Popular Hong Lim Kueh Hawker Ah Meng Passes Away Suddenly From Heart Attack

The friendly, sprightly septuagenarian sadly passed away from a heart attack on January 11 this year, just before Chinese New Year. His daughter Maggie Lee, 55, says that the heart attack happened out of the blue. “He reached home after dinner and said he didn’t feel comfortable in the heart [area]. He called my brother, who called the ambulance. But around two hours later he was gone.”

According to Maggie, who worked alongside her father at their stall, Ah Meng had no known health issues. “He was happy and healthy, no complaints about his health,” she shares. “My dad had planned to retire after CNY, but too bad he left before that. It was a shock to us too.”

With her father’s passing, Maggie will continue to run the stall in his stead and make their well-loved kuehs by hand. “I have been [working] with him for over 10 years,” she says. Prior to becoming a hawker, she was “working in accounts in a bank”. She left her job to help her father run his stall in his old age: “He always approached me to help him, and I had some F&B experience because I ran my own cafe at Pagoda Street over 20 years ago.”

Maggie, who has two other brothers and a sister, will reopen her stall next week on February 15 with some temporary help from her brother. “Normally after CNY my father will rest for two weeks, so we just follow,” she says. She plans to hire a stall assistant to help her. “My brother runs his own business, so he can only help out at the stall for a few hours during peak hours,” she explains, adding that her brother had been helping their father for the past six months in preparation for his upcoming retirement.

Prices at Ah Meng will remain unchanged for now, despite a recent trend of hawkers adjusting their prices due to the rising cost of ingredients. “We are not increasing prices for the time being, as the market is also quite quiet these days,” says Maggie. “Business has picked up since last year, but it’s still not as good as last time. These few weeks it went down again, because of the Covid-19 wave. We reduced our quantity.”

Ah Meng, #02-45 Hong Lim Market & Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross St, S051531. Open Tues-Sat 8.30am-6.30pm, Sun 8.30am-4pm (or till sold out, usually around 1pm)

Photos: Yip Jieying

Coincidentally, Lee Ah Meng’s stall neighbour also passed away unexpectedly on the first day of Chinese New Year. Hawker Lee Kheong ran his eponymous stall Lee Kheong Roasted Delicacy, where he had regulars dropping by for his charcoal-roasted pork, duck and chicken.

The circumstances surrounding his passing are unclear, and it’s also unknown if his stall, which is currently closed, will continue operating as Lee Kheong’s immediate family were uncontactable.

A post by netizen Larry Lai on Facebook foodie group Can Eat! Hawker Food revealed that there were very few photos of Lee Kheong himself as he “does not allow photographs of him to be taken”. He also described the hawker as “stoic, man of few words, always in singlet but proudly wearing the cross on his neck”.

Photo: Larry Lai