Couple Sells Tasty ‘Mod Sin’ Chendol, Tau Hway & Ice Cream At Hawker Stall

Imagine working from 9am to 11pm every single day. That’s what hawkers Rick Koh, 63, and Kristel Gan, 56, do at their stall Dessert Monster. The genial husband-and-wife run the four-month-old hawker stall at Toa Payoh Lorong 8 Market & Food Centre, selling Insta-worthy ice cream and mod chendol and tau hway desserts from morning till late night daily. “We’re new to this, so we do everything ourselves. I’m not an 8-to-5 person. I can work for 12 to 14 hours every day even though I lost 15kg since I started my stall,” laughs Rick, who used to work in fashion merchandising for over 40 years supplying boutiques with Arnold Palmer, Montagut and Daniel Hechter clothing.

When he semi-retired, Rick and his son discussed about what he’d do to occupy his time. “I started a dessert stall ’cos food is my passion and I like desserts,” he tells 8days.sg. “At my previous job, I got to travel to Europe and many other countries and try the desserts there. Being in the fashion line gave me a headstart in predicting trends, and it’s the same for desserts. We want to give customers something they’ve never tried before.”

Rick’s wife Kristel also left her job in the same line to help out at the stall. She says of their decision to open for long hours: “I don’t want to disappoint my customers. The other day a customer said he rushed down just to eat our chendol. When people enjoy our food and come back, we’re happy.”

Amidst the old-school neon facades of the stalls in the hawker centre, Dessert Monster’s cutesy pastel decor stands out. Rick tells us his son designed the cartoon rabbit logo and snazzy graphics of his desserts. The proud dad shares, “My son studied architecture, but he likes drawing. We added a ‘monster’ to the shop’s name to make it sound catchy.”

The stall’s offerings are divided into five broad categories: Ice Cream, Chendol, Grass Jelly, Soy Milk, and tau hway in the style of Taho, a popular Filipino street snack consisting of beancurd, brown sugar syrup and sago pearls in a cup that one slurps up with a straw. “We have many Filipino friends in Singapore and they miss their hometown food, so we serve taho instead,” Rick explains.

While there are still traditional Chendol ($2) and Silken Beancurd with Gula Melaka (promotional price $1; usual price $1.50) for those who crave old-school sweets, there are also mod takes on local desserts here. Like the Monster Treasure ($3.50) which comes with mini taro pearls, and a Chengo ($3.50), served in a cup with a scoop of coconut ice cream that customers can consume on the go.

Customers can also order ice cream by the scoop from four flavours offered here (from $1.50 a scoop to $4 for three scoops), and customise their dessert with add-on toppings like crushed Kit-Kats, gummy bears, maraschino cherries and brownie chunks ($0.80 per topping). There are also four types of sauces to drizzle on your ice cream, like gula melaka or butterscotch ($0.80 per serving). Or choose from six types of ice cream cups ($3.50, see below). Each cup comes with three scoops of ice cream, two toppings and one sauce (all fixed). So if you do the math, this is significantly cheaper than customising your own cup.

The ice cream here comes from a Thai supplier, while the stall owners get other ingredients like chendol, gula melaka syrup and double-boiled soy milk tau hway made in a central kitchen in Singapore.

This ice cream cup consists of rainbow Tutti Fruity ice cream with sprinkles, maraschino cherries, gummy bears, chocolate wafers and chocolate syrup. It’s ostensibly for the kids; and we wonder what Tutti Fruity ice cream is (it tastes like a scooped version of Magnolia’s old-school Paddle Pop… and our childhood). Yummy, but we’ll skip the sugary toppings and go for something less sweet to balance the ice cream.

If you dislike dealing with the watery, icy mess from eating the usual chendol, try this mod take instead. It comes with a scoop of creamy, rich coconut ice cream with bouncy, pandan-tinged chendol jelly worms, red beans and gula melaka syrup. It has all the flavours of the beloved chendol, and then some.

Decadently chocolatey ice cream with choc chips, brownie bits (they’re more like crunchy Maltesers) and choc wafers. Reminiscent of a scoop from pricier, artisanal ice cream parlours like Creamier, though much more wallet-friendly.

Cookies & cream ice cream with mini Oreos, wafers and cereals. The ice cream is standard, like the kind we could get from the supermarket. The toppings would be a hit with kids, though the adults (like us) would find it too sugary for one sitting.

Chendol (mung bean-pandan jelly worms, red beans, gula melaka syrup and crushed ice) with a scoop of coconut ice cream. You’re meant to slurp up this concoction with a thick bubble tea straw on the go, though it’s probably only possible after waiting for it to turn into a coagulated mess. We’d rather go for the Chendol Delight, which is similar and easier to eat.

This is fancy tau hway with roasted honey almonds and toasted coconut flakes. Towkay Rick lets us sample a prototype of it (“I’m serving it with manuka honey, but it’s not here yet,” he says). Still, it’s pretty good. The central kitchen-made tau hway is not as light and silky as Lao Ban Soya Beancurd, but still smooth enough and boasts the strong soya bean flavour of old-school tau hway. Its crunchy toppings also add interesting texture to the smooth beancurd. We’d prefer it to be sweeter, though (the manuka honey sounds good).

Consider this slightly healthier ‘bubble tea’: soya bean milk ramped up with a shot of gula melaka syrup and tapioca pearls. The soya bean milk is shiok; thick and creamy with a lick of caramelly gula melaka (the owners supply a bottled version of their plain soya bean milk to souvenir shops at Sentosa). The pearls, though, are sadly overcooked.

Fun, tasty sweet treats that riff on traditional hawker centre desserts. We like the addition of coconut ice cream to chendol, and the customisable ice cream cups are yummy, if you choose the right toppings. The stall is open till 11pm every day, so consider this your new supper spot when you’re craving something sweet.

#01-26 Toa Payoh Lorong 8 Market & Hawker Centre, S310210. Tel: 8118-4347. Open daily 9am-11pm. www.facebook.com/pg/dessertmonstersg.

PHOTOS: YIP JIEYING