan food and find the cuisine to be very unique and challenging. If you take out one ingredient, it changes the whole dish and the [resulting] flavour can surprise you,” says Leon. Driven by his personal interest in Nyonya cooking, he bought “every Peranakan and Malay cookbook I could find” to study the cuisine.

In 1991, Leon partnered with his younger brother to open a restaurant in Shenton Way, after cutting his teeth as a line cook at a western restaurant at The Westin Singapore for about three years.

“He had an offer to buy over a restaurant and asked me to join him,” shares Leon. They named the place Palm Inn, serving typical Peranakan fare like assam pedas fish and beef rendang. It was closed after three years due to lacklustre business. “We were in an office building and only had a lunch crowd, it was quite challenging. We decided to stop it after making a bit of profit at the end of three years.”

After closing Palm Inn, Leon went to work for a few cafes and restaurants for the next couple of years. In 1996, he leased a Temasek Poly canteen stall and started selling economy rice with his wife. The couple, who are Christians, ran the stall for about 12 years before quitting to devote their time to missionary work and raising their three daughters.

The hawker stall is the third iteration of the family’s Peranakan food biz. Back in 2016, Leon and Eleanor started a private diner named Daddy’s Kitchen, which hosted tok panjang (“tok” means table in Hokkien and “panjang” means long in Malay), a traditional Peranakan feast characterised by a long table of elaborate dishes like ayam buah keluak.​​​​​​​

At the time, Sarah, who graduated from Singapore Poly with a business diploma, was working as an executive for a non-profit organisation. Encouraged by the success of the private diner and keen to fulfill her entrepreneurial dream, she quit her job to run it full-time.

In 2018, the family transitioned their home-based biz into a physical one with Baba Bento, an eatery in the basement of Hong Leong Building. “We closed after eight months as the rent was getting very high and we only catered to the lunch crowd,” says Sarah. “I knew I had to brush up on certain skills, especially on the business side, so I returned to work.”

From 2019 to early 2021, Sarah worked for an F&B events company. “It gave me the opportunity to connect with chefs and restaurant owners,” she says. The experience also gave her the confidence to open the current stall. “I know the importance of structure and setting up SOPs now. We’ve also streamlined the menu to ensure we offer a consistent and quality standard of food.”

The bubbly first-time hawker has big plans for Nyonya Pok Pok Kay. “My parents are getting older, I don’t want them to work such long hours. Once we can afford it, I plan to hire full-time staff so they can move on to a more advisory role,” she says. “I also hope to open more outlets in the future. Right now, we’re focused on improving how we run the stall. I want to introduce more items to the menu, like ayam buah keluak as a weekly special.”

Sarah’s experience in events has been a clear boost to the stall’s branding – we love the bright Peranakan garb that sets them apart from the other hawkers. Dad rocks a red chef’s uniform with batik accents, while the girls are in blue short-sleeved kebaya tops. Cute.

There are only two main dishes – Nyonya curry chicken and ayam sioh. Set meals cost $4.20 for the ayam sioh and $5.20 for the curry, each served with a choice of rice or French loaf slices. For an additional $2, you’ll get two sides – a veg and an egg dish.

Ayam curry kapitan is a Peranakan dish that is not as fiery compared to the usual Malay or Indian curries, and is thicker than most Chinese versions. Some believe that the dish (“kapitan” is Malay for “captain”) was created by a ship cook in Malaysia during colonial times.

The restrained spiciness doesn’t mean the dish is bland. In fact, the rich gravy has an excellent depth of flavour rooted in aromatics like galangal, candlenut, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves on top of curry paste. Chunky chicken pieces (brined overnight to ensure tenderness) round off the satisfying curry.

You can enjoy the curry with either fluffy jasmine grains coloured with butterfly pea flowers (the rice is plain and not cooked nasi lemak-style) or crusty French loaf slices – we opted for the former, which was a good foil to the thick, decadent curry.

The set meal comes with two well-executed side dishes, which makes the rather high price for a hawker meal more palatable. We especially enjoyed the crispy bits of tau kee (fried beancurd skin) in the chap chye, as well as the fragrant, jammy house-made sambal that coats the hardboiled egg.

A sweeter, tangier spin on soy-braised meat. The sour tamarind adds an appetising appeal to the ayam sioh and cuts through the otherwise heavy, savoury gravy. Coriander seeds infuse the thick, glossy sauce with an earthiness that sets it apart from the usual Chinese-style stews. This set comes with a simple omelette with tomato and onion, as well as stir-fried French beans with dried shrimp.

Both chicken dishes are robustly flavoured, yet well-balanced. You can tell every element, including the sides, is made with love and care, which makes it good value for money despite the rather high prices for hawker food. The ayam curry kapitan is a clear standout, with its complex and fragrant flavours that will leave you mopping up every bit of gravy. We’re hoping to see more options like ayam buah keluak added to the menu soon, as the new stall finds its footing.

Nyonya Pok Pok Kay is at #02-23 Pasir Ris Central Hawker Centre, 110 Pasir Ris Central, S519641. Open daily except Wed & Thu, noon - 3pm; 5pm to 8pm. Find them on Facebook & Instagram

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Photos: Wilson Pang