Long Live Hokkien Mee

Leslie
I realised that, you know, if a young person wants to learn how to fry Hokkien mee, where is he going to learn?

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
There was no YouTube in those days.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
There were no resources.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
And there were no books written about how to do all these things, right?

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
There might have been one or two cookbooks., but nothing beats talking to the hawker and then getting a bit of secrets. So, the way I do it is, when you talk to Hawker A, out of the 10 secrets he has, he will tell you maybe seven or eight, lah, right? Then you talk to Hawker B, he’ll also tell you about seven or eight. But once you’ve talked to enough [hawkers] here and there, you sort of piece together all the secrets. So, over the years, I collected all the secret tips, and whatever. Then I try to come up with a recipe that I can write down so that people who want to learn how to make Hokkien mee, want to make har cheong gai [can do so]. I wrote my har cheong gai recipe after a few months of research. I get all these young hawkers saying, “Hey, I borrowed your recipe.”

Jimmy
Oh, very good. 

[Music playing] 

Jimmy
You’re listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia, we tell stories about Singapore’s past, some familiar, others forgotten, all fascinating. 

There’s a little bit of rivalry between Singapore and Malaysia when it comes to food, usually over who can lay claim to a particular dish as being quintessentially Singaporean or Malaysian. Given the shared history and close ties between the two countries, it’s not surprising that disagreements exist. There is, however, one popular hawker dish in Singapore that is apparently not up for debate because it is unique to the city-state: Hokkien mee. It’s made from egg noodles and rice noodles together with egg, pork, prawns, and squid, and served in a rich broth. Hokkien mee is both delicious and apparently only found in Singapore. And while the origins of most popular hawker dishes have been lost in the mists of time, we apparently have been able to track down the original hawkers behind this dish. Here to tell us more about this dish, which he made for the NLB food history show, From Book to Cook, is Dr Leslie Tay, the man behind the very popular food blog, I Eat, I Shoot, I Post. He also wrote the very popular The End of Char Kway Teow, a book about hawker food in Singapore. Leslie, thank you very much for joining us on the show today. How are you?

Leslie
I’m good. Thanks for inviting me to appear on the show.

Jimmy
Okay. I’m very glad you’re here with us. You made Hokkien mee for From Book to Cook. You have done some research on Hokkien mee, I understand. You’ve heard from a hawker who has said that he is the person behind this dish. Can you tell us a little bit more?

Leslie
Well, it was actually his dad.

Jimmy
Oh, okay.

Leslie
Yeah. So this is Nam Seng Hokkien Mee.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
I actually met this man many years ago when I started blogging almost 20 years ago, and then when I met him again a few years later, he had some time, and he could actually sit down with me to tell me about Hokkien mee. Now, Nam Seng Hokkien Mee is one of the most famous in Singapore. Those of the older generation all know it because it is one of the very early Hokkien mee stalls and a legend in its own right. And the man who has been frying it has been frying it for 50 years now. He told me that the origins of Hokkien mee started with his dad. His dad and his dad’s elder brother. So, these two men, Ng Seng and Ng Tong, came from Xiamen to Singapore after the war. Of course, when they came here, they worked as coolies doing warehouse work. And after the day’s work, they would come together and in, you know, Rochor in those days, a lot of Hokkiens were there, and they got their hands on some noodles, Hokkien noodles, the yellow noodles. The noodles themselves are Hokkien noodles.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
And they got the noodles. Then they just set up a wok, just a charcoal fire on the ground, and started frying up whatever they got their hands on. If there were prawns that day, they would use prawns. If there was sotong, they used sotong. And, after a while, it got quite popular. I guess the smell must have enticed a lot of people. And soon the two brothers thought, “Hey, this is actually quite a good business model, right? Why don’t we both just go and start our own stall?” So the older brother started his stall outside the New 7th Story Hotel. The younger brother, Ng Tong, started a stall outside Tong Ghee Medical Hall. Eu Tong Sen Street.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
I guess it’s very coincidental that they are both Tong, lah.

Jimmy
Tong Ghee. I’m sure they’re not a clan.

Leslie
Yeah. Anyway, so he started his stall there. The older brother started a stall in Rochor, the original spot. So it became known as Rochor Noodles at one stage.

Jimmy
Because it came from Rochor.

Leslie
Yeah, because when you are talking about this particular style of frying noodles, everybody associated it with that hawker in Rochor, right?

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
So they called it Rochor mee. Some people call it – because it was being fried very close to the ground – toh kah mee, or kay lor mee.

Jimmy
Yeah. Very unique.

Leslie
And this Hokkien mee is very unique in that we actually can trace it back to the guys who came out with the dish and made it popular. And this style of Hokkien mee is found mainly in Singapore. You rarely find it in Malaysia, and you don’t find it in Thailand.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
Definitely not. So that fact alone will tell us that actually its history is very short. If it was something like, say satay or cendol, that’s got a longer history and then you can find [them] in Indonesia, you can find [them] in Malaysia, so you know that it started somewhere.

Jimmy
It’s had time to grow and spread.

Leslie
Yeah, exactly. But Hokkien mee hasn’t. Hokkien mee is very recent.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
Coming to 100 years.

Leslie
I mean, 80 years old.

Jimmy
But apparently not popular enough that people in Malaysia don’t want to learn to cook it and make it.

Leslie
No, I mean, okay. So I guess because Malaysia, they also have their version of Hokkien mee, right?

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
KL Hokkien mee, or they call it tai lok mee. And so they have their version, which is black soy sauce. I’m sure there’s a story behind how it all started with theirs as well. But somehow Hokkien mee has remained very uniquely Singaporean.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
The real Singaporean noodles, you know? You know, when you go overseas, you hear of Singapore noodles. But it is hardly found here. That’s char bee hoon of some sort.

Jimmy
Right, yeah.

Leslie
But the real Singapore noodle is Hokkien mee.

Jimmy
Hokkien mee.

Leslie
Hokkien mee, yeah.

Jimmy
And what’s interesting to me is that while it’s called Hokkien mee, clearly it’s called Hokkien mee because of the noodles, but it doesn’t just reflect only the Hokkien influence, right? There’s the wok hei that everyone talks about, I imagine a Cantonese thing, for example.

Leslie
Well, when it comes to Hokkien mee, I would argue that wok hei is not... I mean, okay, you need to fry the noodles really well.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
But in order to get wok hei, you really need the Cantonese-style wok.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
The one where you use one hand to toss the wok.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
It can’t be the big guoli that is typically used for frying Hokkien mee and char kway teow, right?

Jimmy
One big wok.

Leslie
Which you can’t toss.

Jimmy
Yes.

Leslie
The most you can do is to heat it up really hot and then have a bit of smoke coming out.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
So when it comes to Hokkien mee, we call it wok hei, but I think the Hokkien people in the early days would never refer to it [as that].

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
It needs to be well-fried. Because, one of the very important features of Hokkien mee – and this is how I assess Hokkien mee when I go and eat it – is how long the hawker actually fries it before he or she adds the prawn stock.

Jimmy
Okay. What difference does that make, how long do they fry it?

Leslie
Because Hokkien noodles, even though they are cooked noodles, unless you fry it long enough, you won’t get that nice toasty flavour. And, when you look at a Hokkien mee, you look at the sauce, the gravy, it’s supposed to be a little bit browny grey. So if you don’t fry the noodles long enough, the noodles don’t get toasted on the outside. You won’t get that grey, brown colour, the Maillard reaction, the flavourful toasty flavour.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
So one of the ways I usually assess the Hokkien mee is to see whether I can detect that particular aroma and that taste. And whether or not he’s braised it long enough that the fats and the starches have emulsified, resulting in a very nice creamy sauce. So, a lot of shortcuts nowadays I would say.

Jimmy
Oh.

Leslie
A lot of hawkers rely on the stock itself and they just basically give your noodles a bit of a toss. And then just put in the stock. And it becomes more like a stewed noodle casserole or something, whereas fried Hokkien mee is supposed to be fried.

Jimmy
I’m listening to you and I’m getting the sense I’ve never really eaten good Hokkien mee.

Leslie
In terms of the evolution of Hokkien mee, right, the earliest form, the one that Nam Seng still does, you have the very thin bee hoon.

Jimmy
Yes.

Leslie
So you have the Hokkien noodles, you have the thin bee hoon, and it’s fried usually until it’s almost dry. So you won’t get much of a gravy. It’s fried until dry and eaten with just sliced chili.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
Okay? So, this is the very early version.

Jimmy
Very dry. I mean, there’s no broth.

Leslie
They use the broth, but they fry until it’s dry.

Jimmy
Dry, okay.

Leslie
And the other one is Ah Hock. Ah Hock is the son of the first brother.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
Ng Seng, right? So he’s over at Chomp Chomp.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
And these two stalls are the earliest, I mean, the second generation stalls. They’re still around. And both of them fry the same style. It’s the dry version, thin bee hoon noodle. Somewhere along the line, the thin noodles became laksa bee hoon. And then somewhere along the line, somehow the Peranakans also had their own version of the thing, where they add sambal, and make it with a lot of gravy.

Jimmy
So the Peranakan version is wetter and uses sambal rather than cut chili?

Leslie
I know of some Peranakan restaurants that used to sell this style of Hokkien mee. I haven’t really traced the history properly. 

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
But I do suspect that it was the Peranakans who actually introduced sambal into Hokkien mee.

Jimmy
Right. Yeah.

Leslie
We know another very early hawker [at] Lorong 29, Geylang Lorong 29.

Jimmy
What did they give?

Leslie
That one came later. And theirs is a different style already. Theirs is [with] more gravy. It could have started from there. So now we really have two different kinds of styles of Hokkien mee. If you really talk to the Hokkien mee purists, they will say, “Oh, you like the dry type, or you like the wet type?”

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
You know, everybody has their own [preferences].

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
So there are these two camps, right? But I would say the more popular style is the wet version because that’s easier to do.

Jimmy
You just drown your noodles.

Leslie
As long as your prawn stock has got a lot of MSG inside, a lot of people will just take and drink it.

Jimmy
Might have some hawkers coming after you with a chopper.

Leslie
Well, what to do? I mean, the fact of the matter is, and this is what I’ve always argued on my blog, that unless we are willing to pay more for our hawker food, you can’t really expect them to put in so much prawn heads. I mean, when we were doing the demonstration, you see the amount of prawn heads I put into the stock. Basically it was prawn heads from half a kilo of prawns just to make a portion that is good enough for maybe three people. So you can’t expect the hawkers to do that. They don’t have the resources. If someone were to come out, start a standalone restaurant, a Hokkien mee restaurant, okay, and start selling one plate of, at least a good plate, for two people or so for 20 bucks, 30 bucks, I can guarantee you it’s going be next level Hokkien mee. Because then he can use more prawns. This is what the Lorong 29 uncle, Alex, he’s no longer around, [did]. But he told me that last time they used to display all the sotong, the squid on the rattan rack, and then you could actually pick which one you wanted, and then they would cut it up, and they would put it into the prawn noodles. So I can imagine someone starting a specialty artisan Hokkien mee stall using charcoal, frying each plate at a time, and then you can actually pick your own seafood. And you add it in, and then you fry each plate until it’s got that toasty flavour. A very rich prawn stock, put it in, and then sell it to you at a decent price where he can make some money. And we can enjoy it. I’m sure there’s a sweet spot, right?

Jimmy
There’s definitely a market.

Leslie
Unfortunately, because it is labelled as hawker food, nobody’s willing to pay more than a hawker price.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
But the good news is in the last few years, there have been more and more… Hokkien mee is trending. Not like char kway teow, which I think is still facing the end. Ever since I published the book The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries in 2010, until now, there hasn’t been any upcoming new hawker frying char kway teow.

Jimmy
Really?

Leslie
No. All the ones that are starting up, I go and cover them. They may be popular for a few months, and after [that] they close. It’s not sustainable. The model is not sustainable. But when it comes to Hokkien mee, in the last few years, there’s been an explosion of young people getting into Hokkien mee.

Jimmy
Okay. Why is that? Why is it that char kway teow is not doing well like Hokkien mee?

Leslie
Well, I think Hokkien mee [is popular] because of the prawns. People can see prawns, and somehow or other, when Singaporeans see prawns, they put value on it, lah. And I think we have the prawn mee soup to thank.

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Leslie
Years ago, the Beach Road prawn mee came out and then he decided, “Hey, I’m gonna sell my prawn mee soup at $6 to $8, put in big prawns.” And in the beginning, he struggled, but he’s told me after three years of persistence, people started to get it. And so now we have prawn mee, and [if] you go to eat this prawn mee at a specialty restaurant, you don’t mind paying $8, $12, $15, $20, right?

Jimmy
Well, it looks like you’re getting value for money.

Leslie
Because you see the prawn, right?

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
So, prawn mee blazed the trail for a lot of other hawker dishes, as well as the fried version of the Hokkien mee. There are more and more young hawkers going into Hokkien mee, so Hokkien mee will live. We need to have a change of paradigm, a paradigm shift when it comes to char kway teow.

Jimmy
Okay. So I’ve always thought that the reason why char kway teow is not doing well is because it has become like a byword for unhealthy.

Leslie
Yeah.

Jimmy
So people are happy to eat hawker food, but they, [say] “Oh, I won’t eat char kway teow because it will clog up arteries” or whatever, right? They just look unhealthy. 

Leslie
Yeah, it’s one of those things, but it’s still very popular.

Jimmy
It is.

Leslie
All the char kway teow, the famous ones, all have a queue.

Jimmy
As you say, people are not jumping into the market to produce.

Leslie
Yeah. See, the problem with char kway teow [is that] you need a queue in order to produce a nice plate of char kway teow, because according to one of the hawkers I talked to, the guoli must always be very hot. And you can only have a very hot guoli when there’s a queue of people waiting. Hokkien mee is one big wok. You wait your 10 minutes, everybody gets their thing, and then they go, right? But char kway teow, you need that queue. So, a young hawker coming in, very difficult.

Jimmy
So you don't have the economies of scale that you can get in some ways with Hokkien mee, because at least you can cook the whole thing at one go, right? And then you can start dishing it out with Hokkien mee.

Leslie
Yeah, but it still needs to be done fresh, lah. You can’t do one whole thing and then just put in.

Jimmy
No, of course.

Leslie
Although some people have innovated. Instead of using the big guoli, they use the Cantonese wok.

Jimmy
Oh, okay.

Leslie
When they are frying one portion, they’ll use the Cantonese wok. Then they toss it, like how the Cantonese [do]. And this is where the Cantonese influence comes in.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
So there are places like Bao Er Cafe, and they sell Hokkien mee for $8 to $10. And they use a Cantonese wok to toss to give it even more wok hei.

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Leslie
So it’s evolving in that way.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
So it’s great to see. It’s great to see also that pork lard is making a comeback. I mean, seriously. It was –

Jimmy
Vilified, right?

Leslie
When I started writing 20 years ago, nobody would eat pork lard.

Jimmy
No.

Leslie
Nobody would take anything with a bit of fat in it.

Jimmy
Yeah. 

Leslie
Those were the dark times when there was this big scare about saturated fats and all. It was at the height of it, you know? And then after that, the Japanese came in with their wagyu and suddenly people started to realise, “Actually, fat tastes good, huh?”

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
And then they started to eat pork belly shabu-shabu, pork belly steamboat, and then suddenly people are now open to eating pork lard yet again. And of course we have, I think it was Time magazine or some magazine article, or was it the UK? I can’t recall, but an article came out a few years back saying that pork lard is actually one of the most healthy foods that you can eat.

Jimmy
Oh, really?

Leslie
Yeah. It was an article. I can’t remember where it was.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
You can find it online. I think it’s from the UK. Basically, the return of pork lard powers our food. It powers a lot of our fried [foods]. Especially when you’re talking about char kway teow. Without pork lard, it just doesn’t taste [nice]. Same with the Hokkien mee. Even Nam Seng gave up pork lard during the scare. During the Nipah virus and all that. They gave up. But the new hawkers, they’re coming in, you can see that the pork lard is there. It gives it that distinctive flavour.

Jimmy
If you go back a little bit, we talk about the ingredients, so pork lard is clearly very important. But prawns also go into the broth. What are the other important ingredients in Hokkien mee?

Leslie
One of the keys to Hokkien mee is garlic. How do I know this? I know this because as a kid, I used to go to buy Hokkien mee for the family. I would go to the coffee shop opposite my block of flats, and I would stand in front of the Hokkien mee auntie waiting for her to fry. So over the years, I memorised all the steps. ‘Cause those days, that’s what you did. They didn’t have a buzzer. You just waited in line. You just stand there. You wait to give your order, then you give your order, then you wait for it to cook, right?

Jimmy
Did you eat Hokkien mee every week, every day?

Leslie
I think we ate it at least two or three times a month. It was a nice supper kind of thing. And I always remember she’d fry the egg, and then after that fry the noodles, and once the noodles were nice, she’d put it to one side, you know? Put the noodles on one side. Create a little well, and then there she would add the lard, and then the garlic would go in. And then she’d fry the garlic, and the smell all came out. Then the stock went in. So the stock and the garlic, once it combined, the Hokkien mee smell would come out, lah. And then she’d cover it with that wooden, what do you call it?

Jimmy
Lid.

Leslie
Right, guoli lid, and then let it simmer, lah. That’s where the magic comes. Without garlic, you cannot make Hokkien mee. Yeah, without garlic, you’re making something else. So, I think this is the key, which is why I emphasise that there’s a lot of garlic. I made it very clear. Ther’'s a lot of garlic, yeah? It’s not one or two cloves, you know? You got to keep the whole bulb for one, or even two. When it comes to garlic, you can’t have too much of it.

Jimmy
Okay, in Hokkien mee.

Leslie
Don’t worry about garlic.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
Once you fry the garlic, it loses the astringent garlicky breath thing. It mellows, and garlic has got a special chemical... It’s not chemical. Chemical is not the right word, but it’s got something inside the garlic that gives it thatumami and mouthfeel. That’s why garlic is so important in a lot of foods. You don’t think much of it because it’s a small little... Sometimes when I’m trying to tweak recipes, I’m just thinking, “Why is this thing not having that mouthfeel that I'm looking for?” When you put it in your mouth, you feel that your whole palate just gets covered with flavour, and that’s the thing that makes garlic so important.

Jimmy
I didn’t realise garlic had an influence on mouthfeel. This is what you did as well. Traditionally, you know, the Hokkien mee in Singapore is served on an opeh leaf.

Leslie
Yeah.

Jimmy
We had to go through some trouble to find opeh leaves in Singapore in those days. But first, only you can tell us, what is the opeh leaf and is it just being environmental?

Leslie
I think opeh leaf was in the '70s. When I was growing up, right, there were no foam boxes. Oh, I hate those foam plates, foam boxes. They are the bane of any hawker food. I mean, seriously, we should ban foam plates and foam boxes, because first of all, it really cheapens the whole dish, right? I mean, you see it on a foam plate, you go “Ehhhh”, you know? And it’s not good for the environment, so it should be banned. But in those days, there weren’t all these disposables, right? We were using proper plates. And when it comes to the wrapper, you have opeh leaf, and then you got banana leaf. And then you got a newspaper, and you got the brown paper wrapper, right? And Hokkien mee is always in that opeh leaf.

Jimmy
That’s very strange. Why not in a banana leaf, for example?

Leslie
I don’t know. I mean, well, banana leaves break easily. Opeh leaves don’t. And because Hokkien mee has got gravy. Banana leaves, you can use them for nasi lemak, and that’s fine because there’s not a lot of water. Nasi padang. Yeah.

Jimmy
Very wet wrap.

Leslie
Yeah. So it’s something wet, right? The Opeh leaves actually handle the gravy very well.

Jimmy
All right. Okay. Does it leave a flavour?

Leslie
I think it does, lah, a little bit, lah. I don’t know. It just always tastes better when the opeh leaf is there, right?

Jimmy
Exactly.

Leslie
Definitely because it’s an organic product. It’s got a bit of that woodiness, to it. It’s just like whiskey that is, aged in an oak barrel. 

Jimmy
Aged in a 200-year-old oak barrel.

Leslie
Yeah. So I think an opeh leaf, those hawkers, those people who really love their Hokkien mee will tell me, they’ll buy it specially the day before and then keep it in the fridge.

Jimmy
Oh.

Leslie
Yeah. So the opeh leaf and the noodles, everything has got to marinate inside overnight.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
And then the next day, they eat, to get the even better flavour.

Jimmy
And what is an opeh leaf?

Leslie
It’s the betel nut palm. When you pull down the leaves, it’s the base of that fibrous thing. Nowadays it’s very difficult to get hold of these things. In the days when you still saw people chewing betel nuts, their mouths were all red. Those were the days when it was very much available, very common. Yeah. And so it’s just a very good renewable. In those days, we didn’t care about it.

Jimmy
Yeah, it wasn’t about the environment.

Leslie
It was just what you [could] get your hands on.

Jimmy
Do hawkers still use opeh leaf now?

Leslie
Some do.

Jimmy
Just for the visual.

Leslie
Some just cut a small piece so they can put it there so that it gives you the impression that it’s very old school.

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Leslie
The most serious ones, yes, I think they do invest in a bit of opeh leaf to try to impress. But I tell you, if someone were to come out and just open up a specialty Hokkien mee stall, he would definitely want to have that opeh leaf there.

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Leslie
Pick it up. If they can sell it to you for 20 bucks, of course they’ll use the opeh leaf. Why not? And you use good prawns and plenty of seafood. You can add even more things. In fact, many years ago, I remember, about 20 or 30 years ago, Kim’s Hokkien mee was in its heyday. About 20, 30 years ago. 1990s. Even in those days, he used to sell them for $10 or $12 or $20.

Jimmy
Wow.

Leslie
Yeah. He was very popular then, and he used to put meatballs, I always remember.

Jimmy
Right. Right.

Leslie
Yeah. So Hokkien mee in those few years was also a bit able to get to the next level. And it wasn’t until of late, recently, [that] there was another resurgence.

Jimmy
You’ve been championing hawker food for a long time. When did you start your blog?

Leslie
In 2006.

Jimmy
It’s just under 20 years now, right?

Leslie
Yeah.

Jimmy
Wow.

Leslie
Yeah.

Jimmy
That’s a long time for a blog. Two questions. One, have your motivations for your blog changed over the last 20 years?

Leslie
It started off when I just opened my clinic. And my clinic is located in a place where nobody goes. It’s on the second level of a very quiet building. So it took a while to build up the clientele. And so during this time when I was still waiting for patients to come in, I decided, “Okay, let's go and do something.”

Jimmy
Meaning you had a lot of free time.

Leslie
A lot of free time. ’Cause in the early days, we already decided I’m not going to open in the afternoon.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
I’m just going to open in the morning and evening. So in the afternoon, I’m free. And having spent 10 years overseas, I decided that I didn’t know where the best Hokkien mee was. Or I didn’t know where the best char kway teow was.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
So I told myself one day, “I need to go and find the best Hokkien mee, like where is it?” So I went to the forum to check out and ask people. Then people say, “Oh, this one, that one.” And then I went and tried. So I think Makansutra was out for a few years by then. And Makansutra blazed the way, lah. I got to give it to KF Seetoh. He was the one who really started this whole thing. And then, just check out Makansutra. Check out where the hawker legends are.

Jimmy
Yep.

Leslie
Nam Seng was one of them. So then I thought, “Okay, lah. I’ll go and check out all the legends first, and then check out Makansutra, and then check out the forum, see what people say, lah.” So, I started to write it in the forum. And then some of my friends said, “Hey, why don’t you just put everything in a blog?” Then I say, “Well, what’s a blog?” ‘Cause blogs were also quite new then. And so that’s how I started. And then, digital photography just started as well in those days. And I thought, “Okay, a lot of people are taking very bad photos, so let me go and try to improve on the quality of pictures.” So, I got myself a digital camera, and I went and started blogging. That’s how it started. 

So initially it was very simple. It was just like, okay, go find where all the good food is and just write about them. After a while, I realised that, hey, there’s a lot of talking to the hawkers. There’s a lot of oral history in many of these hawker foods. I mean, there’s a lot of things that need to be written down. So then the focus started to also include documenting all the oral history of where all these foods came from. And that was 2006, right? And then by 2010, I collected enough stories to publish a book, and just to record it down so that people know what the oral history behind some of the hawker foods is. And the focus also was to cover where the best of each of the different hawker dishes are. Cover the people behind the stories, and then to also cover the different hawker centres. So I went crazy. 

Nowadays everybody’s doing it. In those days, I think I was the only one. So, over the years, how it’s changed, after I’ve done that, then I started to go into recipes. Because I thought, “Hey, okay, now that I’ve talked to enough hawkers, let’s try to come up with a recipe.” Because I realised that if a young person wants to learn how to fry Hokkien mee, where is he going to learn? There was no YouTube in those days. There’re no resources. And there’re no books written about how to do all these things, right? 

I mean, there might be one or two cookbooks, right? But nothing beats talking to the hawker and then getting a bit of secrets. So the way I do it is, when you talk to Hawker A, out of the 10 secrets, he will tell you maybe seven or eight, right? Then you talk to Hawker B, he’ll also tell you about seven or eight. But once you’ve talked to enough hawkers, right, here and there, you sort of piece together all the secrets. So over the years, [I] collected all the secret tips, and whatever. Then [I] try to come up with a recipe that I can write down so that people who want to learn how to make Hokkien mee, want to make har cheong gai [can do it]. I wrote my har cheong gai recipe after a few months of research. I get all these young hawkers saying, “Hey, I borrowed your recipe.”, or “Yeah, I have this job because I started with yours.” You know? Yeah. It’s chiffon cake. So my recipes have been useful, and that was my purpose, is just to be able to write down something to share with everybody. And in the West, that’s how they progress so quickly. They are always very open to share, write cookbooks, just share how to do certain things, like how you cook spaghetti bolognese. It’s all written down. 

But in Asian culture, everybody tends to want to keep it a secret. So it’s a very different kind of mindset. But I think nowadays it’s really different, lah. With YouTube and everything, everybody shares anything. So even then, I think that when it comes to Asian, our own local dishes, there’s still room to really get into more of the nuances and special techniques. So then having done that, now the focus is on how to bring the dishes to the next level. 

So, the Hokkien mee recipe that I shared, you go from, “I want to emulate exactly what the hawker does”, to “I want to improve on what they did”, because we are living in a different era. We’ve got sous vide, we’ve got ovens, we’ve got all these things they never used to have, right? And so we can actually do it better than them. We’ve got slow cookers, we’ve got pressure cookers, we can use any of these equipment. The question is, how do we use these equipment? And then we’ve got new ingredients. We have access to overseas ingredients. Like my Hokkien mee recipe, I use a Japanese ingredient called dashi. I use dashi stock. 'Cause I found that a dashi stock actually really adds to that flavour of the stock. So then you incorporate all these new things to make it better, to make it easier to cook. So that’s where the direction is going. And, currently in my own lifestyle, I’m going healthier in terms of reducing carbohydrate intake and [figuring out] how to cook more in a way that will sustain your health until you are 100 without any chronic illness. So how to eat healthily. So the blog is always evolving because it’s my life, you know?

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Leslie
I can’t be doing the same thing I did 20 years ago when I was in my 30s. And now I’m in my 50s. I have to eat in a way –-

Jimmy
You can’t eat like a young man anymore.

Leslie
On one hand, I love my hawker food. And I’m seen as the hawker food guy, right?

Jimmy
Hawker food guru.

Leslie
Yeah. One of the pioneers who is still around now, right? But on the other hand, I’m also having to grapple with the fact that I’m getting old. I don’t want to get diabetes. I want to be healthy. You’re running around, and I want to live my life without chronic illness.

Jimmy
Yeah. Is this your next book then?

Leslie
I don’t know. I never wanted to write a book anyway. It was the editor of Epigram, 

Edmund, who said, “Well, you need to publish your book.” I said, “Okay lah, okay lah.” But, I had someone helping me to put together all the things that I write in the blog . I never really wanted to write a book. In fact, they asked me to write another recipe book. Hai, to me, it’s like a lot of work.

Jimmy
Okay, it is a lot of work.

Leslie
It is a lot.

Jimmy
But if you can influence people, not hawkers, but ordinary people to eat better and to eat healthier, really it’s about chronic illnesses, right?

Leslie
Yeah. Okay, if I come up with anything, right, it would be Asian low-carb cooking.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
How about that? Yeah? Asian low-carb cooking. Because over the years, I’ve talked to enough restaurants, chefs, hawkers, and I think I’m at a place where I can create dishes using the basic culinary knowledge and know-how.

Jimmy
Apart from talking to hawkers, which is very important, how do you do your research on food? Clearly, you’re a doctor. Does your medical training, for example, come into this?

Leslie
Okay, so when you are thinking of how to... Of course, the medical training, in terms of the understanding of the nature of food and how it affects our body, yes, it does. When I was doing my research for the Hokkien mee recipe, I mentioned something. I said that the crustacean flavour is oil-soluble and not water-soluble. So if you understand this very basic concept, it will change the way that you make your stock. Because your stock needs to be fried in oil, 'cause the oil will then take on the flavour of the crustacean. And then after you add your water, then the flavour will go in.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
But if you just put your prawn head into water, you’re not gonna get the same flavour.
Because the flavour is oil-soluble. This is where cooking science comes in. I read a lot of cooking science. I like to think scientifically. Once you have the prawn-flavoured oil, you add water, right? You need to emulsify it. So you emulsify it by adding the garlic. The garlic helps in the emulsification. When you braise the noodles, the noodles have starch, and that will also help to emulsify. So the starch, the oil, the water, garlic, all come together to give you that Hokkien mee gravy.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
If you miss any of the steps, you might find, “Hey, how come my gravy is so watery? How come there’s not enough flavour?” There’s a lot of science involved. So I’m fascinated with the science of how the food tastes, how you cook. Everything comes together, the history, the tradition, the science, the Western techniques. Everything comes together into one recipe.

Jimmy
Okay.

Leslie
Yeah. Which is why I think a lot of people say, “Hey, your recipe works.” I say, “Yeah, because I researched very long.”

Jimmy
It’s evidence based.

Leslie
Yeah.

Jimmy
Evidence-based cooking. I need to ask you, it’s very important, in your opinion, what are the best places to get Hokkien mee?

Leslie
Okay. For the dry type of Hokkien mee, Nam Seng used to be unrivalled.

Jimmy
Nam Seng, which is in Chomp Chomp.

Leslie
The original [at] Old Airport Road used to be unrivalled, but I haven’t tasted it recently.

Jimmy
Is it still at Old Airport Road?

Leslie
Old Airport Road. They are still there, but it’s been taken over by the next generation.

Jimmy
Oh.

Leslie
So I heard some people have been complaining.

Jimmy
Okay. Yeah.

Leslie
Every time the next generation takes over, even Geylang Road 29. When Alex passed and then [it was] taken over by the next generation. That used to be my go-to.

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Leslie
Geylang Road 29 for the wet one, and then, for the dry one, the one at Golden Mile, Hainan Hokkien Mee.

Jimmy
Golden Mile Food Centre.

Leslie
It’s still very popular.

Jimmy
The Golden Mile Hawker centre.

Leslie
The basement.

Jimmy
Yeah. Actually, I want to talk to you a little bit about hawkers, because we talked about old guys and new guys, right? A lot of the time, the old hawkers, they cook until they’re in their 70s or whatever, and then sometimes their kids don’t want to take over, right?

Leslie
Yeah.

Jimmy
Because they’ve seen how hard their parents have been working, and the parents don’t want them to take over because [they should] go and be a doctor or something. Right?

Leslie
That’s right.

Jimmy
So what is the future of Singapore hawker culture? Especially because you said something interesting earlier about how we don’t really like paying a lot of money for hawker food.

Leslie
No.

Jimmy
We’ll go to a cafe and pay much more for breakfast than we would in a hawker centre.

Leslie
The future is bleak.

Jimmy
For hawkers, really?

Leslie
Yeah.

Jimmy
Because of this trend?

Leslie
In the last few years, I really feel it. I mean, I’ve been writing for 20 years. It’s really different from what I’m used to. You’re seeing all the coffee shops, right? You see, look into a typical coffee shop, you see franchised bak chor mee. Everything is being franchised. Everything is being standardised. You know, chicken rice, everything. Like, the level is higher, but everything is more average.

Jimmy
Uniform, right.

Leslie
Uniform. To find a real artisan hawker or a hawker with a hawker mentality, as in “I’m only going to open this one shop, and I’m just going do the best I can for this one shop.” Like Tai Hwa, the Michelin star. He still only has one shop.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Leslie
Okay? So when you’re only one shop, and you can look after everything.

Jimmy
It’s bound to be better because you have control.

Leslie
Once you franchise, you will lose it. You’ll lose that special touch. And this is, unfortunately, that’s the trend. And it’s the trend because we are unwilling to pay. Tai Hwa we can pay $8, $12, right, for the bak chor mee. Nobody says anything. They’re happy to pay. The question is why isn’t there more Tai Hwa? You had one wonton mee guy, Lai Fa Ba in Bukit Batok. He's selling $12 for his wonton mee. He’s doing a good job.

Jimmy
Really?

Leslie
But he’s only got one stall ah.

Jimmy
Okay. $12 for one wonton mee. How do you justify [that]? 

Leslie
He grills his own char siu, his yuan shao ba. His noodles go into an ice bath to make them more crunchy.

Jimmy
Oh, wow.

Leslie
He spends a lot of money, resources, into dried seafood to make a stock to make into the sauce, a lot of things. It is as good, in my mind, as good as any ramen.

Jimmy
Right.

Leslie
Why are we paying – ramen – $12, $15, $18, $20? We don’t ask any questions. And then when it comes to our own noodles, we are unwilling to pay. Lucky thing, this Lai Fa Ba guy is doing well. And people are appreciating. Now, of course, there are always those people who say, “Ha, it’s very expensive, too expensive.” Because they are comparing with the $4 wonton mee at the hawker centre that gives you a few slivers of char siu. I mean, you have to be objective. Look, you put them side-by-side. This fella is giving you maybe 50 grams of char siu. The other one is giving you 10 grams of paper-thin cardboard char siu. And then how can you then say one is expensive, one is not? Unless we change this mindset, we are not going to survive. There is no way that our hawkers are going to survive. The $4 wonton mee in our in our hawker centres will die. It will not last another generation. Who wants to eat? If you go to a hawker centre on a weekend nowadays, how many kids do you see there?

Jimmy
Yeah, not many.

Leslie
No, you see mostly young adults, maybe old people. If the young kids are not going to the hawker centre now, in 20 years’ time, who is going be at hawker centres? First of all, they are always going to the air-con places, right? They’ll be eating the Japanese donburi, and the Korean. So our hawker centres in 20 years will have more and more imported food, no? All the more expensive imported Japanese, Korean, Italian, whatever food you find very expensive at the restaurant, right? They will make their way to the hawker centre. But it’s like that lah. The hawker centre is there to serve the people. And if the people want to eat that kind of thing, it will sell that kind of thing. So guys like you and me, I mean, fortunately for us, we have the hawkers who are growing old with us. Now we’ll still have this to eat. But the next generation, they will have other things to eat, and they’ll be happy.

Jimmy
That’s true.

Leslie
Because that’s what they want to eat.

Jimmy
That’s true.

Leslie
Right?

Jimmy
That’s true. And I have to say, you know, I cannot complain about finding an espresso at a hawker centre. Or getting a nice pizza or foie gras at the hawker centre.

Leslie
It’s changing. It’s evolving.

Jimmy
Yeah. Okay. What’s your favourite hawker dish? Is it Hokkien mee or –?

Leslie
Hokkien mee.

Jimmy
It is Hokkien mee.

Leslie
And satay.

Leslie
And combinations. Hokkien mee and satay.

Jimmy
Okay. All right.

Leslie
It’s the standard answer.

Jimmy
All right, okay.

Leslie
Although with my low-carb diet, I think I might have to change, you know.

Jimmy
Just more satay then. 

Leslie
Yeah, just the satay.

Jimmy
Leslie, thank you very much for joining me on BiblioAsia+. Don’t miss watching Leslie make Hokkien mee on YouTube in From Book to Cook. All links and information can be found in the show notes or on the BiblioAsia website at biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg. Leslie, thank you very much, pleasure having you.

Leslie
Pleasure.

Jimmy
All right, thank you. 

[Music playing] 

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast and the BiblioAsia newsletter. Thanks for joining us on BiblioAsia+.

Leslie Tay, The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries (Singapore: Epigram Books, 2010).

Ryan Kueh, “Hawker Culture in Singapore,” BiblioAsia Podcast, 6 June 2025, Spotify, 38:28.

Lily Kong, Singapore Hawker Centres: People, Places, Food, 2nd ed. (Singapore : National Environment Agency; National Heritage Board, 2023) (From National Library Singapore, call no. RSING 381.18095957 KON)

Lim Tin Seng, "Hawkers: From Public Nuisance to National Icons," BiblioAsia 9, no. 3 (October–December 2013).

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Leslie for coming on the show.

Produced by the National Library Singapore, the BiblioAsia Podcast tells stories about Singapore history.