‘Some People Come In & Eat 18 Ngoh Hiangs By Themselves’: Mum’s Ngoh Hiang Duo Open Dine-In Cafe
The fashion designer’s own label, Evenodd, was affected by the pandemic, which prompted him to open a home-based food start-up in 2020 called Mum’s Ngoh Hiang. It offers ngoh hiangs made by his mum, Ellen Kuah, 69. “I had to help myself,” Samuel explains of his decision to leave the fashion industry.
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Dine-in cafe for ngoh hiang
After slogging for almost two years to build up Mum’s Ngoh Hiang, Samuel began earning enough money to pay off the outstanding bank loans accrued from running his defunct fashion label.
“A lot of savings were lost on it ’cos I was trying not to kill my brand. It was quite bad — I was even thinking of getting another job while I was running Evenodd. So every box of ngoh hiang we sold counted,” he shares.
He was even able to put aside enough savings from what he made to buy his own HDB flat in 2021, a four-room resale unit at Jalan Kayu for “around $400,000” under the Single Singapore Citizen Scheme.
More recently, mother and son also opened a brick-and-mortar cafe, taking over half of Samuel’s dad’s lighting shop called Hing Yuen Electrical Co. in Serangoon North. “His shop is the old-school kind and everyone is buying lighting from Taobao these days. His wish is for us to open a cafe with his extra space,” Samuel shares.
Cosy converted space
Unsurprisingly, the lighting is very cosy in the air-conditioned 21-seat cafe, which is filled with vintage furniture. “You feel at home here. The furniture is from my parents’ house after they downsized. My aunt and my dad still work at the electrical shop next door,” Samuel says.
He is based full-time at the cafe with his mum, who writes down customers’ orders by hand. “There’s no point of sale machine — I can’t afford it yet! Whatever profit we make, we [reinvest] it here,” says Samuel, who personally cooks at his shop.
“There are good days and bad days. I feel we have reached out to more people being here. But some days we don’t have any customers at all. If we didn’t start our business online, we would have died. It’s an advantage that we own this place, though we still have to pay for utilities,” Samuel points out.
But he hopes to eventually “venture out” to open a takeaway shop for ngoh hiang. “Like a Mum’s Ngoh Hiang express kiosk,” he laughs. He also plans to introduce a teatime-friendly “meat and potato pressed sandwich” to go with his cafe’s coffee and tea selection.
The menu
The cafe’s menu offers reasonably-priced main dishes like Mum’s Mee Siam ($5) in your choice of a wet or dry version, Mum’s Pork Belly Rice with Chap Chye ($8), Mum’s Pork Chop Rice ($8), and Mum’s Chicken Curry ($8, available only on Fridays & Saturdays). Customers can top up $2.90 for two pieces of fried pork ngoh hiang.
While Samuel was previously using salted beancurd skin to make his ngoh hiang, he has since switched to an unsalted version. “Over the years the supplier added more and more salt till it was so salty, a customer said she could faint from eating it,” he explains with a laugh.
But there are also folks who drop by Samuel’s cafe just to scarf down a mountain of ready-fried ngoh hiangs. He shares: “Some people come in here and eat an 18-piece ngoh hiang platter by themselves. During festive seasons we go mad. Some customers buy ngoh hiang to pray to their ancestors, and after that they eat it.”
Mum’s Chicken Curry, $8 (8 Days Pick!)
Dining at Mum’s Ngoh Hiang cafe feels like we are in the home of our friend’s chic mum who also cooks very well. The chicken curry with house-made rempah, succulent chook and potatoes is rich, robust and sedap, served with a plate of warm jasmine rice. Available only on Fridays and Saturdays.
Mum’s Pork Belly Rice with Chap Chye, $8 (8 Days Pick!)
The pork belly rice with a braised egg and heap of Nonya-style chap chye is equally good. The thick slabs of lean braised pork belly are layered with soft, melt-in-your-mouth fat, soaked in a fragrant gravy that’s also poured over the accompanying rice. The heavy flavours are tempered by the punchy chap chye, a medley of crunchy cabbage and black fungus stir-fried with fermented beancurd.
Mum’s Mee Siam, $5
We find both the wet and dry mee siam here too light on flavour, especially when contrasted with the richer dishes offered like chicken curry and braised pork belly. Not bad for a modest breakfast, though.
Mum’s Pork Chop, $8
Homey, crispy Hainanese-style pork chop, draped in an onion, carrot and pea gravy and topped with a fried egg. We recommended getting a side of fried ngoh hiang to savour with this tasty, comforting plate.
Ngoh Hiang, from $14 for nine pieces (8 Days Pick!)
We reckon the star of the menu here is still mum’s ngoh hiangs. They are not as salty as before due to the change in beancurd skin used (we can see HPB giving us a thumbs up), but still incredibly shiok and one of its kind.
The fried morsel’s flat shape offers an extra shiok crunch, and yields a juicy pork filling. It’s worth splurging on the mozzarella ngoh hiang, which comes with oozy, melted cheese that adds to the decadence of the dish. We could hoover up a whole platter of just ngoh hiang with rice. Over-order for this, ’cos it’s too darn delish to share.
Mum’s Ngoh Hiang Cafe is at Blk 154 Serangoon North Ave 1, #01-442, S550154. Tel: 9151-9025. Open Mon-Sat, 10am-5pm. Facebook, Instagram. Frozen food available on Shopee and Lazada.
Photos: Kelvin Chia
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