At 6.30am every morning, the shutters at Number 10 Noodle House in Circuit Road Market & Food Centre are already up. By 11am, the stall, known for its $2.50 bak chor mee, is usually sold out.
In today’s Singapore, a $2.50 bowl of noodles is almost unheard of. Yet the senior couple behind the stall, Juliana Low, 70, and her husband Mr Kwa Hian Tiong, 74, have kept their prices unchanged for nearly 20 years. They still hand-prep key ingredients, insist on keeping their food affordable, and somehow manage to make ends meet.
But even as they inch further past retirement age, they have no plans to stop and have even fewer plans to hand the stall over to their eager granddaughter.
“We retain the price because it’s an elderly neighbourhood”
Mr Kwa takes orders while Juliana cooks. How long have they sold their noodles at this price? “Since the day we started here in Circuit Road,” Mr Kwa says.
Juliana explains it simply: “We keep the price low because it’s an elderly neighbourhood so we want to let them have an affordable meal.”
Despite rising costs, they’re still managing. “Even with inflation, we can break even and make just enough profit to survive because the rent here is not that high — around $1K plus,” she tells 8days.sg.
As for whether the prices will remain low? “Yes, unless my rent increases. If it remains the same, I will continue to sell at this price,” she assures. “Nowadays it’s very hard to find $2.50 or even $3 meals.”
Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle, from $2.50
Their bak chor mee is available in $2.50, $3 or $4 portions. The $2.50 bowl gets you two meatballs, mushrooms, minced meat, and one fried dumpling. The $4 version comes with twice the amount of noodles, three meatballs, one fishball, mushrooms, minced meat, and two fried dumplings. Soup versions are priced the same, just that the dumplings are boiled instead of fried.
$2.50 bak chor mee mostly bought by the elderly
Although the menu starts at an affordable $2.50, it’s interestingly not the portion most customers choose. “We actually don’t sell that many $2.50 bowls (about 30 daily), normally only the senior citizens buy that portion. The youngsters never go for the $2.50 portion, most of them will go for the $3 or $4 portion,” Juliana reveals. Still, the $2.50 option remains — for the elderly regulars who’ve been supporting them since the day they opened at Circuit Road.
Kaeia shares with 8days.sg: “There are slightly more $2.50 bowls sold some days because some customers offer to pay $3 but request for the $2.50 portion as they know my grandparents are charging very low.” Our video producer, who tried the $2.50 bowl, found it sufficiently filling, and noted that the $4.50 serving was particularly generous.
Before moving to Circuit Road, the couple sold noodles at Joo Seng, then at NUS Techno Edge food court. “When we were at Joo Seng, we were called Soon Lai Minced Meat Noodles. Then when we moved to NUS Techno Edge, we used Number 10 Noodle House because our unit number was ten,” Juliana smiles.
Despite the online buzz around them, the stall has no social media accounts. Kaeia tells 8days.sg they never felt the need for one — it’s a humble neighbourhood hawker stall focused on serving elderly residents, many of whom do not use such platforms.
The granddaughter who grew up on $2.50 bak chor mee
Their granddaughter, Kaeia Kwa, 23, practically grew up eating Juliana’s noodles. “I always tell my friends I was raised on $2.50 bak chor mee, and many people would just laugh and think that’s quite cute but I genuinely mean it. This bak chor mee means so much to me,” Kaeia shares.
In primary school, she would help out with small tasks such as drying utensils when they closed. “It was tough Asian love. I got scolded a lot, but I enjoyed what I was doing and being able to be included in whatever my grandparents were doing,” she smiles.
She eventually stopped helping not because she wasn’t interested, but because her grandparents insisted. “They felt that the more I helped, the busier they got,” Kaeia shares. “And since I’m not very familiar with cooking the noodles, helping out would mean replacing my grandfather’s job and he won’t have anything else left to do.”
Though she has a stepsister and cousins, she grew up living with her paternal grandparents which meant she was always around the stall.
No plans to retire yet
According to Kaeia, her grandparents’ personalities couldn’t be more different. “One likes to jiak hong (go on holidays), one likes to jiak kor (keep working),” Kaeia laughs.
Juliana confirms this: “I don’t want to retire, I want to carry on for as long as I can work but my husband wants to retire already. If we are not going to continue, then we have to return the stall.”
Can they afford to retire? “With rising costs, it’ll be difficult for them to retire but my grandparents have always been the kind of people who scrape and save a lot. They don’t really spend lavishly on themselves because a lot of the money they earn went to raising me as well,” Kaeia says. “I think they do have a bit of money saved up for themselves and I’m sure the family will support them.”
Why the business isn’t being passed down
Kaeia and her aunts have been trying to convince Juliana to pass down the business, but to no avail.
Why not let Kaeia take over? “I don’t think she’s interested. She just mentioned it briefly and she also has her own career,” Juliana explains. “Hawkering is very tiring. If she has a better job and aspirations, why not pursue her own career rather than take over the business?”
But Kaeia is very serious. “For me, it’s really about preserving something that means something in our family. And also because I grew up eating my grandma bak chor mee so I honestly don’t enjoy others out there as the taste is really different [to me],” she shares.
She worries about losing yet another family recipe. Juliana’s father once ran a popular duck rice stall but that recipe disappeared when he passed on. Before selling noodles, Juliana and Mr Kwa sold barbecue fish, but that recipe was lost too.
“Everything she does is agak agak and by feel, so there’s no recipe book,” Kaeia chuckles. “ If I wanted to learn, I would need to just spend a lot of time at the stall, watch how she cooks, know the taste, and then be able to do it on my own.”
Running a creative agency while studying
Kaeia is in her final year at LASALLE, studying Design for Social Futures, while also running her creative agency, Blank Canvas, which she started last November.
“I am doing social media management and content strategising, as well as branding, for SMEs and MNCs,” Kaeia shares. “My dream is to create content that is unique, expressive, and encourages brands to explore things outside of their comfort zones so they can be different and make their businesses stand out.” Her small team has two to three people, excluding herself.
Granddaughter hopes to balance both her creative agency and hawker stall
If her grandma ever agrees to pass down the business, Kaeia plans to juggle both after graduating. “I plan to be there to learn how to cook from my grandma because if I’m not familiar with the taste, how can I run the business when my objective is to preserve this heritage within our family?” she says.
What’s her dream for the business? “I think it’d be nice if we could open just a few more stalls. Not a big chain but I think there’re low income neighbourhoods around Singapore where it would be nice to provide this kind of accessible meal for $2.50 and bring this low price to low income families or schools if possible,” she smiles.
She insists that she’ll be hands-on even then. “I want to control the quality and taste of the ingredients — things like her chilli, vinegar mushroom and dumplings. That’s what makes her bak chor mee unique.”
“But my grandma doesn’t seem to be willing to let us take over and it’s been years of me trying to convince the family,” she says softly.
“They feel like I don’t understand the hardships of being a hawker”
Convincing the rest of the family isn’t easy either. “They think I’m too young and don’t understand the hardships of being a hawker,” Kaeia says.
So why pursue it if her grandma doesn’t want her to struggle? “I’ve been working part time [as a waitress] in the F&B industry since I was 14 to earn extra allowance so I’m quite used to the hardships of F&B. I’m also quite active by nature so I’m not too worried about the physical toll it will take on my body because I genuinely think I can manage it,” she says.
Kaeia adds: “At the end of the day, the reason why I feel so strongly about wanting to take over her business and create a brand out of it is because her bak chor mee means so much to me and I think it’s such a waste if [no one takes over].”
So… will grandma ever say yes?
When asked if she’ll ever consider passing the stall to her granddaughter, Juliana smiles: “Let’s see how lah.”
For now, it’s the elderly couple running the stall and behind the steam, the chilli, and those mushrooms they fry by hand, is a granddaughter hoping she’ll one day be allowed to keep that legacy alive.
Number 10 Noodle House is located at Circuit Road Market & Food Centre, #02-10, 80 Circuit Rd, S370080. Open Thur to Mon 6am-12pm, closed Tue & Wed.
Photos: Glyn Seah
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