Today, the 13-year-old chain boasts four outlets: a flagship eatery in Hillview Avenue, opened in 2016, “Singapore-style” barbecue joint Garang Grill (which started as a pop-up but later became a permanent concept) opened in 2017, a swankier New Ubin branch within CHIJMES opened just last year, and since 1 December, an outlet within four-star hotel Ramada by Wyndham Singapore at Zhongshan Park. 

The owner of this latest space is an ex-classmate of SM’s eldest son Alexander, and approached him with a proposal to take over what used to be the hotel’s all-day dining restaurant Flavours At Zhongshan Park.

The makan brand has been on an expansion streak in the last few years — incidentally, it was also during this period that law graduate Alexander took a more active role in the family business. Before he became an F&B towkay as CEO of the New Ubin Seafood Group of Companies, he joined TSMP Law Corporation in 2015, where he quickly rose the ranks to become junior partner and associate director for the firm’s restructuring and insolvency division.

“I could see where my career would go had I remained in the firm, but I was also aware of the family business and that my dad had more and more on his plate to deal with,” says Alex. Since he knows the business inside-out, he felt that he was in a position to help share the load with his father and grow the family business. “So, I made the decision to leave [law] and I don’t regret it,” says Alex, despite taking a 50 percent pay cut since he made the career switch.

Alex has two younger brothers, who SM feels should gain more working experience outside before joining the family biz.

SM (right in pic) and Alex emphasise that New Ubin’s popularity is built on the relationships they have with their customers. Throughout our two-hour interview, the duo were constantly greeting guests by name — and diners come up to greet them like old pals. But what drew people to New Ubin in the first place was their food, and their style of zi char cuisine is rooted in the Pang family’s adventurous taste in food. “My Teochew father who was English educated at ACS would order oysters from Fitzpatrick’s (one of the country’s first specialty supermarkets, located where Paragon is now). I had my first taste of it when I was three years old!” recalls SM. “Between him and my Peranakan mother, I was fed a wide repertoire of food.” SM himself also loves entertaining at home and would make his wife cook up a storm almost every weekend. Alex, who learned how to cook from his maternal grandma, grandaunt, mum and dad, was cooking full dinners for the family from the tender age of eight.

The family also has a huge love for beef, and according to Alex, their famous Heart Attack Fried Rice is a product of a family dinner of grilled steak: “We had brought our own USDA prime steaks to Sin Ming (where their original flagship outlet was) for our own meal, and used the zup (meat juices) to make fried rice, which seemed like a natural thing to do as a home cook! The guests at the table next to us saw it and asked for the dish, and we served them the extra portions that were left. And then we realised that people really liked the fried rice! In fact, it was so popular that it took on a life of its own and came to define us for a while.”

Each New Ubin branch has its own unique setting — the Hillview canteen being a rustic space for the residents around the area; the CHIJMES outlet a swankier venue for corporate groups and tourists; and the sprawling 140-seat Zhongshan Park branch offering a cosy “hotel coffee house” setting. However, the same menu is served at all outlets. “We train the cooks of all locations to cook with the same heart — and that's more difficult than following a recipe,” says SM. Experience also helps: the group’s longest serving chef, stationed at Hillview, has been with them for 12 years, and one of the chefs at this new outlet has also been with the company for seven years. Prices at New Ubin Zongshan Park and New Ubin Seafood CHIJMES are slightly higher to compensate for the higher rent — however the price increases are not a fixed percentage across the board, with the price hikes for the most expensive dishes being the least.

For example, the rib-eye steak at Hillview is priced at $15/100g and $16/100g at Zhongshan Park. And the Hokkien Mee Special is $14 for a small portion at Hillview and $15 at Zhongshan Park. While SM and Alex are both busy with business development and staff training, you can find both at the outlets making sure that the dishes served are to their standard. They are also the ones who do the R&D for new dishes, and reveal that they intend to expand the repertoire to include items from Malay and Indian food cultures, such as nasi lemak and biryani.

While New Ubin at Hillview is a no-frills homey space with laminate tables and plastic chairs, and the CHIJMES outlet a swankier venue with dark wood tables and banquet chairs, the sprawling 140-seat Zhongshan Park branch offers a “hotel coffee house” setting. While it doesn’t have as much character as the Hillview flagship, we reckon this space in a beige and bronze colour scheme is probably the most comfortable, given the high ceiling and lovely flood of natural light from the adjacent courtyard. The banquette seating, rectangular tables and heavy chairs might not be most suited for big meals best conducted at a round table, but they are comfortably plush, especially for business lunches.

Rice bowls were first introduced at Garang Grill to bring in the lunch crowd, and has since become a mainstay on the New Ubin menu. They come in the form of four rice bowls featuring some of the eatery’s most popular a la carte items — chicken satay, crisp pork jowl, lime leaf chicken and USDA Black Angus ‘Choice’ rib-eye.

Those who can’t get enough of New Ubin’s heart attack fried rice should make a beeline for this. It comes with a generous 150g portion of rib-eye steak cubes cooked on a cast iron skillet to a nice pink medium-rare. Here’s a tip: if you like your beef charred a little more, request for it to be finished in the Mirbasa — a $16,000 charcoal grill oven that's also used at Garang Grill. This is served on a glistening mound of rice fried in beef fat, beef drippings and dark soy sauce. Stirring in a wobbly slow-cooked egg served on top helps to moisten the grains and also cut through the super rich flavours, making it even more shiok. This tastes pretty much like the a la carte order, and is a good deal for solo diners since the a la carte steak comes in 500g-700g slabs. However, we must add that our colleague, who had this dish un-hosted at other New Ubin branches remarked that the steak she had was dry and a tad gamey on two occasions.

This comes with stir-fried kalian and a slow-cooked egg, but is served on a base of garlic fried rice, and the flavours are just as punchy. We like the juicy, charred chicken satay smothered in a very robust and rustic tasting peanut sauce.

The fatty slices of pork are finished in the Mibrasa oven for a delicately crisp, smoky crust. Yummy, but the big flavours of the meat toppings coupled with the richness of the garlic fried rice can be a bit overwhelming. Alex says that they might explore using white rice instead. Bad news if you’re into the opposite of clean eating.

Slivers of brinjal, coated in a thin layer of corn starch, are pre-fried. These are fried again in a tangy sauce prior to serving. At our lunch, the slices were almost as thin as crisps, but SM and Alex share that they're usually slightly thicker and more tender. That said, the sour plum sauce given a hint of heat from dried chillies, and lifted by calamansi lime juice, kaffir lime leaves and deep-fried curry leaves, is so deliciously addictive we wish the dish could be served in a bag — so that we can snack on it in front of the telly.

“We like deep flavours,” says SM. And boy does this Hokkien mee have depth. The ingredients that go into the stock base go way beyond the usual pork belly and prawns — they include flower clams, baby squid, and even the stock leftover from steaming crabs. The mix of yellow noodles and thick bee hoon are first charred for a kiss of wok hei before they're tossed in this umami-packed broth, making each mouthful an explosion of savoury deliciousness laced with a hint of smokiness. The only thing better than this Hokkien mee, is this Hokkien mee with a dollop of their piquant house-made sambal belacan. The chilli is served upon request — so, do yourself a favour and ask for a small dish of it. Disclaimer: this dish is better at some outlets more than others, according to our colleagues who’ve tasted less impressive versions of this dish at the New Ubin other branches.

This under-the-radar item is the one dish both SM and Alex never tire of eating. Belly pork is cured for seven days in a heavy brine mixture and smoked for another seven days in house. “This dish was created five years ago when I was looking for a quick lunch and asked for a bowl of rice with fish head curry gravy and vegetables, a fried egg and smoked pork — and the combination tasted quite good!” recalls SM. They further fine-tuned the combination into this thick, lemak concoction that tastes just like how grandmothers of another generation would make their Chinese-style curries, nothing like the watery stuff one gets at economy rice stalls. It is also served with a sunny side up egg — and SM carefully stirs the runny yolk into the curry, making the texture very silky. Furthermore, the eggplant, cabbage and lady’s finger in the curry are not cooked to death, as is normally the case in curries, instead retaining a lovely crunch. “It’s just damn shiok lah!” enthuses Alex. We concur.

New Ubin Zhongshang might be our favourite outlet yet, with its comfortable environs and central location. Also, the fact that big boss SM is often here might translate to more consistent food quality, given his stringent personal standards.

New Ubin Zhongshan Park is at Ramada by Wyndham Singapore at Zhongshan Park. 16 Ah Hood Rd, S329982. Tel: 9740-6870. Open daily. Mon – Thur noon - 3pm (last orders 2pm); 6pm - 10.30pm (last orders 10pm). Fri – Sun noon - 3pm (last orders 2pm); 5.30pm - 11pm (last orders 10pm). www.newubinseafood.com

Photos: Kevin Lau