Vegetable Supplier Opens Hawker Stall Serving Tasty Laksa With Scallops & Lala
The treasured laksa recipe came from owner Sean Wong’s 101-year-old grandmother, who taught his wife how to cook the dish.
Called King Laksa, it opened just a week ago offering Nonya laksa with a variety of toppings. “My wife loves cooking and she had always wanted to start a stall but lacked the confidence. I told her it’s okay to just give it a shot,” Sean tells 8days.sg.
The couple focused on laksa as it was their family’s favourite. The recipe came from Sean’s 101-year-old grandmother, who taught Sean’s aunt — and in turn Tina, when she married into the family — how to cook the dish. According to Sean, his wife’s laksa earned the approval of his grandmother. “My grandmother said her laksa is a ‘pass’,” he jokes.
The couple never planned on becoming hawkers
As the second-generation owner of a veggie supply business, the former engineer did not expect to open his own stall. “I never thought of going into F&B, as my current business is quite taxing. We supply vegetables to a lot of mala xiang guo stalls,” says Sean, who has two kids aged 10 and eight.
But he was eager to motivate Tina to pursue her own interests, as she had been a homemaker taking care of their children for the past 10 years. “It’s because of my wife that we opened a stall — it's good that she took a step to do something. I told her not to worry, I will settle the admin things and stuff, and we support each other,” shares Sean.
Husband-and-wife spent a total of around $20,000 setting up shop. "Customising a counter that can fit into our small stall was surprisingly expensive," Sean says.
Tina, who hails from Jilin, China, moved to Singapore when she was 16 for her studies. She later took on jobs as a shop assistant at stores like Watsons and 7-Eleven before she became a full-time housewife. The shy, polite lady strikes us as someone who prefers to remain behind the scenes. But her stall has the bold name of King Laksa, as Sean says: “No matter how small our shop is, I told her to give it a try. I wanted to give her the confidence to do her best. It’s a small stall now, but if we do it well, we can make it into something like a chain.”
The couple also plan to serve dishes like cross bridge mixian (a noodle soup dish from Yunnan) at their stall in the future. For now, they work out of a tiny corner space in a coffeeshop across the road from Chinese Garden MRT station. It’s in the same kopitiam as popular newish dim sum stall Mama Dim Sum, which was opened by the former head dim sum chef of Chinese restaurant Spring Court.
Incidentally, Sean is longtime friends with the co-owner of Mama Dim Sum. “We didn’t want to take up a stall that’s too big and the coffeeshop gave us a good price [for rental], so we opened here,” he explains.
The laksa
There are four flavours of laksa on the menu: Original ($4.80), Shredded Chicken ($5.80) and luxe options like Boiled Scallop ($6.80) and Lala ($6.80). No blood cockles (or ‘hum’) are served at the stall, as Tina is rather squeamish about handling the shellfish. But the couple is looking into adding it to their laksa if there is enough customer demand.
Tina currently makes her laksa’s spice base at home and prepares the rest at her stall, where she’s assisted by a hired cook. You can choose from thick and thin beehoon, yellow noodles or kway teow, which is blanched before ladlefuls of hot laksa gravy are poured over it together with tau pok, fishcake, beansprouts, half a hard-boiled egg and deshelled prawns from a frozen pack.
Lala Laksa, $6.80 (8 Days Pick!)
Our bowl of lala laksa arrives generously portioned in a big ramen bowl. “We were inspired by Japanese ramen, and we’re thinking of offering ramen eggs too,” says Sean. The rich gravy, redolent with fragrant rempah, requires a good stir to combine the spices, coconut milk and a dollop of store-bought sambal chilli paste. We find it luscious, delish and comforting for the recent rainy weather.
There is just a tad too much coconut milk, though. “I think my wife is still too used to cooking for our kids — she always adds more coconut milk to the laksa because they don’t like spicy food,” Sean laughs.
The puffy tau pok soaks up the thick, tasty soup, which we hoover up along with long al-dente strands of thick beehoon (it’s not cut short like Janggut Laksa), springy clams, crunchy taugeh and other ingredients like the standard hard-boiled egg and fishcake.
But nothing beats having hum with our laksa, which would have made a great wallet-friendly option for folks who want hearty laksa without shelling out too much (the $4.80 Original bowl here comes with all the above ingredients, except shellfish). Fresh, not frozen, prawns would have been good, too.
Boiled Scallop Laksa, $6.80
The scallop laksa comes with three smallish tender scallops, which is shiok enough if you want to treat yourself to a nice meal. But we find the lala laksa a heartier pick.
Fried Chicken, $3.80 (8 Days Pick!)
Other than laksa, Tina also serves two fried chicken sides, which are also made with family recipes. The mid-joint wings, marinated with a Thai red curry paste, are very petite and look almost like frog legs. “We experimented with larger-sized wings but this was the size that gave the best result,” Sean says. He is right. Although there’s less meat to gnaw on, the freshly fried juicy chicken boasts wok-hot crispy skin loaded with the heady spicy, sour flavours of Thai curry. Dip the wings into the accompanying sweet Thai chilli sauce for extra kick.
Chicken Katsu, $2.80
King Laksa’s other fried chicken side is a Chicken Katsu cutlet, cut into bite-sized strips. It’s nothing to shout about, but if you want extra protein for your laksa, this makes for a topping option.
King Laksa is at Kai Xiang Food Centre (near Chinese Garden MRT station), Blk 349 Jurong East Ave 1, S600349. Open daily 8am-8pm.
Photos: Yip Jieying
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