In these inflationary times, $2 sometimes can’t even get us a decent snack, let alone a hearty hawker meal. But there are still stalls offering cheap eats, such as the two-week-old 蒸有米 (Zheng You Mi) Steam Rice Kitchen, which serves a bowl of “kosong” curry mee at just $2. 

Like its name suggests, the no-frills dish comes without fancy toppings, just noodles and beansprouts in curry gravy.

Run by Ipoh-born young hawker Chang Siew Qi, the stall opened in a Toa Payoh coffee shop near Braddell MRT station on Nov 7. Prior to this, the 28-year-old was operating her stall in Bedok for six months, but relocated due to low footfall.

She only started offering curry mee after setting up shop in Toa Payoh. “There are many elderly residents in the neighbourhood, so I wanted to serve something affordable to cater to them. A lot of them told us that they were very happy we offered it,” shares the friendly girlboss, who has hired a cook to help her with operations.

Though the profit margin for this dish is thin, she says the other menu items like double-boiled soups and steamed rice with toppings that she sells at her stall help to make up for her earnings. By offering a budget option, Siew Qi says she also hopes to attract more customers to the stall.

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It is served with Ipoh-style curry

Don’t expect the noodles to taste like the lemak local-style curry mee you find at Hong Lim Food Centre. Siew Qi’s noodles are served with Ipoh-style curry, which traditionally uses less coconut milk, and is more robust and aromatic with spices. Her relatives also sell curry mee in Ipoh, and her gravy is made with their family recipe. 

Customers can choose from two types of noodles: Yellow mee and thin bee hoon, or a mix if you’d like. Siew Qi also offers a small selection of add-ons like pig skin and a mix of handmade and supplier-bought yong tau foo, priced from 80 cents to $1 a piece, to jazz up the basic bowl if you find it too plain. Siew Qi offers around 10 types of yong tau foo ingredients at her stall daily. Also available is Ipoh Curry Mee ($4.80) which comes with pork skin, long beans and fried bean curd skin, and a $5.80 version with fried nan ru (fermented beancurd) pork, tau pok and long beans. Ipoh curry mee with fermented beancurd fried pork ($5.80) with additional pork skin (top up $1). Photo: Francis Oh/Facebook

Only available during breakfast

If you want to try the curry mee options, you’d have to head down to the stall early as the curry noodles are only available for breakfast from 7am to 11am. Other dishes on the breakfast menu include homemade Yam Cake ($1.50) and Ipoh Curry Chee Cheong Fun with Pig Skin ($4.80).

From 11am, the stall switches to serving steamed rice dishes and double-boiled soups like Coconut Chicken Soup ($7.90), Old Cucumber Pork Rib Soup ($4.50) and Lotus Steamed Rice with Preserved Vegetable Braised Pork ($5.90). These are not available during breakfast.

“Foot traffic at this kopitiam is not bad and we are worried that we cannot cope if we offer too many options, so we decided to stop selling curry mee at 11am and focus on rice and soups, which are our signatures, for lunch and dinner,” explains Siew Qi.

When 8days.sg visited the stall last week, it had only been selling curry mee for three days. Response, says Siew Qi, has been “so-so”, selling around 20 to 30 bowls of noodles a day, but she acknowledges it’s still too early to tell. The coffeeshop sees a bigger crowd during lunch and dinner and she is optimistic that sales will pick up now that more people know about her curry mee.

Taste test

We think Siew Qi has little to worry about. The kosong curry mee may be lacking in toppings, but it more than makes up for it with its generous portion and flavour.

Our bowl of curry mee was brimming with yellow mee and bee hoon, and the gravy, cooked from scratch with house-made rempah, is aromatic. While it has a good spice kick, it’s not too spicy and is rich without being jelak — we happily slurped up all the noodles and curry.

We also ordered some sides to pair with our noodles: Fried mang guang (turnip) cakes and beancurd sheets (top up $1 per piece), both Ipoh specialties imported from Malaysia. The turnip cakes remind us of turnip hash browns. Diced turnip, mixed with flour, is wrapped in beancurd skin and deep-fried to a crispy finish. The fritter is sweet-savoury with a juicy, slightly gooey centre. Pretty unusual and tasty. The crispy beancurd sheet with the crunch of a delicate keropok is yummy too and great for soaking up the curry.

If you’re visiting the stall after 11am, we recommend ordering this Signature Coconut Chicken Soup ($7.90). Boiled with a blend of herbs like red dates, angelica root, cordyceps flowers and wolfberries in a Thai young coconut for four hours, the black chicken thigh in it is succulent and the soup light and refreshing. The herbaceous flavour is not too intense, so you can still taste the nuanced sweetness of the coconut, and we particularly enjoy the tender flesh of the fruit.

蒸有米 (Zheng You Mi) Steam Rice Kitchen is at 01-1197, 206 Toa Payoh North, S310206. Open daily 7am-8pm. Curry mee is only available till 11am. Steam Rice Kitchen will be closed from 7am-11am on Nov 27-30. More info via Instagram. 

Photos: Pyron Tan