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3rd-Gen Hawker Of Popular Koh Brother Pig’s Organ Soup Opens Offshoot Stall In Maxwell Food Centre

Three-month-old The Pig Organ Soup serves exactly the same soup as its more famous Michelin Bib Gourmand sibling stall in Tiong Bahru. However, its young towkay hopes to eventually bring the dish “to the next level” and “appeal to the younger generation”.

Good news for fans of Koh Brother Pig’s Organ Soup, a hawker institution in Tiong Bahru Market and Food Centre with more than sixty years of history. The well-loved stall, awarded with a Michelin Bib Gourmand since 2019, quietly opened an outlet at Maxwell Food Centre in June – selling the same signature dish of assorted pig organs in a clear broth spiked with salted mustard greens, but under a different moniker.

Meet the very literally named The Pig Organ Soup, whose mod, minimalist branding is in stark contrast to the retro storefront of the Tiong Bahru HQ. In fact, the affiliation to Koh Brother isn’t even mentioned at all. Which begs the question: why?

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Same same but different

Third-generation hawker and towkay Thomas Koh (pictured below), 34, tells us that he started the brand with four friends, investing around $40K into the biz. His reasoning for starting a discrete brand? “I wanted to keep the two brands separate. So that we can try modern techniques at Maxwell and break away from the traditional ways of cooking to take our pig organ soup to the next level. Meanwhile, we ensure that the same heritage taste at the original Tiong Bahru branch is kept”. 

Koh Brother first established in 1955

The popular brand was started in 1955 by Thomas’ grandfather Koh Kee Teo (now 84 and retired). Back then, he plied his trade from a pushcart in Tiong Bahru with his brother – hence the stall’s name – eventually settling down at Tiong Bahru Market and Food Centre.

The patriarch (far left) then handed over the reins to his son Simon Koh (second from left), 61, in 2003. Thomas joined the family biz in 2013 at the age of 25. On why he decided to quit his previous corporate job as a graphic designer for the life of a hawker, he says, “My parents aren’t young anymore, and with pig’s organ soup, you need even more manpower than a usual hawker stall. [The stall] was about 50 years old then – I thought it’d be such a waste to let this business close down.”

Subsequently, the millennial took the lead in the biz in 2018, cooking daily with his parents at the Tiong Bahru stall.

Plans to modernise and elevate pig organ soup at new outlet

Which brings us back to The Pig Organ Soup, which he tells us his parents were supportive of. “They actually told me to use the same branding and show that we are affiliated because it will be better for business. But I refused to – maybe I’m just stubborn. I just wanted to prove that our food is good not because of the brand, and I’m glad that my team stood behind the decision to take the hard path with me.” The new-fangled branding meant that many customers “were surprised to find out we had an affiliation with Koh Brother,” leading to modest sales of around “80 to 100 bowls” of soup a day.

This low sales volume means it's more convenient for the hawkers to produce their master stock at their Tiong Bahru HQ for now, though Thomas says they’ll start cooking soup separately “once sales improve [at Maxwell].” “There’s a limit to how much we can produce at Tiong Bahru actually, as the kitchen is small – we are quite close to that limit now,” he says.

Still, he sees a silver lining during this “low sales period”. He hopes to use the stall as a test bed for “R&D and new cooking methods” for his brand’s signature dish, with branding that “will better appeal to the younger generation”. “For Koh Brother, we want that to stay the same over the years. But with this, we want it to evolve over time,” he says. However, these planned innovations like “cooking the offal via sous vide or creating an even clearer consomme-like version of the soup” have yet to materialise as a new dish. “We work seven days a week leh. It’s very hard to find time [to innovate],” insists the young hawker.

“Right now, everything is a learning process for us and we are trying to figure out as much as we can,” he says.

Prices steeper at Maxwell outlet, but you don’t have to queue

Bowls of pig’s organ soup (featuring offal like large intestine, liver, kidney and heart) start at $5.50 here, a dollar pricier than the HQ stall due to higher rental rates at Maxwell Food Centre. It costs an extra $2 to upsize for more pig’s innards, and $0.50 for a bowl of rice.

On the bright side, Thomas says there typically isn’t a queue at The Pig Organ Soup, while the original Tiong Bahru draws sizable queues usually lasting at least “20 minutes” during lunchtime.

Head to Tiong Bahru branch for signature glutinous rice-stuffed pig intestines

Koh Brother Pig’s Organ Soup’s other specialty – a hard-to-find dish of large intestines stuffed with sticky glutinous rice, chestnuts and pork belly – isn’t sold at The Pig Organ Soup. “It’s too popular, we can’t even keep up with demand for the Tiong Bahru outlet (laughs). It sells out in less than two hours after opening,” saymodes Thomas. Guess you’ll have to head over early to their HQ outlet if you want to get your paws on some.

The details

The Pig Organ Soup is at #01-72 Maxwell Food Centre,1 Kadayanallur St, S069184. Tel: 8683-0863. Open daily except Sun 10.30am – 8.30pm. More info via FacebookInstagram.

Koh Brother Pig’s Organ Soup is at #02-29 Tiong Bahru Market and Food Centre, 30 Seng Poh Rd, S168898. Tel: 8113-7218. Open daily except Mon 9am – 2.30pm; 5pm – 7.45pm. More info via Facebook.

Photos: The Pig Organ Soup, Koh Brother Pig’s Organ Soup, Carl Neo

No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from 8days.sg.

Related topics

Pig Organ Soup The Pig Organ Soup young hawkers maxwell food centre Tiong Bahru Food Centre Koh Brother Pig's Organ Soup michelin bib gourmand michelin guide cheap food

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