Graduate Sisters With Degrees In Nursing & Hospitality Now Ban Mian Hawkers
A common complaint among hawker fans in Singapore is the lack of fresh blood joining the trade. However, two young sisters Kai En Chong (left in pic), 26, and Catherine Chong (right), 25, bucked the trend and plunged straight into running a ban mian and mee hoon kueh stall in September 2020, right after graduating from university. Their perky pink Hougang coffeeshop stall has a cutesy name: Meeting Mee.
With zero F&B experience, the sisters bought over the business from the stall unit’s previous tenants (it was called Mom’s Noodles back then) for around $7K. The China-born couple had run the stall for 17 years before putting it up for sale. The sisters came across their listing online, got in touch with the couple and shadowed their operations for a month before taking over. Catherine and Kai En tells 8days.sg they paid half of the cost with their savings, and the rest through installments.
Catherine, 25, studied Hospitality Business at the Singapore Institute of Technology, while Kai En, 26, has a nursing degree from NUS. The two graduated in 2020 and 2021 respectively, around the same time they embarked on their hawker journey.
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Why the young grads become hawkers in the thick of Covid
When the girls bought over the stall, the pandemic was in full swing, battering many F&B businesses. Why then did the hawker newbies decide to take such a gamble, moreover as fresh grads? Simply because they’ve always wanted to start their own business. While they “looked up a few business opportunities online”, including a retail and bubble tea biz, the ban mian stall called out to them the most after they spoke with its previous owners.
Catherine and Kai En felt that it would be a pity to see the affordable ban mian shop close down, especially since the owners were in poor health and didn’t have children old enough to take over the biz. The Chinese couple was also “very willing to teach [us] everything from scratch”.
The sisters share that their father, an engineer, and mother, a homemaker, weren’t all too supportive of them running a hawker stall at first. “Our parents saw how tiring it was being hawkers and thought it’d be better to just let the biz go and find another job”. They’ve since warmed up to the idea after seeing how the sisters are doing better now.
Indeed, there were moments they considered quitting to return to corporate jobs ’cos they don’t have any days off. Kai En shares that she “really does have a passion for nursing”, but chose to stay on at the hawker stall due to the lack of manpower, a decision she “did not regret, as [she] felt there were many invaluable insights gained from this journey”. Catherine, who initially planned to venture into the MICE industry, shares similar sentiments.
Felt like quitting “about a thousand times”
Despite the girls buying the ban mian biz for what seems like a low price of $7K, covid had taken a toll on the stall, so the sisters had to hustle doubly hard to sustain the shop. They laugh as they tell 8days.sg that they felt like quitting “about a thousand times” due to the rough working hours. They now wake up as early as 4am and leave the stall past 7pm. Both take turns to cook behind the stove.
Their hard work has paid off over the past two years, as they’ve gone from selling 50 bowls a day at their worst (during Covid), to selling around 250 portions daily now. In fact, the sisters say that their earnings are “comparable, if not more than [if we were to be in] corporate jobs”.
Took over neighbouring vegetarian stall recently
With business now stabilised, the sisters paid over $10K to take over neighbouring vegetarian stall Happy Vegetarian Food four months ago when its owner wanted to retire. Business at the new stall has been “quite good”, but Catherine now wakes up an extra two hours earlier at 4am just to help set up shop. To cut back on travelling time, they moved out of their family home in Yishun to rent a room in an HDB flat at Hougang.
Handmade noodles with grandmother’s recipe
Although the sisters didn’t have cooking experience before opening their stall, they managed to perfect their current noodle recipe by combining the Chinese couples’ recipe with their Malaysian grandma’s.
Catherine and Kai En say they grew up eating their granny’s chilli ban mian via their mum. They say “she has a very unique recipe for the KL chilli” — a super punchy blend.
Previously, the siblings handmade their noodles from scratch daily, but now outsource their recipe to a noodle factory. However, they still hand make their own mee hoon kueh daily.
The menu
Meeting Mee sells a variety of noodles, soups and porridge, ranging from dry chilli ban mian to soupy hand-torn mee hoon kueh.
KL Chilli Ban Mee, $5.50 (8 DAYS Pick!)
Granny’s recipe sure is shiok if you can handle the heat. Springy flat ban mian is tossed in a dark soy-heavy sauce, topped with minced and sliced pork, fried wontons, bok choy and a sous vide egg, served with their signature KL chilli spice mix. The spicy blend, kinda like chilli crisp, is painstakingly slow-fried over low fire to get a toasted, umami flavour with a super fiery kick from a mix of various types of dried chillies, belacan and lots of dried shrimp.
Signature Dry Handmade Noodles Set, $7 (8 DAYS Pick!)
This set comes with dry handmade noodles (a misnomer ’cos its actually made in a factory using the girls’ recipe), chicken cutlet and soup on the side. The QQ wheat noodles are tossed in a sweet dark soy-based dressing and come with the same toppings as the ban mian. Instead of the yummier KL chilli, it’s served with a generous glob of belacan to spice up the dish. The chicken cutlet is crispy on the outside and juicy within, though rather modestly sized.
Original Handmade Mee Hoon Kueh Soup, from $4.30
The chewy hand-torn mee hoon kueh is served in an anchovy-based soup that’s quite light but wholesome and homely. Pleasant to slurp up with the toothsome kueh and runny-yolked egg.
Meeting Mee is at #01-48 Hougang Green Shopping Mall, 21 Hougang St 51, S538719. Open daily from 7.30am - 9pm. Tel: 9067 0403.
Photos: Aik Chen, Meeting Mee
No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from 8days.sg.
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