These days, there are still a few hawker stalls where you can find la che mian (the noodles’ Chinese name, which literally means ‘trishaw-pulling noodles’). One of them is 10-year-old stall KanChiaMee (Hokkien for la che mian) at Yuhua Market & Food Centre, which offers the noodles at just $2 a bowl.

It has been operating in the Jurong East neighbourhood for the past decade, first at Yuhua Market & Food Centre. Then it shifted to the nearby, similarly-named Yuhua Village Market & Food Centre before moving back to its original hawker centre on Nov 1 this year.

The stall is helmed by hawker Mary Tan (left in pic), 63. Her daughter Charlotte (right), 39, occasionally helps her out when she has time off from running her own dance company called Lifesparks, which organises dance classes like zumba and aerobics.

A former hawker assistant, Mary unexpectedly became her own boss when her employer decided to give up his stall. “I felt it was a waste to close the stall, so I took over it,” she tells 8days.sg.

She thought of selling a dish she personally loves - trishaw noodles, which has its roots in Heng Hwa culture. The Heng Hwa are people from Putian in the Fujian province of China, where most trishaw pullers in Singapore also hailed from.

“I’m Teochew, so I didn’t use to eat this before I got married,” giggles Mary, who learnt to cook and enjoy the noodles from her Hokkien in-laws. “They’re a big, frugal family, so they always had trishaw noodles or mee hoon kueh. I ate my first mouthful and fell in love with it.”

Other hawkers opined that she was “brave” to sell trishaw noodles. Mary recounts: “I asked why, and they said, ‘You have to cook such a big pot of noodles. If there are no customers, you’ll have to throw everything away!’ And it’s really hard to dispose of it. I can’t even lift the whole pot - I have to separate the noodles into smaller bags and bring them to the garbage bin.”

But these days, she doesn’t have to worry about leftovers. Mary’s trishaw noodles are so popular that she typically sells out by 12pm daily. As she’s mainly flying solo, she prepares about 100 bowls a day. “Sometimes more,” she says. “Initially it was the old folks who ordered it. But there are more young people enjoying trishaw noodles now. I’m very happy leh! I asked them how they got to know about it, and they said their grandmothers and mothers cooked it.”

By 2am every day, Mary is already at her stall to begin the prep work for her food. “I buy my veggies from the market at 3am. I only switch on my stall’s lights at 6am, but at 5am, there are already workers coming here to tapow the noodles,” she says.

Her trishaw noodles consist of wide, flat egg noodles boiled in a chicken bone broth with garlic and dried shrimps till it becomes thick and gelatinous. She explains, “I modified the recipe - last time, people just used plain water instead of chicken broth to boil the ingredients.” Her noodles also used to cost $1.50 a bowl. “I later added fish cake for more flavour and sold each bowl at $2,” she says.

Other than fish cake-topped trishaw noodles, Mary also sells vegetable fritters at $1 each. She makes about 150 pieces from scratch every day. “I used to work at a hawker stall selling oyster cakes. But it’s hard to buy oysters, so I came up with my own vegetable fritter recipe,” she shares. Each vegetable fritter is made by deep-frying a ladleful of thick batter - loaded with carrots, Chinese cabbage, celery, onions and beansprouts - till crispy.

The fritter is bigger than our palm. Mary cuts it into bite-sized pieces before serving it with her house-made chilli. And it’s delicious, with a crispy, savoury shell and soft, chewy centre punctuated by flavourful bits of crunchy veggies. No wonder there is a steady stream of customers ordering the fritters to go, along with the noodles.

We ate a bowl of this in the morning (the stall is only open till noon), and we must say this is the true breakfast of champions. Each mouthful of starchy, garlicky egg noodles is comforting and filling, especially on the rainy day we visited the stall. The small slices of bouncy fish cake - which Mary gets from a supplier - add some bite to the gooey consistency of the dish. You can get this, plus a large fritter, as a complete breakfast for only $3, which in this day and age is as rare as finding a trishaw.

#01-178 Yuhua Market & Food Centre, Blk 347 Jurong East Ave 1, S600347. Open daily 6am-12pm. www.facebook.com/kanchiamee.

PHOTOS: YIP JIEYING