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The queues are almost non-stop at all the stalls, which offer cheap and good Malay food that costs less than a cup of fancy bubble tea. The original outlet was started by Halipah Bte Kadir, 72, who ran a Bukit Batok minimart called Nurul Pasar Mini with her husband.
At her stall, Halipah offers generously-portioned dishes like nasi lemak, mee rebus, mee soto, mee siam and lontong. Concerned about her customers’ budget, her food initially cost just $1.50 a bowl in 2001 for affordability.
Over the years, her children had to persuade her to adjust the prices to cover higher costs. But her stall menu is currently still priced at a very reasonable $3.50 per item in 2025.
Her son Mohamed Fadli bin Basir, 45, recalled his mother’s reluctance when he first brought up the subject of raising prices. “She said, ‘What about the residents? What about the elderly?’ But I told her we had no choice, and she understood,” shared Fadli.
Come tomorrow (Feb 3), he and his wife will also start operating their new stall at Qihua Primary School’s canteen, where they will serve “healthier versions” of Nurul Delights’ food.
A father of eight kids, Fadli said: “I hope that I can encourage my family members, especially my children, to learn the ropes in F&B. I can also challenge myself to cater to school children by preparing different types of healthy food.”
Second-gen hawkers
Fadli’s younger sister Nurul became a second-gen hawker herself in 2015. Together with her husband Mohamad Nazreen, 42, she opened a Nurul Delights outlet at Bukit Batok near her mother’s stall. The couple had just gotten married that year when Nazreen was unfortunately laid off from his job.
“I was working as a technician when I got retrenched. We didn’t expect ourselves to become hawkers, but my wife and I thought, why not open our own stall?” Nazreen told 8days.sg.
It helped that Halipah had taught her four children, and subsequently their spouses, to cook her recipes. “My mother-in-law is the backbone of our business. We are very grateful to her for helping us. We started our stall with almost no finances, and she would send us supplies from her own stall and come over to help us till our operations stabilised,” recounted Nazreen.
More Nurul Delights outlets
Nurul and Nazreen had plans to scale up their business by opening more outlets. When their Bukit Batok coffeeshop was temporarily closed for a revamp, Nurul found a stall unit at Jurong East, which she reckoned was an ideal location for her second outlet. “I saw that there are two blocks of flats for senior citizens right in front of the coffeeshop, and there are many elderly people in this area,” she explained.
Like her own stall at Bukit Batok, the main dishes on her menu at Jurong are priced at a flat $3 each. This includes Nasi Lemak, Mee Siam, Mee Rebus and Mee Soto, with optional add-ons like fried chicken wings, bergedil, fried chicken nuggets and omelette.
“We don’t aim to be rich”
The couple also has Epok Epok ($1 each) with two flavours, potato and sardine, as well as a selection of Kuih Kuih sourced from other sellers ($1.50 a box). Go early if you want these items; we spotted Nazreen and Nurul churning out tray after tray of freshly-fried curry puffs and topping up the kuehs ’cos they were flying off the shelves.
“I’m like my mother. I don’t want to raise our prices [unnecessarily],” Nurul laughed. “We want the elderly to be able to afford our food. We don’t aim to be rich; if we want to be rich we would sell our food at higher prices. But we just want to earn enough to cover our expenses and put aside a bit of savings. Life is like a circle — I believe if we help others, others will help us back.”
Her husband Nazreen added: “It’s nice when our customers keep coming back and they become friends. Nowadays it’s hard to feed your family with just a $10 note, but here you can buy a few things with $10.”
The queue is currently pretty long at their new stall (and at other Nurul Delights outlets too). But it moves fast, and we got our large order after around 10 minutes of queueing. That said, we foresee even longer lines going forward, so exercise patience if you want a well-priced meal there.
Nasi Lemak, $3 (8 Days Pick!)
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