He was christened a Makansutra Hawker Legend in 2005 and these awards aren’t up for grabs every year. We have not given out this street food accolades since. Legends in any form, don’t grow on trees and fruit. But Mr Ng Siaw Meng , sells satay beehoon, a southeast Asian Silk Road dish of sorts that made its journey from Indonesia, through China and evolved to this version in Singapore that is unique to this nation. It’s a simple dish, by concept – a plate of blanched bee hoon (rice sticks) slathered in a smooth yet nutty spicy peanut satay sauce that’s topped with lean pork, prawns, cuttlefish, blood cockles, tofu and textured with bean sprouts and water spinach (kangkong). But it only sounds easy to do, like sending a rocket to the moon. His rendition is addictive at the least, and it’s a culinary pilgrimage you must do each time you mention his dish and stall. It’s a very rare dish and not easy to find nor learn to cook in Singapore. The queues at his stall each evening at the East Coast Food Lagoon is relentless, fragile with patience, till the last plate is served just before midnight. Technically, Mr Ng serves the world’s best plate of satay beehoon.
Fast forward. He tells me the doctors have now given him less than three months to live when I met him last week. He’s sat through the best chemotherapy available in Singapore and now he’s only hoping for the best, a miracle perhaps, while expecting the worse at the same time. Slaving over his stoves and woks for almost 40 years grooving to the same routine everyday, he woke up one morning earlier this year and noticed he was getting visibly thinner – it was stomach cancer “stage 4”, revealed his doctor.
This staunchly stubborn, proud expert and master of this one dish never once before entertained any request for demo classes nor sale of his recipe. But now he relents somewhat. “I need S$200,000 for my brother’s and my remaining medical fees,” he says. His trusted assistant and brother fell at their home two years back and was incapacitated from the neck down. So the news hit front page of local tabloids. In a country obsessed with local food culture, it’s major news. A few interested parties came a calling and offered to appease his last wish. But his healthy pride was in the way “most wanted to buy my name and later desecrate my recipe and turn them into chemical laden sauce packs” Mr Ng laments, stating clearly “I rather bring my recipe to the coffin”. If that is so. It would be a shame if his legacy went under.
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