To those who say our local hawker culture is dying ’cos young Singaporeans don’t want to slave behind a hot, cramped stove, there’s hope yet. There are still Gen Z-ers like 24-year-old John Paul Lim (right in pic), who carries on the legacy of his dad, hawker David Lim, by joining the trade.

Dad David has been running the popular Empress Place Teochew Beef Kway Teow stall in Siglap for the past 17 years. In May, his son John Paul (right in pic) teamed up with his skateboard kaki, Lincoln Peck (left in pic), 24, to open their own stall at hipster one-north hawker centre, Timbre+. The stall took over Korean Tex-Mex taco joint Vatos Urban Tacos.

Called Gubak Kia (which means ‘beef kid’ in Hokkien), the stall offers the same traditional Empress Place beef kway teow bowls, plus John Paul’s mod riffs like Beef Short Rib Kway Teow and Gubak Bao, a beef version of the pork kong bak bao.

“Everyone calls my dad Gubak (Hokkien for ‘beef’) since he sells beef kway teow, so they call me Gubak Kia,” John Paul tells us. “At first I didn’t like it. But it grew on me, so I decided to name my stall that.”

He has been helping his dad at the family stall since he was 11. He recalls, “My upbringing was very different. My parents are very different from other parents. My dad regarded me as his ‘worker’. I was washing dishes at his stall since I was a kid. When I was 12, he left me alone at the stall one day during dinnertime and disappeared (laughs). I was mostly taking orders and ladling soup, but that day, I forced myself to cook based on what I observed of my dad’s cooking. It felt like a chore at that time, but there were also times when I was happy to be helping my parents. Some families have dinner together at home, but we have dinner at the stall.”

John Paul, who has no formal culinary training, picked up cooking chops from his old man, and also ventured out on his own to work at hip barbecue joint Camp Kilo Charcoal Club and Wolf Burgers as a chef. He holds a communications management diploma from Kaplan. “But studying communications was a waste of time. I was always more comfortable in the kitchen,” he muses. Meanwhile, Lincoln worked as a cook at bagel cafe Schmear. Both of them cook full-time at the stall daily.

It cost “about $60,000” to set up Gubak Kia. John Paul says, “I wanted to start my own stall but I didn’t have any money or savings. My parents don’t fund me. One day I was out with my friends and bumped into Lincoln. We knew each other from being on the same skateboarding team. We talked about setting up a stall, and Lincoln came up with the capital. He’s someone who saw potential in me, so he decided to pump in money to help me open this place. He also helps me at the stall daily.”

True to their skateboarding hobby, the two guys also came up with their own Gubak Kia merch: a cool streetwear-style T-shirt which they sell via their stall’s Instagram account @gubakkia. And it’s merch with street cred, hor. “It’s illustrated by [local artist] Eric Foenander. He’s famous for his street art,” explains John Paul.

When we featured father-and-son David and John Paul at their Siglap stall last year, John Paul mentioned that it was his goal to set up his own restaurant. “Part of the reason why I opened my own stall is because I didn’t want my dad to work so hard. I want him to retire. [My half-sister] Melissa is taking over his stall [which has since moved from Siglap to Maxwell Food Centre]. She used to be a teacher,” says John Paul. “I try not to involve my dad so much. I only ask him for help sometimes, like when I’m cooking beef soup, ’cos I want it to taste the same as his cooking. Even though my dad doesn’t say it, I think he’s proud of me lah.”

John Paul’s folks are indeed proud of their hawker son. During the 8 DAYS shoot at Gubak Kia, David and his Filipino-Spanish wife, Lynlibeth Lim (above, extreme right), who’s also John Paul’s mum, dropped by and eagerly snapped photos of the young bosses on their smartphones. “I told John Paul, there’s no shame in being a hawker. If you work hard, there’s also money to be made,” says David, a Singaporean Chinese who speaks fluent, rather posh-sounding English.

Lynlibeth, who’s an English and phonics teacher (and who also speaks with impeccable diction — no doubt David picked up some linguistic chops from her), helps her son out at his stall whenever she’s not teaching classes. She tells us, “My husband wants to retire, and he wants John Paul to explore doing his own thing. He’s really proud of him. John Paul is only 24, but you hardly see 24-year-olds doing authentic gubak kway teow.”

Some background info: David himself took over the Empress Place Teochew Beef Kway Teow stall from his father, who first started the biz at Empress Place after learning how to cook beef kway teow from David’s maternal grandfather.

David’s grandfather, Tan Chin Sia, founded the famous Hock Lam Street Beef Kway Teow stall in the 1920s. The Hock Lam brand expanded to a six-restaurant chain in Singapore before making a surprise announcement that they were shuttering their business on 11 July due to “manpower issues”. Of the Hock Lam closure, John Paul says: “We’re not involved in their business so we don’t know anything about it. We run our own businesses.”

Gubak Kia’s food ​​​​​​​

The most basic bowl of beef kway teow costs $6.90, and allows you to choose only one type of Aussie beef: sliced beef brisket, beef shin, beef stomach or beef balls. Don’t deprive yourself. Go straight for this Mixed Beef Kway Teow, which offers a bit of everything including tripe and a bouncy beef ball, and costs just an extra $1. Our dry beef kway teow is crammed with pink, medium-rare slices of beef, crunchy tau geh and silky strands of kway teow slicked in a fragrant mix of light soy sauce and sesame oil. This is unlike the usual dark, gloopier gravies served at other Hainanese-style beef noodles stalls; it’s more Teochew-style. Tasty, and fresh. Load up on their chilli padi sauce spiked with pineapple purée and lime juice; it adds an intensely shiok kick to the umami bowl.

It’s also worth paying $1 more to add tendon to your kway teow — unlike the greasy tendon we’ve tried at other eateries, John Paul Lim’s version is cooked to a decadent melt-in-your-mouth, gelatinous consistency.

Order this on a rainy day when you feel like eating something hot and soupy. The beef broth is left to simmer for three to four days with a medley of beef bones and tripe. It’s delicately flavourful with the light essence of beef, and comforting to the last slurp of soup-soaked kway teow.

A dramatic looking bowl with a long, bone-in Aussie beef short rib worthy of a hipster restaurant — but John Paul offers it at a reasonable price (pictured here is the 300g portion). “I learnt to cook this braised short rib at Camp Kilo. This dish is like my dad’s dry kway teow, but drizzled with beef jus from the rib,” he tells us. Each order comes with a large, succulent piece of 48-hour sous vide short rib slathered with a rich sauce that’s made by simmering minced onions, garlic, celery and carrots with beef soup over two days. We hoover up the meat with slippery soy sauce-slicked kway teow, cucumbers and a gooey sous vide egg. Ribstickingly good. It’s available only on Friday and Saturday evenings as a ‘sundown’ dish though, as John Paul can only prepare a limited quantity on top of the other dishes on the menu.

Hurry if you want to try this; John Paul will offer it for just another two months. “I change my sundown menu every three months or so,” he tells us. “After this, I’m thinking of doing deep-fried beef cutlets on my dad’s classic kway teow, and Vietnamese-style spring rolls with beef.”

Only “40 to 50 bowls” of this are available daily. “I was inspired by the Kuala Lumpur version of dry beef kway teow from Shin Kee Beef Noodles, with really dark minced meat paste, for this. I wanted to make something like that ’cos it reminds me of my first overseas trip with my dad to KL, where we ate the beef noodles,” says John Paul of his New-Rou Mian (a punny name derived from the Chinese term for beef noodles).

Kway teow is topped with an umami mix of minced braised short rib, brisket, stomach and tendon, plus a sprinkling of fragrant fried shallots. Decent, though the soft meat in the stew can’t cling to slippery kway teow, and we find ourselves wishing for a bowl of white rice to mop up the juicy beef bits. The accompanying sous vide egg also made our meal too jelak.

John Paul’s hipster riff on the traditional kong bak bao, except stuffed with stewed beef brisket, pickled veggies and piquant achar. Each bun is also branded with a Gubak Kia stamp for the ’gram. Pity that the bun, from a supplier, is too dry, and the tangy achar and pickles overpower the delish beef brisket. We’d rather our buns come no-frills with just the stewed brisket.

Strips of beef tendon are put in a dehydrator for up to eight hours, deep-fried and spiked with five spice powder and deep-fried to create these satisfyingly addictive chips with an insane crunch and a flavour like beefy, salty lard. The accompanying dip, made with mayonnaise and Empress Place Beef Kway Teow’s proprietary pineapple-infused chilli, is also moreish. Dangerously easy to munch through the whole bowl of chips without even realising it.

Young hawker John Paul Lim enthusiastically follows in his dad David’s footsteps to sell beef kway teow, and he does a good job. The classic beef kway teow he cooks is as good as his old man’s, and the mod, hipsterific riffs that he spins off from beef kway teow are mostly tasty and interesting. Worth a visit.


Gubak Kia, Stall 27B, Timbre+, 73 Ayer Rajah Crescent, S139957. Tel: 8782-0936. Open daily except Sun. Mon-Fri 11am-10pm, Sat 5pm-10pm. www.facebook.com/gubakkia.

PHOTOS: ALVIN TEO