An under-the-radar hawker stall in Sengkang’s Kopitiam Square food centre (which also houses the soon-to-close halal prawn mee joint Yummy Raja) has been quietly dishing out yakitori to a loyal following for over a year. It helps that the Japanese grilled meat skewers here are affordably priced, starting from $1.30 for grilled chicken, pork jowl or soy-marinated quail egg. Meet punnily named PokeQPan – a play on poke, barbecue and Japan – and its easygoing towkay Joe Teo, 31.

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Inspired by yakitori chain Tori-Q

If you think PokeQPan’s menu, prices and moniker look similar to casual yakitori chain Tori-Q’s — it’s not a coincidence. In fact, the unceasing queues at an outlet of the popular brand inspired the hawker to open his stall. “I usually head nearby to Waterway Point in Punggol to get my dinner. And I like to eat yakitori, so I’ll go to Tori-Q. But the queues there were always so long – really buay tahan (laughs),” explains Joe, who is married. “Then I realised this is probably a good concept that I can try out in a hawker centre, where it’s not as common.”

He started researching recipes online and cooking yakitori at home, eventually gaining the confidence to invest $30K into a hawker stall, half of which went into an automated yakitori grill (we’ve seen similar machines in action at Tori-Q’s outlets). The labour-saving gizmo trundles along slowly, steadily churning up skewers that have been grilled and dipped in tare (a sweet-salty soy-based Japanese glaze), reducing the manpower needed at the stall. 

But there’s still quite a bit of hands-on work needed: after the meat skewers are cooked by the machine, Joe briefly places them on a countertop grill for "extra char". Moreover, the hawker and his staff have to manually thread the meat onto bamboo sticks every morning.

So how is PokeQPan different from the more famous brand it’s inspired by? “We have a wider range of bento options, and more flexibility for extra condiment requests – no extra charge if you order in-store (laughs),” he says.

Boss cooked at cai png stall and hotel kitchen

The last time Joe worked full-time in a professional kitchen was around eight years ago in Carlton Hotel, where he was a cook “mainly doing prep work like preparing cold cuts and salads” in the buffet kitchen. Before that, he worked at his friend’s cai png stall in an industrial canteen for around three years, which explains why he wasn’t worried about the hardships of hawker life. “At the time, I was working close to 13 hours a day. So that was definitely the toughest period for me,” he declares.

He later left the F&B world due to its “very low salary”, first becoming a pest control technician, then an investment advisor for those looking to buy Japanese real estate, where he worked until the pandemic hit and sales dried up. Joe, who describes himself as “always willing to try new things”, then worked as a private-hire driver for several months – before signing up to be a dormitory inspector at the height of Covid-19, remaining in the role for a year before setting up his own hawker stall. “Initially, it was very scary as during that time, the dorms were a Covid hotspot. But after a while, you get used to the work and you trust that the PPE (personal protective equipment) will do its job,” he shares.

Sells an average of 200 bentos a day

Which brings us back to PokeQPan, his latest endeavour that he figures has “much higher potential for growth [in earnings]”. “This is a tough industry, I know. But being my own boss has its allure too,” Joe shrugs.

His hunch seems to be paying off. The stall in Sengkang capitalises on the catchment of “mainly 30-somethings” living in the area, and opened last August to “surprisingly crazy queues” that stretched up to 20-people deep, says the towkay. “I guess everyone was super curious then,” he reasons, before adding that the waiting time has now abated to around 15 minutes during peak periods. He shares that he has already recouped his initial investment, and continues to sell an average of 200 bentos daily.

But inflation has hit his business hard. “Our profit margins are low, and inflation made it worse. Oil went up from $30 [per tin] to $50, and minced chicken went from $3.20 to $5.50,” he says. “We already increased our price once last year, so we can’t increase it further.”

He is looking to expand with a new non-yakitori “Japanese bento-focused concept” in the upcoming hawker centre at One Punggol Hub, which would “require a lot less manpower and therefore be easier to manage”.

The menu

The menu at PokeQPan bears some resemblance to Tori-Q, with a number of similar skewers of chicken, pork and other nibbles. How you order works similarly too: customers select from a range of Japanese grilled meat and vegetable skewers a la carte, or get them in bento sets with Japanese short grain rice and shibazuke (purple Japanese pickled cucumbers and eggplant). 

Bento 1, $4.50

The entry-level bento comes with a chicken thigh and chicken ball skewer – which cost $1.30 and $1.60 a la carte – on a bed of fluffy Japanese pearl rice doused in sticky tare, a heap of nori and pickles. Looks-wise, it’s rather similar to a bento from Tori-Q.

But what about its taste? While there’s a decent char on the succulent chicken thigh skewer, we find that PokeQPan’s house-made soy and mirin tare is a little sweeter and less salty than the punchy, savoury tare served at Tori-Q. Though we prefer the latter as we like our food with stronger flavours, the restrained tare here does allow the natural sweetness of the meat to shine a little more. 

The tsukune, or Japanese chicken meatball, is first deep-fried then grilled to finish before being dunked in the sweet sauce. Despite the unorthodox method of deep-frying the orbs first, they are nicely juicy beneath their lightly crisp shells, with a nice contrast between slightly chewy ground meat and bits of crunchy onion dotted within. 

Bento 8, $5.90 (8 DAYS Pick!)

This set features tsukune again alongside pork belly ($1.50) and pork jowl ($1.70). The fatty pork crisps up beautifully when grilled, yielding scrumptious chao tar bits along the edges. We especially dig the pork jowl’s QQ bite. If the rich pork gets too much, temper its oiliness with some crunchy, tangy pickles.

Bento 12, $7.90

The hawker’s most atas set comes with a slab of house-made tamagoyaki ($2.10), shiitake mushrooms ($1.30), pork sausage ($1.80) and fried ebi ($1.60). The neat dashi (bonito stock) omelette – which took Joe “many, many tries before [he] got good at making it” – packs a pleasant sweet-savoury flavour while the shiitake mushrooms are tender and very moist. Both are worth trying if you want a break from all the meat. But skip the boring sausage and ebi skewers. 

Other assorted skewers

There are some hits and misses from the stall’s remaining items. Hits: the Quail Egg skewer ($1.30), a hawker version of the cholesterol-rich snack found at some upscale yakitori restaurants, yielding gooey yolk within each savoury quail egg soaked overnight in soy and mirin; as well as the Nitamago ($1.20), an equally jammy-yolked ajitsuke tamago (seasoned egg).

Chicken Karaage, $1.70

Another hit – well-seasoned chicken thigh, coated in a secret blend of three flours and deep-fried till resoundingly crunchy.

Pork Belly And Tomato, $2.20

Misses: A thin sheet of pork belly, cradling enoki mushrooms, asparagus spears or cherry tomatoes ($2.20 each). Unfortunately, the sheet of pork is so thin that it dries out while grilling – the cherry tomato one is the best of the lot here, bursting with a sweet juicy pop when bitten. 

Taiyaki, $2.90

Another miss: store-bought items like the unagi, which tastes oddly bitter. The cute taiyaki (Japanese fish-shaped waffle stuffed with red bean) also disappoints with its gummy, undercooked centre.

Bottom line

PokeQPan delivers fairly yummy, fresh and smoke-kissed Japanese meat skewers at a decent price point. We find its dipping sauce sweeter than the version from a particular yakitori chain it was, ahem, inspired by — so go for this if you prefer a sweeter flavour profile versus a saltier one (we prefer the latter). Those on a budget will be glad to know that the bento sets here are slightly cheaper on average than Tori-Q’s (though a la carte sticks cost about the same).

The details

PokeQPan is at #01-26 Kopitiam Square, 10 Sengkang Square, S544829. Tel: 9859-8487. Open daily 10.30am – 9.30pm. More info via Instagram. Delivery via Grabfood, Takeapp & Foodpanda.

Photos: Alvin Teo

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