No Signboard Seafood founder didn’t even know how to cook

No Signboard Seafood founder didn’t even know how to cook

SINGAPORE – She was an uneducated housewife living in a kampung at Tai Seng in Upper Paya Lebar.

When she got married, she did not know how to cook.

But she decided to teach herself so she could become a hawker in the kampung with her husband selling dishes like bak kut teh.

They earned only enough to make ends meet, but she had a keen business sense that allowed her to take advantage of a golden opportunity when it presented itself.

After tasting black pepper crab one day, she thought that there was potential for crab to be sold at a hawker stall since no one had done it before.

The white pepper crab dish that she introduced at her stall in Aljunied in 1981 is now the iconic speciality of the restaurant chain No Signboard Seafood.

Madam Ong Kim Hoi, the founder of the popular restaurant, died last Thursday at the age of 74.

Her family said that she died of natural causes after being in hospital for a week for breathlessness.

Madam Ong had been bedridden for more than nine years after a stroke left her half-paralysed. She had been suffering complications to her health over the past three months.

She is survived by her husband, Mr Choo Ah Kow, 76, three sons and two daughters.

Her grandson, Mr Sam Lim, 37, who is the chairman of the restaurant chain, said that before Madam Ong ventured into the food business and mastered her white pepper crab recipe, she did not even know how to cook.

“She didn’t have the luxury of a teacher or a guide. In the end, she taught herself everything,” Mr Lim told The New Paper yesterday.

Her first dishes were sold from a pushcart in the kampung, and she and her husband earned just enough to support their family.

TRIAL & ERROR

Then came her discovery of black pepper crab.

Mr Lim said: “My grandma thought that the black pepper numbed her mouth and she couldn’t taste the freshness of the crab meat.

“She decided to experiment with white pepper to enhance the crab’s flavour while retaining the peppery taste.”

It took Madam Ong six months of trial and error with various types of white pepper before she hit on the perfect recipe.

Her first stall was set up at the Mattar Road hawker centre in Aljunied. The couple spent what little savings they had from their pushcart venture on ingredients.

They could not even afford a proper sign for their stall, so they just painted the plank above their stall orange. This gave birth to their iconic name when customers referred to their stall as No Signboard.

Initially, Madam Ong could afford to buy only about 10 crabs a day. She would do her grocery shopping from 6am to 7am and then prepare the ingredients before opening at 11am.

Her unique dish slowly became a hit among their small clientele of business owners who would turn up regularly at the hawker centre. Word soon spread about their stall, Mr Lim said.

She sold the crabs for $16 per kg and the stall would get about 60 customers on a good day.

While Mr Choo waited tables and dined with customers, Madam Ong took charge of the kitchen, doing the preparation and cooking herself.

She was very particular about the cleanliness of the crabs. Instead of using a brush to clean the dirt off, as was the common practice, she used a metal scrub.

“She wanted to make sure that there was no scrap of dirt left on the crab. A dirty crab could be unhygienic and cause food poisoning,” said Mr Lim.

This was one of the most important takeaways for him when he took over the business. His grandmother’s method of cleaning crabs is still being practised at all No Signboard Seafood restaurants.

Mr Lim joined his grandmother in the business after completing his national service in 1998.

By then, the humble stall had expanded to two shophouse outlets, one in Race Course Lane and the other in Geylang.

The young man had to set the 30 tables at the Race Course Lane outlet and also prepared stock and desserts.

NEW PREMISES

Envisioning a brighter future for the family business, Mr Lim scouted for new premises and eventually opened No Signboard Seafood’s first full-fledged, air-conditioned restaurant at the now-defunct Oasis building in Kallang.

The restaurant chain now boasts five branches in Singapore, with two more in Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Mr Lim said that the hard times his family went through after setting up the stall in Aljunied had spurred him to expand the business.

“We had been suffering for so many years, waking up at 5am to buy ingredients and sleeping at 2am,” he said. “I knew we had to move forward.”

Mr Lim was only two when his family moved out from the Tai Seng kampung to a three-room flat in Bedok. After a brief stay there, his mother took her family to live in Clementi while Madam Ong remained in Bedok with her husband and three other children.

But his family could not keep up with the mortgage payments and moved back in with his grandparents after a year.

At one point, there were as many as 15 people living in the small flat.

“It was so cramped, everyone was sleeping at any spot they could find,” Mr Lim recalled.

“But even though she had to juggle both her business and the huge family at home, grandma did not mind one bit.”

Despite suffering a serious stroke that left her bedridden, Madam Ong still retained her good memory and cheerfulness.

“In the past, she had to remember every single customer’s order while she cooked, which was not easy.

“Once my uncle tried to test her memory after her illness by lying that a customer had complained about an order. She asked my uncle about the recipe he had used, and told him that it was correct and there was no reason for the customer to be unhappy.”

Madam Ong died on Chinese New Year’s Eve.

“We brought her body back on Thursday for the wake and continued to have our dinner. I think that was what she would have wanted,” Mr Lim said.

Three of the chain’s outlets in Geylang, East Coast and Clarke Quay are closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The cortege left for Choa Chu Kang cemetery at 1pm yesterday.

Tonnes of crab sold every day

Since opening its first full-fledged restaurant in Oasis in Kallang in 2000, No Signboard Seafood is now a brand-name chain with five outlets at East Coast, VivoCity, The Esplanade, Clarke Quay and Geylang.

It has two more restaurants in Hong Kong and Indonesia, the latter run by a franchise partner.

Most of the group’s restaurants range from about 6,000 to 7,000 sq ft in size and seat 250 people on average.

A tonne of crabs are sold each day across all the outlets.

Mr Sam Lim, the chairman of the chain, said he had to go through years of hardship to be in the position he is today.

The 37-year-old now lives in a 9,500 sq ft bungalow in the east, and owns three luxury cars – an Aston Martin DBS, a Rolls-Royce Ghost and a limited edition Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SV, which cost $1.6 million.

He said he bought the bungalow with the intention of housing his whole family under one roof, just like they used to in the past, although members of his extended family have chosen to live on their own.

In the event the company is hit by hard times, the bungalow and cars could be re-financed to generate funds, he said.