The Millennial Hawkers Who Help Fry Geylang Lor 29 Hokkien Mee’s Famed Noodles

After helping out at his dad’s stall for two years in the '60s, uncle Alex left to serve his National Service, before eventually becoming an oil rig technician.

In 1983 — uncle Alex moved on to set up his own Hokkien mee business in the Katong area. However, it failed, and he called it quits after two years, becoming an electrician and contractor. Much later in 2000, he decided to give Hokkien mee another shot — setting up shop in East Coast Road. Since then, he’s been crowned one of Yeo’s Street Hawker Masters, and was invited to cook Hokkien mee in London for Singapore Day, from 2009 to 2011.

Many people compare the Hokkien mee from his stall to his brother’s (Swee Guan) — inevitable, since they both come from the same family. When asked if there was any rivalry between the two stalls, uncle Alex laughs. “We’re friendly lah, and of course people will compare [our food],” he says. “You just try it for yourself and see.”

In 2016, Uncle Alex handed the baton to his youngest daughter, Penny See, 37, who runs the business with her husband Qin Sheng, 25. This is partly due to his declining health — he’s gone through three hernia operations since 2005. Despite this, uncle Alex is still very lively as he bustles cheerfully around the kopitiam during his lunchtime shift.

For Penny, joining the family business happened almost by chance. She originally worked in retail for cosmetic brands such as L’Oreal and Maybelline. She recalls her start at her dad’s stall in 2003. “One day, my dad and mum were short of a helper, so I went down to the stall to lend them a hand. And just like — I ended up working here full-time.”

When asked if she started out manning the cashier, she lets out a hearty guffaw. “I started out wiping tables and washing the plates! Back then, we had no centralised cleaner. I worked my way up over time, just like anyone else in a kitchen.”

Uncle Alex nods. “You’ve got to learn from the bottom up. This way, you will know exactly what goes into running your business, every part of it.”

“Our whole family can cook my dad’s style of Hokkien mee,” says Penny. She mastered the dish in 2014, while hubby Qin Sheng has been training under his wife and father-in-law for over a year now. Currently, they have one cook, Lucas, 26, who has been in training for a year.

Nowadays, Qin Sheng and Lucas handle the bulk of the cooking, with Penny taking a backseat from the kitchen to helm the cash register. “I’ve been in this business for about 17 years, I guess it’s about time I get promoted to senior manager!” she jokes. She still occasionally cooks Hokkien Mee at the stall and will come in at 7am, to help prep the stock (which takes about an hour to simmer) and the other ingredients, for when they open shop at 11.30am.

Uncle Alex hasn’t hung up his apron though — he still cooks the lunch shift everyday, before letting his kids take over in the afternoon. He pegs himself as “half-retired”, adding: “If I stay at home and do nothing, my hands will get ‘itchy’. Might as well come here and cook!” Uncle Alex has no plans to retire completely if he can help it, and will cook Hokkien mee “for as long as he can”. His 65-year-old wife, Grace, still works at the stall as well, frying up her signature oyster omelette and carrot cake at the kitchen at the back.

According to their regulars, the second generation cooks’ Hokkien mee is “more or less” up to Uncle Alex’s standard. “Among all of us, my dad’s will still be number one lah,” say Penny. “But the difference is minimal.”

“Being in the hawker business is really no mean feat,” shares Penny. Rising rental costs and soaring seafood prices — which have increased by twofold and fourfold respectively from the time they opened — have been making the trade increasingly difficult to survive in. “Honestly, it’s not good money. It’s very tough, and it requires a lot of grit.” She gestures at her dad. “And this fellow is very fussy!” He shrugs.

Penny initially didn’t anticipate that she would take over her dad’s business full-time. “When I was working retail, I barely had any time for my family. In the beginning, I joined them because I wanted to spend time with my dad and mum.” As she got more involved with the business, she decided that she wanted to “carry on my old man’s legacy” .

Apprenticing under Uncle Alex is also a challenge — out of the countless trainees who’ve approached him over the past 20 years, only four outsiders have successfully “passed” his stringent criteria. According to Uncle Alex and Penny, three out of the four have already left the Hokkien mee trade for other industries.

“To make it [selling Hokkien mee], what’s important is a strong foundation — basically, you need to have the potential for cooking! And you need resilience.” Penny pauses for a second. “But actually, above all that… you must have that interest. You must find passion in what you’re doing. That’s how you survive and succeed in this trade.”

Uncle Alex adds on: “I tell my children this: When you are your own boss, you don’t have to answer to anyone else. Always work towards that — then you will be the best.”

A year ago, uncle Alex’s oldest daughter and her hubby set up a stall called Geylang 29 Fried Hokkien Mee at East Coast Lagoon Food Village by the beach, selling, you guessed it, charcoal-fried Hokkien mee. There’s pork belly satay there, too. This stall brands itself “third-generation”, because the recipe also stemmed from their granddad’s original stall. Pictured here: a rare shot of uncle Alex with his brother See Hock Siong of the stall Swee Guan at the East Coast Lagoon outlet.

But back to our Geylang Lor 29 Charcoal Fried Hokkien Mee stall on East Coast Road. Uncle Alex steps back to let Qin Sheng helm the wok during our visit. A charcoal fire blazes orange-red under the searing wok, which is charred white on the underside from the burnt coals. The heat is intense. Qin Sheng approaches the wok with a steady hand.

After Qin Sheng met Penny in 2017 (they tied the knot about a year ago), he got curious about the Hokkien mee trade, and decided to try his hand at it. Prior to joining the business, he was working in logistics. So far, so good — considering that Uncle Alex trusts him to cook for their regulars.

“[Cooking with ] charcoal is really not easy.There are so many types, so you must know what to use. It takes real skill and focus to man the wok, “ says Uncle Alex. He shares that 50 to 60 servings of Hokkien mee are usually cooked at once, to fully maximise the charcoal fire. It takes about 15 minutes to get the fire going, and the coals are replenished about 18 times during each service. Rather than just impart a smoky flavour, this method of cooking also distributes heat more evenly throughout the wok, which helps the noodles attain just the right consistency.

So what’s the most challenging thing about frying Hokkien mee with Uncle Alex’s method? “You need a lot of patience — not just with the cooking, but with the customers. Some of them don’t understand that getting the charcoal fire temperature just right and infusing the noodles with the stock takes time. So you need to handle irritated customers asking why their food hasn’t arrived in under 30 minutes!”

From time to time, shifu uncle Alex shuffles over to supervise his son-in-law's cooking. Satisfied, he leaves wordlessly and allows him to carry on.

First, eggs are cracked and fried up in a bubbling pool of melted pork lard, before a mix of yellow noodles and bee hoon is tossed in. With the aid of a plate and a metal spatula, Qin Sheng flips the mountain of noodles again and again, so that the strands are evenly coated.

A couple more scrapes, before nuggets of crunchy deep-fried pork lard are added and a generous ladle of stock (brewed from a medley of prawn shells and pork bones) is poured in. The wok hisses as he deftly swirls the stock into the sizzling noodles, sending up plumes of fragrant steam. Stock is added in batches about eight times throughout the frying process, for the noodles to fully absorb all the umami goodness — kinda similar to the painstaking process of cooking risotto (you can’t flood the stock all at once or the noodles will be soggy and flavours not properly saturated). Finally, deshelled prawns and sotong are stirred in. The whole frying process for a single batch takes a whopping 30 minutes. That’s plenty of sweat and arm strength involved.

The glossy noodles cooked by Qin Sheng are infused with a strong seafood umaminess and are luxuriously rich thanks to the copious amount of lard used. Surprisingly, the wok hei from the charcoal fire is lighter than we expected. Melty pork belly slices snuggle within the smooth strands, as do plump prawns cooked till tender and slightly springy, plus sotong with a melt-in-your-mouth texture. Shiok.

A generous squeeze of lime and dabs of homemade sambal help cut the richness of the dish, while adding extra layers of fragrance and spice. “A lot of people have asked me to teach them how to make my sambal… but that’s my secret. However, I can tell you what goes into it — just not how much,” says Uncle Alex, with a conspiratorial smile. Shallots, garlic, dried shrimp and belacan. It’s punchy without being tongue-numbingly spicy.

Leaning over our table, Uncle Alex asks, “Do you want to change the taste of the Hokkien mee?” He hurries off, before returning with a saucer of thinly-sliced red chilli. After squeezing a spurt of lime onto a spoonful of noodles, he tucks in a single slice of red chilli, before handing it back to us.

“Sambal is actually a second generation pairing — before there was sambal, this is how we ate Hokkien back in the old days. With sliced red chilli only. After a long day of work, this really hits the spot.”

The noodles’ umaminess is amplified, with the lime contributing a refreshing tang and the tiny slice of chilli adding a gentle wave of heat at the end. This is for purists who want to savour the flavours without them being overpowered by the sambal.

This Hokkien mee tapows well. When ordered to go, each serving is wrapped in opeh leaf before being double-wrapped in wax paper. According to Uncle Alex and Penny, the Hokkien mee can be kept for up to 24 hours in the fridge — just steam it in the opeh leaf for about 10 minutes till piping hot.

Besides Hokkien mee, Oyster Omelette and Fried Carrot Cake are also sold — all whipped up by 65-year-old Grace. She’s been frying up her signatures within the same stall since Uncle Alex started the biz in 2000, and they’ve remained popular with their regulars throughout the years.

In her Oyster Omelette, the plump oysters crowning the dish immediately catches the eye. According to Penny, their oysters are sourced from Taiwan or Korea (rather than China), depending on the season.

The shellfish is cooked separately from the omelette — preserving its fresh creamy texture and sweetness. A nice contrast to the more crisp-than-gooey omelette.

The Fried Carrot Cake is a “white” version, served with a shower of fresh spring onions. The large slabs have a satisfyingly crispy exterior, with the insides soft and well-seasoned. Comforting, especially with a little sambal on the side.

Similar to Swee Guan’s, which used to partner with Kwong’s Satay at their Geylang kopitiam (Kwong’s has since relocated last September), [1] you can also get charcoal-grilled satay to accompany the Hokkien mee here.

Back in 2018, Uncle Alex suggested to Penny that they start selling satay as well since there was a vacant space next to their Hokkien mee stall. Hence, Penny and Qin Sheng brought in their satay partner, who specialises in pork belly satay. On average, they sell around 300 sticks per day.

Made from thin cuts of fatty pork belly, the Pork Belly Satay is impressively smoky and slightly sweet, melting in the mouth with perfectly-charred bits of fat at the edges. You can swipe it through the spicy satay sauce to cut all that unctuous fat, but it’s tasty enough to eat on its own.

From the perfectly-cooked seafood to the umami noodles, the Hokkien mee here is great. Having passed uncle Alex’s rigid standards, it looks like the next generation is all set to uphold his legacy at the East Coast Road stall. Catch Uncle Alex at the stall while he’s still around too, before he retires for good.

Geylang Lor 29 Charcoal Fried Hokkien Mee, 396 East Coast Rd, S428994. Open Tue to Sun 11.30am - 9pm. Online orders available on Oddle.

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Photos: Aik Chen