Makansutra: Join the Chee Cheong Fun Club
Hawker left bank job to sell favourite childhood dish
Every time I come across a young hawker who has switched careers, I get curious about the "why" and "what".
One gave up a lucrative advertising executive job to sell nasi lemak, another ditched her marketing position to hawk fishball noodles, and the list goes on.
This is encouraging as it breeds a new lot of thinking and determined hawkers, not just those who have no other choice.
Ms Yong Yean Hui, a Singapore permanent resident from Malaysia, turned away from a governance officer position in a local bank to set up shop at Maxwell Food Centre offering her favourite chee cheong fun (steamed rice rolls) three months ago.
I get the usual answers each time I ask and it was no different here.
She said: "I got tired of office routines and had always wanted to sell food, especially chee cheong fun, my favourite childhood dish. I had no idea how to run a hawker stall but the ideas and suggestions from neighbouring stalls were very encouraging."
They told her that her signboard should be bright and the display must give the impression that there is variety and range.
She got at least the signboard right - and with a catchy name, Chee Cheong Fun Club.
But the display is still a work in progress.
KEY INGREDIENT
The key attraction of any chee cheong fun dish is always the rice roll.
I tried four of her five items and it was the chee cheong fun that stood out.
"It's our family recipe and I got a supplier to make it for me," she said.
It reminded me of the versions I had in the back alleys of Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown.
It was dense and soft, with a fragile firmness and gumminess to it.
It was round, unlike the usual oval-shaped store-bought variety.
I tucked first into the Laksa version ($4), topped with eggs, fishball, bean skin rolls, ngoh hiang and sprinkled with daun kesum leaves.
It reminded me of, well, laksa, except that the rice rolls gave it a strangely comforting soft and gummy bite.
She kept the lemak factor on easy mode and it worked, as the other ingredients added a layer of richness to it.
Ditto for the Curry version ($4), easy-peasy and light, but I would have liked the curry and laksa to be at level 5 (instead of 3) as I have a Little India and Katong palate for these things.
Then the classic version piqued me. The Sesame ($2.80) and taucheo (soy bean paste) sauce rendition stood out.
That sesame oil and salty umami flavour with a hint of sweetness paired very well with the densely soft rice rolls.
Traditionalists would not have this "dirtied" with toppings like prawns and mushrooms as they like the purity of the combination, just sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.
Her Black Sauce ($2.50) version was much like the dark sauce you get at the usual chee cheong fun stalls. Again, this made her rice roll texture stand out.
I asked if she would innovate, like with a fried kam heong (sambal with hae bi and curry leaves) or a fried laksa version, where the rolls are wok-tossed in its chunky cubed form.
She said yes, so I will be back.
Chee Cheong Fun Club
#01-38, Maxwell Food Centre
Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 3pm, Saturday and Sunday, 8.15am to 4pm
Closed on irregular days
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