Nono is personally in town to attend the opening of the takeaway kiosk and meet the press, including 8days.sg. Before our one-on-one interview with him in Mandarin, we get a glimpse of the extremely private star’s family: his wife, Taiwanese singer Angel Chu, 34, and their cute, shy five-year-old daughter nicknamed ‘No-Mei’ (Little Sister No), whom Angel introduces to us as “Melody”.

During our chat, Nono brandishes a giant fried chicken cutlet in a peppery ‘original’ flavour that he had named The King. “I’m always in wacky variety shows, so I didn’t want my menu items to have boring, literal names,” he explains. “If you’re showbiz royalty in Taiwan, you have to try The King. That’s why Jacky Wu is eating this every day. It befits his status. Sometimes I’d bring some for him when he’s doing a concert or recording our show.”

Are there more celeb fans of your fried chook, we ask him. “All the popular artistes in Taiwan like my chicken cutlets,” he replies. “After this, you’ll see every Taiwanese artiste gorging on my fried chicken. They’d tell you, ‘Nono said popular artistes go for Monga, so eating this proves I’m popular!’" 

Nono also reveals that Taiwanese singer Jam Hsiao has a table piled with Monga’s fried chicken for the backstage crew at his concerts. We point out to Nono that, coincidentally, OG Heavenly King Andy Lau is also currently in Singapore to hold a series of concerts.

“Oh! We must get some fried chicken for him,” he exclaims. “But Andy’s very disciplined. He’ll only eat [fried food] after he’s done with his concerts. Maybe I’ll just throw a chicken cutlet to him on stage so he can try my food.” (Unfortunately for Nono, Andy became a vegetarian six years ago.)

At Monga’s media preview, actor Chase Tan plus celeb funnymen Jack Neo, Mark Lee, Marcus Chin, Henry Thia and Jeremy Chan show up to support their friend Nono and, er, feed him fried chicken. “We’re both in the chicken business (Chinese slang for prostitution),” Nono quips to Mark, who owns chicken rice restaurant 13 Stages at Kallang Wave Mall.

The only time Nono doesn't joke is when he’s talking about business. He’s candid about why he became an entrepreneur: “Now that our audience can stream shows online, they don’t watch so much TV anymore. Us TV artistes who used to film all seven days in a week no longer do that now. We've more time, so we started setting up our own businesses.”  

While he had previously opened a clothing boutique with his friend, Nono recognised that he had little experience in F&B. He decided to partner his pal and seasoned fried chicken cutlet hawker Liu Mingdao (who’s known as the ‘King of Fried Chicken’ in Taiwan) to set up Monga together.

“Lots of da ges (showbiz veterans) in Taiwan went into F&B, but some of their shops fizzled out after a while ’cos they didn’t have experience in running an eatery,” says Nono. “I told [Mingdao], let’s do this right. The taste of the food at every Monga outlet around the world must be exactly the same.”

Nono can also fry up a mean fried chicken cutlet, which he demonstrates to journos at the media preview (he washed his hands thoroughly before starting, but alas, Nono did the no-no thing of using his bare hands to handle raw chicken). “In Taiwan people always tell me, ‘You must be so fat ’cos you keep eating fried chicken’,” he shares with us. “I hardly eat it now. But sometimes I’d accept my staff’s offer to pack me some fried chicken cutlets to take home.”

Every single item on Monga’s menu is deep-fried, so don’t say we didn’t warn you. Its famed chicken cutlets are offered in three flavours here: The King (salt and pepper), Hot Chick (chilli powder) and Taiker (seaweed seasoning). Each massive 280g breast meat cutlet is at least 2cm thick, and marinated with honey (the honey’s enzymes and cutlet’s thickness apparently keeps the meat tender even after being fried). Each cutlet is also fried only upon order, using Monga’s proprietary method that makes the chicken non-greasy.

We try the spicy chicken cutlet that Nono had freshly cooked. “The normal cutlet is $6.90. This one costs $69 ’cos it’s fried by me,” he deadpans to us. We usually avoid drier breast meat, but Nono’s chicken is (surprisingly) super succulent. We enjoy gnawing on the thick, decadent slab with shatteringly crispy skin coated in a tasty, albeit tame, layer of chilli powder (you can request for spicier chicken).

Unlike the usual oil-drenched fried chook, this cutlet also has barely any grease seeping through its paper pouch, so it’s a lot less jelak than the XL Taiwanese chicken cutlets from other brands like Hot Star. We can easily hoover a whole piece by ourselves.

This one’s seasoned with a simple blend of salt and pepper. While it’s not cooked by Nono, it’s still pretty yummy, like eating a supersized, flavourful chicken tender. But we prefer the Hot Chick; the chilli powder’s subtly spicy kick is more exciting for our taste buds.

Unlike the other two flavours which are dusted with dry powder seasoning, the Taiker (its name is Taiwanese slang for ah bengs and ah lians) comes draped in a mysterious ‘Japanese sauce’ that tastes like soy honey glaze, and seaweed powder. The thick, sticky glaze weighs down the crispy chicken and makes it unnecessarily soggy, while the Okinawan seaweed powder barely pack any flavour. Skip.

Texture-wise, Monga’s freshly fried chicken skin is a win: the delicate, curly slivers are nicely crunchy and not greasy with globby fat. It does need a more generous helping of salt-and-pepper seasoning, though.

Chunky orange wedges of sweet potatoes are deep-fried till crispy and sprinkled with unfortunately too little plum powder (a stronger, piquant hit of plum flavour would have made this moreish).

Monga serves five types of specially concocted drinks like the light and refreshing Osmanthus Oolong ($3.30, right), a passable Grapefruit Green Tea ($4.50, centre) and, our personal favourite, Orange Green Tea ($4.50, left). Pulpy orange juice is mixed with fragrant sweet green tea for a cooling beverage that quenches our thirst after eating heaty fried chicken.

If you’re bored of eating KFC, Monga’s extra thicc Taiwanese-style XL fried chicken hits the spot. Each massive cutlet is filling enough to pass off as a meal. It’s not hard to finish one by yourself ’cos the chicken breast meat is juicy and doesn’t reek of stale grease. But what we tried was fried and specially served only to a small group of media. The true test is when the shop starts serving hordes of Nono’s fans (the opening day queue stretched all the way to Jem's FairPrice supermarket that's quite a distance away from Monga, so be prepared to wait). If you’re too lazy to travel all the way to the west, there’s hope: Monga Singapore’s franchise owner tells us that they will be opening a second outlet soon “in the Orchard area”.

Monga Singapore, #B1-K10 JEM, 50 Jurong Gateway Rd, S608549. Tel: 6262-0020. Open daily 11am-9.30pm. www.facebook.com/mongasingapore.

PHOTOS: ALVIN TEO