Fiie’s Cafe’s ‘Rudest’ Nasi Ayam Hawker On Customers Who Complain About 50-Cent Charge For Extra Chilli

Does he think that title apt? “I wouldn’t call myself the rudest person,” Addie Shafiie tells @8dayseat’s TikTok host Damian Lim, though he admits the job sometimes requires him to be brusque. He has shrewdly embraced his reputation, growing “Mr Grumpy Nasi Ayam by Fiie’s Cafe” into an eight-outlet brand with partners, excluding the original Lucky Plaza shop.

The family business began more than 20 years ago with his mother at the old OETI camp in Ayer Rajah. Shafiie and his younger brother Rasheed later took over the reins.

Our host recently visited Fiie’s Cafe to makan its nasi ayam goreng and nasi ayam gepuk, an Indonesian smashed fried chicken dish with sambal. The third-gen hawker behind Peranakan food business Nya Nya also got Shafiie talking about his run-ins with customers.

Strict no sitting before ordering rule causes tension

Fiie’s Cafe has a strict rule that has created tension among more than a few customers: queue and order your food first before claiming a seat. Shafiie previously told 8days.sg that the system keeps things fair in the cramped eatery, where diners once even fought over tables.

Why so strict?

So why is Shafiie so strict about moving the queue along? He pointed to the short lunch break many of his customers have. “Lunch hour is only one hour,” he told Damian. Someone who has already waited 15 minutes could be holding up a diner behind them who has waited 25 minutes.

“I’m just trying to move as fast as I can,” Shafiie said. “I don’t like it when people slow me down.”

He has little patience for customers who take too long to decide what to order, too. Fiie’s Cafe built its reputation on nasi ayam goreng, and Shafiie pointed out that, until it added ayam gepuk, “I only sold one [dish].” Why the hesitation at the counter? “I mean, you’re not going to McDonald’s,” he quipped.

Some folks deliberately provoke him

Shafiie recalled a man who entered the eatery taking photos. “Stop taking pictures,” he said he had told the customer. Shafiie explained to Damian that, despite agreeing to this 8days.sg interview, he generally dislikes being photographed.

The man walked away, but later returned and took another picture, Shafiie claimed.

He believes that after he went viral on social media, some customers now visit his shop hoping to provoke a reaction out of him: “Everybody just wants to try their luck.”

“I don’t like your face”, said one customer

Shafiie described one man who had queued for an hour before asking his girlfriend to sit down. He told her to join the queue instead, explaining that the couple could take a seat when it was their turn. With a long line forming, however, Shafiie said the man deliberately asked her to sit down first anyway.

The customer then approached him and allegedly said: “I don’t like your face.”

Shafiie had a comeback ready. “Okay, I’ll put up a donation box for plastic surgery. You donate, I’ll even let you choose my [new] face,” he recalled telling the man.

Several of Shafiie’s friends from his former club bouncer job happened to be eating at the cafe. According to Shafiie, they escorted the man out. He himself worked as a bouncer for eight years while helping his mother with the family business part-time before he took over.

A customer allegedly flung money at his mother

Another encounter still rankles Shafiie because it involved his mother. During the Covid-19 period, a man came in wanting to buy drinks. His mother asked him to wear a mask, but he refused. “My mother is very nice. She’s very gentle,” Shafiie told Damian.

The man then took out some cash and threw it at her, Shafiie claimed. He went out to confront the customer, but his mother urged him to let it go. The man allegedly warned: “You touch me, I will sue you. I will make sure your shop closes.”

“At that point, I hadn’t taken over the shop yet,” Shafiie recalled. He looked at his mother, who warned him, “Don’t.” Shafiie then backed off and told the man: “Today is your lucky day.”

“We do F&B, we’re not your servants”

Shafiie acknowledged that F&B staff can have bad days too. But he wants diners to understand the pressure of serving large crowds: “We do F&B, we’re not your servants. Our job is mentally and physically draining.”

He adds: “I’m not justifying my character to anybody. You all can say I’m this, or I’m that. I don’t give two sh*ts, bro, I don’t live my life by the star ratings on Google. If you don’t like it, by all means, don’t come.”

“Sometimes I can be a bit too much”

Still, Shafiie admits he can sometimes go too far. “Sometimes, I can be a bit too much. I also have a bit of a ‘mouth‘, I won’t hold back,” he said. “If I want to lash out, I’ll just lash out.”

Asked by Damian if he thinks he has a temperament issue, Shafiie replied: “Yeah, I used to. Even now, I still have a bit.” But when Damian asked whether he had been diagnosed with an anger management problem, Shafiie said no: “It’s more of a ‘me’ problem than any [official] diagnosis.”

Why extra sambal costs 50 cents

Damian ordered nasi ayam gepuk with extra chilli, and a plate of nasi ayam goreng with extra chilli.

Shafiie told him the extra sambal costs another 50 cents, but smiled at Damian’s jokes while taking his order. “Maybe I didn’t catch him on a bad day,” Damian mused.

He later told Damian some customers complained when told about the extra charge for sambal. “One customer said to me: ‘I only want extra chilli, why must I pay?’ The container alone costs 20 cents, the labour to cook it isn’t free and buddy, gas to cook the chilli costs money too,” he shared. “Bro, you go to McDonald’s and order curry sauce, you must pay 50 cents. Do you pay?” Shafiie recalled asking the customer. “He said, ‘I pay.’ I told him: then when you come here, why must you k** p** so much?”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with people nowadays. They’re willing to pay more for a higher standard restaurant, but they wouldn’t pay extra for hawker food,” Shafiie added.

Damian’s order of Nasi Ayam Goreng ($6.50) came with fried chicken, rice, sambal and a bowl of soup. Meanwhile, the Ayam Gepuk ($7.50) was loaded with smashed fried chicken, rice, fried kangkong and tempeh, plus two sauces: sambal and a crushed peanut sauce. Unlike the former, which was served with the cafe’s usual aromatic chicken rice, the ayam gepuk arrived with plain white rice.

Damian enjoyed the crunch of the fried chicken and pronounced the kangkong “damn good”, though he wasn’t that keen on the tempeh. He found the breast meat less moist than the juicy thigh.

Then there was the chilli. Damian eyed the ayam gepuk sambal and declared: “This looks dangerous.” After trying some, Damian found the heat manageable — though he kept reaching for his drink.

The ayam gepuk also came with a chunky peanut sauce instead of the cashew-based one commonly served with the dish.

Overall a yummy meal served by “someone who looks like an a**hole, but looks like an angel when he smiles,” declared Damian.

Mr Grumpy said it best himself: “Most of my customers who understand [why I do what I do], they’ll go, ‘Okay lah, actually abang (Malay for brother) is very fair. No matter how anal he is, he won’t serve us bad food’”.