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Actor Turned Food Critic Moses Lim, 71, Tells Us The Hawker Food He’d Queue For

The well-loved funnyman is back in the spotlight to do a pop-up showcasing hard-to-find nostalgic Cantonese dishes at Goodwood Park Hotel’s Chinese restaurant Min Jiang. 8days.sg catches up with him.

It’s no secret that queuing up for food is a national pastime in Singapore. Some may argue that queuing is a “young people’s thing” — that only those born in, er, later years would have the energy and time to line up for a fad snack. But Under One Roof star Moses Lim, 71, is all for joining a long queue even as a septuagenarian.

We’re catching up with the veteran funnyman, who has since phased out of comedy acting to become a food critic and F&B consultant. He’s usually busy with leading 200-strong groups to places like China for food tours, he says, but that has been temporarily put on hold due to the pandemic.

More recently, he persuaded three Hong Kong veteran chefs to come out of retirement for a pop-up 8 Hands Culinary Showcase of classic Cantonese dishes at Goodwood Park Hotel’s Chinese restaurant Min Jiang, where 8days.sg met him.

What Moses queues for

Moses confesses to us that he typically goes for Chinese and Japanese food. “But for my job I need to try everything, whether I like it or not,” he tells us. At 71, he’s not averse to queuing for food. “If the hype lasts long enough, I don’t mind trying it. But if the trend is just there for a short while and disappears, it doesn’t have any lasting value. People are just curious about it,” he shares.

According to Moses, a queue to join is one that is “made up of people who are avid foodies — they know the food is good and worth waiting for.” An example, he says, is hawker stall Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee at Hong Lim Food Centre. “There’s always a long queue, but it’s good for sure. And it’s the only stall there selling something like that. But it has to make sure it maintains its standard. They can’t take shortcuts,” he says.

Hong Kong veteran chefs Chan Kwok, Chin Hon Yin and Chung Ho Shi with Moses Lim and Goodwood Park Hotel's master chef Chan Hwan Kee.

And this belief in preserving culinary craft is why Moses has gathered a group of veteran HK chefs to return to the kitchen to showcase their elaborate dishes. The pop-up runs for just one short week, from May 18 to 25 (since the chefs are taking time out of retirement for this special comeback).

Of the trio, Chef Chan Kwok, 66, helmed Hua Ting restaurant at Orchard Hotel for 16 years, while chef Chin Hon Yin, 66, was notably at Cantonese restaurant Li Bai at Sheraton Towers for nine years. Meanwhile, chef Chung Ho Shi, 70, was a chief cook at Crystal Jade and Raffles Hotel’s Chinese Head Chef. 

Double-Boiled Whole Winter Melon Soup

“If they don’t come out of retirement, where can you enjoy food like this?” Moses asks rhetorically. The showcase (prices start from $88 per pax for a five-course lunch) includes hard-to-find and notoriously laborious old-school dishes like Deep-Fried Milk Custard, a wispy, crispy morsel cradling an oozy, creamy milk filling, and Double-Boiled Whole Winter Melon Soup, dramatically served in a giant winter melon that had been painstakingly hollowed out.

Deep-Fried Boneless Chicken Wings

Also on the menu are deboned home-style Deep-Fried Chicken Wings stuffed with hon shimeji mushrooms. “A lot of dishes here go back to the basics, which take a lot of skills to prepare,” explains Moses. “These HK chefs usually start working in kitchens from a young age. There was no such thing as [culinary schools like] Shatec. They have to secretly learn by observing the shifu. They would also get beaten by their teachers if they underperformed. But if you hit a young chef now, he’ll say ‘I’m not coming back’. Times are different.”

Moses Lim's Steamed Rice Vermicelli with Tiger Prawn and Ikura on Egg White

Moses reckons that the local F&B industry is a tough place for young chefs to stick it out. “They need to worry about manpower and rent now, and here we want everything quick. How can chefs prepare anything good for you like that? We need to educate people that it’s a lot of work to cook,” he reasons. “Fried rice cooked by a robot is very popular now. But it’s like going to a fast food restaurant for fried rice. Why would I want to spend $20 on machine-cooked rice? I want to taste the chef’s skills.”

While Moses’ wife does most of the cooking at home, he has shared his own recipe for the showcase — Steamed Rice Vermicelli with Tiger Prawn and Ikura on Egg White. The tiger prawn, draped in silky mee sua and luxuriating on a bed of steamed egg white custard, is among the more Instagrammable dishes on the menu. But Moses, who is only occasionally active on social media, has no FOMO about being online. “The moment you post something, it’s already passé lah,” he laughs.

8 Hands Culinary Showcase: A Rediscovery of Cantonese Classics is happening at Min Jiang at Goodwood Park Hotel from May 18-25. Reservations via phone at 6730-1704, via e-mail min_jiang [at] goodwoodparkhotel.com () and online at www.tablecheck.com/en/shops/goodwood-park-hotel-min-jiang/reserve


Photos: Yip Jieying/ Goodwood Park Hotel

 

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Goodwood Park Hotel Moses Lim cantonese food

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