This Serangoon cafe specialises in ngoh hiang made by a former fashion designer's mum

The COVID-19 pandemic has its silver lining: The lockdown pushed some enterprising people into starting their own online F&B businesses. One of them was Samuel Wong, 38.

The fashion designer’s 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 hiang made by his mum, Ellen Kuah, 69. “I had to help myself,” Wong explains of his decision to leave the fashion industry.

Instead of the traditional log shape, Ellen Kuah’s handmade ngoh hiang is dainty, flat and looks like a tiny pillow with a delicate trail of beancurd skin. Each parcel is stuffed with juicy minced pork, chopped water chestnuts, prawns, and, unusually, no five spice powder as she doesn’t like its flavour.

After slogging for almost two years to build up Mum’s Ngoh Hiang, Samuel Wong 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 ’cause 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 S$400,000” under the Single Singapore Citizen Scheme.

While Mum’s Ngoh Hiang started as an Instagram preorder-only business, Wong has since expanded his operations. Other than an interesting mod mozzarella-stuffed ngoh hiang, he now also offers more of his mother's home recipes like meatballs, jarred garlic chilli, chicken curry and mee siam, along with opening online stores on Shopee and Lazada. “These are dishes that we make for our own gatherings at home,” he notes.

More recently, they also opened a brick-and-mortar cafe, taking over half of Wong’s father’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,” Wong shares.

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,” Wong 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 Wong, who personally cooks at his shop.

The cafe serves as a central kitchen and pick-up point for Mum’s Ngoh Hiang customers, and for those who hanker for a hot meal on the spot. Unfortunately, it is now a little hard to find, and footfall has dwindled, as the area is under heavy construction for the upcoming expansion of the Thomson-East Coast Line.

“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,” Wong 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 cafe’s menu offers reasonably-priced main dishes like Mum’s Mee Siam (S$5) in your choice of a wet or dry version, Mum’s Pork Belly Rice with Chap Chye (S$8), Mum’s Pork Chop Rice (S$8), and Mum’s Chicken Curry (S$8, available only on Fridays & Saturdays). Customers can top up S$2.90 for two pieces of fried pork ngoh hiang.

There are also a la carte sides like Ngoh Hiang (from S$14 for nine pieces), which comes in four flavours including Original (pork and prawn), Original (pork only), Chicken (chicken and prawn) and Mozzarella Cheese with pork (S$25 for 18 pieces).

Wong previously used salted beancurd skin to make his ngoh hiang but 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 Wong’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.”

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. Made with house-made rempah, succulent chicken and potatoes, the chicken curry is rich and robust, and served with a plate of warm jasmine rice. Do note that it's available only on Fridays and Saturdays.

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.

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.

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.

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, but still incredibly delicious.

The fried morsel’s flat shape offers extra 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. 

Mum’s Ngoh Hiang Cafe is at 154 Serangoon North Avenue 1, #01-442, Singapore 550154. Tel: 9151 9025. Open Mon-Sat, 10am to 5pm. 

This story was originally published in 8Days.

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