Muslim-Vietnamese Hawker Couple Sell Delish Beef Pho, Rojak & Muah Chee In Woodlands
The lady boss hails from Ho Chi Minh City, and uses her family’s generational recipe for her pho.
Tucked away in a quiet corner of this slightly ulu kopitiam in Woodlands is Ain Popiah Basah, which proudly proclaims to be Vietnamese-Muslim owned. The cheerful family business offers halal rojak, popiah and, unusually, beef pho, and the stall is a little bit hard to spot (hint: it’s next to the drinks stall). The owners are husband-and-wife Mohd Azwan, 35, and Ain, 33. Ain is Vietnamese, having moved to Singapore from Ho Chi Minh City twelve years ago. She met Azwan, who used to work in security, shortly after and the duo have been married eleven years now with two kids.
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Started from a home-based business
This seven-month-old stall isn’t their first F&B venture. Prior to this, with a former business partner, they ran a stall in Sembawang selling popiah and rojak for two years (but not pho). And before that, Ain had been running a home-based business since 2011, serving Vietnamese food like spring rolls and spicy beef noodles.
Why rojak and popiah?
Azwan and Ain settled on their concept because they wanted to sell something local that they both loved. So together, they learnt how to make the local treats by experimenting at home. But when they moved to their Woodlands stall, Ain wanted to offer something from her homeland as well, so she added beef pho to the menu, which she says is a family recipe.
Apart from the pho, and Vietnamese spring rolls that they may introduce in future, everything here is done Singapore-style, so don’t expect any Vietnamese flourishes in the popiah or rojak, though Ain jokes: “I put my heart into it, so it’s Vietnamese!”
On the menu
Like most of the popiah joints in town, you can get Chinese-style Rojak and also Kueh Pie Tee here on top of popiah. There’s also Muah Chee and two desserts: Glutinous Green Bean Ball with Coconut Milk, and Tapioca with Coconut Milk, both of which were sadly unavailable on our visit. Then, of course, there’s the Beef Pho, which frankly steals the show for us.
Popiah, from $1.80 each
We get one each of the three popiah options: Normal ($1.80), Prawn ($2.50), and Crab Bite ($2.50). These are competently made, filled with tender braised vegetables, crunchy peanuts and cucumbers, and a small amount of fresh sambal chili which has a pretty fiery kick. Still, we find these popiahs a little mild, flavour-wise. The crab bites have a nice bouncy texture but otherwise are a bit nondescript, and we were most happy with the prawn option which feature little bites of sweet crustacean.
Kueh Pie Tee, from $3.40 for five
Like the popiah, these are pleasant and decent, but nothing to shout home about. The same fillings as the popiah – braised vegetables, egg, and ground peanuts – are ladled into crunchy pie tee shells with the option to top up for prawn ($4 for five) or the middling crab bites (also $4).
Rojak, from $4
We opt for the rojak with only tau pok and you tiao. Because we like our rojak relatively simple, we skip the century egg and cuttlefish add-ons which are offered for $1.20 and $1 respectively. This is very enjoyable; the you tiao maintains a nice bite, and the deep-fried tau pok has an almost crunchy texture. They’re tossed together with cucumbers, sour-sweet pineapple slices and ground peanuts in a punchy sauce made with hei ko (thick shrimp paste), sugar, and lime. The hei ko they use, which is from Penang, is well-balanced, pleasantly sweet and umami, with a nice savoury shrimp flavour, but not overly salty or saccharine.
Vietnam Beef Noodle (Pho), $6 (8 DAYS PICK!)
Ain says she learnt to make this from her mum, and the process involves a beef bone broth amped up with aromatics like ginger, onion and warm spices like cinnamon and star anise, that takes at least ten hours to make. The resulting broth is light-bodied but very flavourful: it’s aromatic and impressively beefy, and the spices come through without being too medicinal or overpowering. It’s lightly sweetened with rock sugar, which, together with a squeeze of calamansi, rounds out the flavours nicely. It’s served up with lean slices of braised beef taken from a cut of leg, pleasantly bouncy beef balls, and raw beansprouts. The thin and tender kway teow mops it all up beautifully. Overall, a very impressive and wallet-friendly bowl of pho.
Muah Chee, from $3
We weren’t expecting to find a sweet treat here, so were happy to round things off with these little peanut-coated treats. They’re quite delish: the mochi, made from glutinous rice flour, are super tender and chewy, and tossed in ample amounts of sugary, slightly salted ground peanuts.
Bottom line
Come for the popiah, which is decent, but stay for the excellent pho. We think Ain should definitely add more Vietnamese options to this stall’s offerings. There’s something very nice about pairing the zingy, sweet and salty flavour bomb of Chinese-style rojak with comforting, beefy pho broth, with a peanutty muah chee treat to round things off.
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