Ex-Star Search Contestant Now A Hawker Selling Shiok Bak Chor Mee

Some hawkers serve great food but - due to a lack of marketing flair - remain obscure. Not Terence Tham, though. He’s one of the rare few who knows exactly how to put himself out there.

In the Siglap kopitiam where he runs his new stall Grandfather Bak Chor Mee, his towering height already grabs attention. He tops off his stature with his signature leather cowboy hat, which is colour-coordinated according to the days of the week. “Red is for Saturdays, ’cos I’m happy I can see my grandchildren,” he tells 8days.sg.

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At 53, Terence is already a grandfather-of-five (he has three grown-up kids). His grandchildren’s names are lovingly tattooed on his forearm. Leather boots, faded jeans and Patrick Tse-esque wraparound shades complete his hard-boiled John Wayne meets cowboy country singer look. His voice is gravelly from years of smoking.

He avers that he’s not a “rich man”, but he doesn’t work for money anymore. “Now that I’m a grandfather, I no longer chiong, chiong, chiong. I run a hawker stall out of interest, and to help people. As long as I don’t lose money and I can pay my employees and rent, I’ll continue,” says Terence, who also owns the famous three-year-old Grandfather Carrot Cake stall (pictured) - named after his 'ah gong' status - across the road at coffeeshop Soy Eu Tua.

In his East Coast neighbourhood, Terence - who also goes by his flashy nickname Mr Big Kodo - is well-known for his altruism. All his stalls display a sign that says “free food for those in need”, though Terence operates with dignified discretion. “I know when people give me the winking eye signal ’cos they’re paiseh, or when they ask what's my cheapest bowl,” he says.

His pricing can also change on a whim, depending on who’s ordering. “Oh, you Grab driver ah? Okay, $3!” he booms at a customer who orders bak chor mee (a bowl costs $4.50/ $5.50/ $6.50 here). He refuses to accept any tips or donations. “I had to turn off my stove to chase after a customer once, ’cos he gave me $100 for a $4 plate of carrot cake,” he recalls. “I ran after him to give him his change.”

But there are people who take advantage of his “no questions asked” charity. “Someone came and asked to tapow 10 bowls,” says Terence, who eventually protected himself by offering to directly send free bulk orders to any organisation in need. But he remains optimistic about doing good: “If people want to scam me, do it lor. If they can come out and scam, they must be struggling too.”

He opened a nasi padang stall on May 1 this year, right beside his equally new bak chor mee joint. Grandfather Nasi Padang is now temporarily closed due to the no dine-in rule for Phase 2 (Heightened Alert). “It’s a waste of food to serve nasi padang, ’cos there’s no crowd,” he shares.

Terence’s spirit of charity, he says, is rooted in his past personal turmoil. The son of a laksa hawker “at Tanglin Halt Chap Lak Lau”, he had dabbled in many fields. At 17, he joined modelling agency Carrie Models (“the batch before Zoe Tay, Chuando and Tay Ping Hui,” he says). A keen singer, he (pictured above in a suit) also took part in Star Search alongside Chew Chor Meng and Angela Ang in the '90s, and reached the semi-finals before dropping out to attend to personal matters.

He had been running an interior design firm, which was hit hard by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Terence took a bank loan to pay his employees and suppliers, though he ended up declaring himself bankrupt. “I almost jumped down from a building,” he recalls. “I sold my business and my company and personal cars to pay off my six-figure debts.”

The erstwhile towkay then fell on very hard times. To make ends meet, he started working as a hawker’s assistant and also washed cars for $10 a pop. “I picked up the half-smoked cigarettes that taxi drivers threw away to smoke, because I couldn’t afford a pack,” he recounts.

It’s a part of his life that he’s reluctant to reveal, but Terence is now opening up for a reason. “I want to tell young people, never give up. As long as you’re willing to work and don’t indulge in vices, there’s nothing you cannot overcome,” he says.

He eventually got himself discharged from bankruptcy, and went on to open more (now defunct) F&B businesses, like a fish soup stall, char kway teow stall and a pub called Red Comrades at Dunlop Street, which is where he started wearing his campy cowboy hats.

He came up with his own bak chor mee recipe, which comes with - unusually enough - prawns and herh keow. “Need to attract a younger crowd. They like prawns. But cannot overshot [with the modernised frills] lah,” he says sagely.

His Bak Chor Mee comes in your choice of dry or soup, and in three sizes at $4.50/ $5.50/ $6.50. The basic $4.50 bowl comes with ingredients like a frozen prawn, meatballs, herh keow, plus lean and minced pork all topped with a heap of house-made flounder fish powder and crunchy lard. The $5.50 and $6.50 bowls are upsized, with an additional fresh big prawn. You can choose from four types of noodles, like mee pok, mee kia, mee tai mak and kway teow noodles.

At less than $6, this is one very shiok bowl of bak chor mee. Our mee pok is blanched in a pork bone broth that Terence makes himself, before it’s tossed with obscenely generous amounts of vinegar, soy sauce, chilli padi, house-made sambal chilli, pork lard and flounder fish powder.

The dark, sultry noodle dish reminds us more of the Malaysian-style chilli pan mee. “It’s more appetising when the colour is nice, compared to a pale, pale colour,” Terence enthuses. It’s a pity that we had to tapow this, ’cos it becomes oilier after our journey home. But still, a very satisfying, hearty bowl of BCM.

While you can order mee tai mak for your bak chor mee, this soupy pick is an off-menu item. Just tell Terence that you want the spicy mee tai mak soup, which comes with his requisite BCM ingredients in a sambal chilli and vinegar-spiked pork bone broth and crunchy bean sprouts (from Terence’s flamboyant appearance, you can tell that the man doesn’t hold back in his cooking too). “It’s like the Chinese hot and sour soup,” he explains. Delish.

Terence is also open to mentoring young people who want to join the hawker trade. “I’m willing to teach for free,” he chortles. “Just buy me a bottle of beer!”

Grandfather Bak Chor Mee, 936 East Coast Rd, S459129. Open daily except alternate Mondays, 6am-8pm (no delivery service). www.facebook.com/ECoastRd.

Photos: Lionel Lai/ Terence Tham