Ex-Footballer Rafi Ali & Local Musicians Run Halal Kopitiam With Fab Lamb Biryani

What do musicians do when they’re not playing music? We found the answer at Ali Nachia Eating House when we dropped by recently for our biryani fix.

Inside the inconspicuous corner coffee shop at Tanjong Pagar, Shah and Faizal from popular local cover band SuperSonic were slinging saucers of kaya toast and soft-boiled eggs. Across the table, their elder brother, former national footballer and The Vibes drummer Rafi Ali, was taking orders for steaming platters of biryani. And at a neighbouring stall, Rostam aka keyboardist Tom Ross from Shagies had just pulled a frothy cup of teh tarik.

Ali Nachia just happens to be one of Singapore’s most well-known biryani stalls. It’s run by Rafi’s dad, Mohammed Ali Latif, who opened it in 2002 at the old Tanjong Pagar Railway Station. The former butcher and wedding caterer migrated to Tanjong Pagar Plaza in 2011 when the railway station closed and stayed there until January this year, when a rental increase forced him to move to their current space at Hoe Chiang Road, a corner shophouse a stone’s throw away that’s unpretentiously furnished with about 11 sets of wooden tables and plastic stools.

“The new landlord wanted to increase the rent by 100 percent, crazy!” shares Rafi, who retired from professional football in 2008 but is still remembered as one of Singapore’s best midfielders and part of the team that won the 1998 Tiger Cup. “So we had to move.”

Initially, Ali Nachia took up only one stall in the four-stall coffee shop. But when the master tenant moved out in May, the landlord offered the entire space to the family to run - a smart move, since this is now the only halal eatery in a row of five F&B outlets. “We didn’t really have time to think, we just took it,” Rafi says with a cheeky grin. “Then we thought, why not ask our musician friends to take over the stalls? We’re all well travelled, we love cooking, we know what people want.”

The takeover happened last month. One of the stalls sells Malay kuih-kuih and goreng pisang, while another is a nasi padang stall — a revival of Maimon & Son, which sat opposite Rex Theatre from the 1950s to '70s before moving to Tekka Market. The stall was known for its rare Javanese dishes like nasi jenganan (a cai png-style rice dish that comes drenched in a sweet-savoury peanut gravy) and nasi rawon (another rice dish characterised by its signature buah keluak gravy).

Maimon & Son’s version 2.0 is run by another well-known face in the local music scene: Jive Talkin’ bassist Din Safari, along with his sister. The pair’s parents used to run the Tekka Market stall which has since closed. At the new stall, Din and his sister are cooking up their parents’ old recipes.

Meanwhile, the fourth stall at the back of the coffee shop is a teh tarik and kaya toast stall manned by Shagies’ Rostam.

This is the first time Rafi and his brothers (pictured above) have joined their father’s business full-time (although he stays in touch with football by coaching students at Manjusri and Riverside secondary schools thrice a week), and they have some fresh ideas in the pipeline. “We want to put special dishes on the menu every now and then, do something different once a month,” says the talented chap, who’s been helping his father on and off since his retirement from football but thinks it’s time he and his brothers learnt to take over the business now that his parents are getting old.

Their pilot introduction is this hulking lamb shank biryani, which Rafi brings out to us with a gleeful grin on his face. IRL the meat looks bigger than both our clenched fists put together, and it comes on the bone. At $20, this is the most expensive dish on the menu, but that’s because quality Aussie lamb is used. Like all the other biryani dishes here, this has been cooked in the dum biryani style, meaning that the meat is slow-steamed together with the rice to draw out the flavours, instead of being cooked separately. The lamb is so tender, it falls apart in steaming chunks when we put our spoon to it, and we can’t detect even a whiff of gaminess. Delish with the light, aromatic basmati rice, punchy curry and tangy raita - it’s hard to imagine a better lamb biryani than this.

Ali Nachia fans don’t have to worry though - everything that the stall is known for will remain unchanged, like its mutton biryani (pictured; $8 and almost as tender as that lamb shank, if a tad more gelatinous) and chicken version ($7, not our favourite, perhaps because we got a chunk of slightly dry breast meat with a tiny wing attached).

At 70 years old, Rafi’s dad Mohammed Ali still does the cooking. And he makes sure the stall’s original rempah recipe, which Rafi says is the family’s “secret weapon” and contains “a lot” of ingredients including the prohibitively expensive saffron, is religiously followed. “Sometimes when I look at my father I also question what he’s doing, because the cost is quite high,” chortles the famous footballer. “He cooks like how he cooks for a wedding! His philosophy is, if we want to feed people, we do it properly, if not don’t do it at all.”

Biryani aside, Rostam’s kaya butter toast, soft-boiled egg and hot drink set ($3) will probably be another hit once people start going back to the office, since it’s among the cheapest breakfast options in the CBD. But it’s the teh tarik ($1.20) we think most people will queue for. The Indian tea brew is mild-looking, but packs a surprisingly fragrant, earthy flavour that reminds us of Thai milk tea.

Though Rafi and his family don’t have major ambitions for the eatery - “we’re not aiming to be multi-millionaires. I just want to work in a place where you’re not scared to do this and that; just have fun” - he’s passionate about turning the space into a community of musicians and footballers who can hang out, inspire one another and feel at home. It helps that Rafi’s famous friends drop by every now and then - singer-songwriter Ramli Sarip is a regular visitor, as is legendary ’70s footballer Quah Kim Song (who’s also Workers’ Party Sylvia Lim’s partner). Singapore People’s Party chairman Jose Raymond (pictured with Rafi), a former sports journalist, tells us that he’s a fan of Ali Nachia’s dalcha curry in particular. “It reminds me of the dalcha which my grandma used to make for us when we were kids,” he says.

Photo: Jose Raymond Thomas/ Facebook

Once the coffee shop is fully up and running, Rafi plans for some of the stalls to be open through the day (Ali Nachia Briyani only opens until they sell out, which is usually just after lunchtime). But don’t be surprised if you turn up and your favourite stall is closed because its musician owner is off jamming somewhere. “Music is a passion, you cannot stop it,” says Rafi. “If I stop anyone [from playing], their cooking will be rubbish!”

Ali Nachia Eating House is at 9 Hoe Chiang Rd, S089314. Open Mon-Sat from about 10.30am to 2.15pm (for now). Closed Sun. Islandwide delivery at a flat rate of $10 available - call or WhatsApp 9389-2615.

Photos: Kelvin Chia