Wah Kee Prawn Mee Hawker, 81: ‘People Say My Stall Isn’t Good ’Cos I’m Rude, But They Don’t Understand What We Go Through’

Hawker underwent cataract surgery

Lay Mon tells 8days.sg that the stall’s closure became longer than expected after she underwent cataract surgery. Doctors had advised her to avoid steam for at least a month while recovering.

“After the surgery, I cannot be near hot water or steam due to cooking the noodles, so we had to wait,” she explains.

Her husband and main cook Lau Fook Wah, 84, also recently underwent medical check-ups. “It also depends on my husband’s health,” she added. “We will see how he feels.”

The elderly couple run the stall on their own, with Lau serving as the main cook while Lay Mon assists with both cooking and ordering duties.

According to Lay Mon, the stall had initially stopped operations before CNY due to disruptions involving their seafood suppliers during the festive season, especially since Chinese New Year and Hari Raya fell unusually close together this year. Suppliers typically allow their workers to return to their home countries during the festive period, resulting in manpower shortages and supply disruptions.

The stall had initially hoped to reopen around April 6, but Lay Mon’s lengthy surgery recovery pushed the reopening back further.

“You think hawker [work is] so easy to do?”

During the three-month closure, the couple relied on their savings to get by — something Lay Mon said was only possible because they had spent decades carefully setting money aside from the business.

“You think hawker [work is] so easy to do? Must earn a bit, save a bit. Cannot spend a lot,” Lay Mon tells us candidly.

The couple have three children, though none are currently involved in running the business. While one of their sons used to help out back when their biz was in expansion mode, Lay Mon shares that he now has his own career outside the stall, only occasionally helping them communicate with suppliers.

“Even if we have children, [it’s] not to say they won’t support you, but they also have responsibilities and their own families. Nowadays, life is very hard,” she tells 8days.sg with a hint of resignation.

When asked what led to Wah Kee’s initially ambitious expansion plan eventually scaling back to a single stall, Lay Mon said it was her son’s friend who initiated the expansion years ago, but declined to elaborate and brushed off further questions.

Tiny $5 bowl vs $25 bowl with giant prawns

Wah Kee’s menu consists solely of prawn noodles priced from $5 to $25. Lay Mon says all the stall’s prawns are premium wild-caught sea prawns, including those served in the cheaper bowls.

However, for the $5 and $10 portions, smaller prawns are typically halved and de-shelled, with the heads reserved for the broth. From $15 onwards, customers get progressively larger whole prawns with the flavourful heads intact. Some regulars are also known to order off-menu bowls costing over $30, even up to a whopping $45.

The stall’s soup is also different from pork bone-heavy prawn broths commonly found elsewhere. Instead, Wah Kee serves a lighter soup topped with a layer of orange-red prawn oil. Fans praise its clean seafood sweetness and concentrated crustacean flavour, while some detractors have criticised it for tasting too oily or diluted.

Hawker auntie known to snap at customers who order the cheapest $5 bowl

Wah Kee’s pricing and service style have also become frequent talking points. One Google reviewer complained that the $5 portion was “tiny” and alleged that Lay Mon became annoyed when she asked for change for a $10 note after ordering the cheapest bowl. Other reviews have similarly claimed that customers ordering lower-priced bowls were treated more curtly than those splurging on the stall’s pricier prawn noodles.

Loyal fans defend stall’s high prices and “pure unadulterated prawn flavour”

But some diners have defended the hawkers online, arguing that Wah Kee offers an increasingly rare style of old-school prawn noodles that prioritises premium seafood over heavier pork-based broths. One reviewer described the soup as “pure unadulterated prawn flavour”.

Insists on wild sea-caught prawns instead of cheaper farmed ones

Even with rising costs, Lay Mon says they have no plans to compromise on quality by switching to cheaper farmed prawns. Instead, they intend to continue using imported wild sea prawns from Indonesia and Malaysia. 

“In Singapore, I can confidently tell you, most people cannot find this type of prawn noodle anymore,” she says. “Mostly they use farmed prawns, not sea prawns like mine. The farmed ones are not as sweet.”

“Actually our prawn noodles are already quite expensive”

Lay Mon acknowledged that using premium seafood has made Wah Kee’s noodles pricier than most other prawn mee stalls, which she believes may partly explain why business has slowed in recent years.

“Actually our prawn noodles are already quite expensive,” she admits.

Still, she hopes upcoming BTO developments around the Cambridge Road area may eventually bring more customers to the stall when it reopens.

“You cannot retire!”

Though Wah Kee has long been a polarising hawker institution, Lay Mon says loyal regulars have continued calling her throughout its closure to ask when her stall will reopen.

“All my regulars keep calling me, ‘You got open or not, auntie?’” she laughed. “Some even tell me, ‘Auntie, you cannot retire!’”