Singapore’s bustling culinary scene is often celebrated for its vibrant hawker centers and the best fine dining establishments, but tucked away in its charming neighborhoods are traditional old-school bakeries that offer a delightful glimpse into the city’s rich heritage.
['Just a year after opening, popular coffeeshop stall ', 'Toa Payoh 94 Laksa', ', known for its shiok laksa served with jumbo blood cockles that are almost the size of a soup spoon,', ' is relocating.\xa0', 'Boss Steven Toh, 57, who currently operates the coffeeshop as well as the ', 'prawn noodles', ',\xa0', 'zi char', ',\xa0', 'cai png', '\xa0and beverage stalls, tells ', '8days.sg', ' that he and his partners decided to move a', 'fter the kopitiam changed hands. The new owners will be operating the coffeeshop themselves.\xa0', 'Of his four stalls, only the laksa and prawn mee ', 'joints, 94 Toa Payoh Prawn Noodle, will be moving. The latter has been operating in its current premises for “more than 20 years”.\xa0', 'No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from\xa0', '8days.sg', '.']
['Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Uncle Roger knows how to do a grand reveal on social media. The 33-year-old Malaysian comedian, whose real name is Nigel Ng, shot to fame ', 'aggressively critiquing', ' BBC Food’s egg fried rice recipe in a mock Cantonese accent, and later made netizens all over the world go ', 'awww', ' when he ', 'went IG-official', ' with his girlfriend earlier this year.', 'The fried rice roast spawned his iconic catchphrases like “fuiyoh” and “haiyah”, which are respectively used to denote Uncle Roger’s approval and disapproval of something. Oh, and his well-documented love of MSG, the controversial cornerstone of Asian cooking.', 'No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from ', '8days.sg', '.', 'Drops “little secret” in Anthony Bourdain reaction video', 'Uncle Roger now has some 9.35 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, where he recently uploaded a video of himself reacting to the late Anthony Bourdain eating street food in Penang in a Season 8 episode of his hit docuseries ', 'No Reservations', '.', 'After expressing his exasperation when Anthony did not elaborate on the ingredients that go into Penang’s iconic assam laksa, Uncle Roger said: “See, niece and nephew, that’s why if you like food you ', 'have ', 'to travel to Uncle Roger’s country Malaysia. Because so many ingredients we don’t export. You can’t get it outside of this country.”', 'Then he casually drops a bomb: “And by the way, another reason to go Malaysia. Uncle Roger gonna open my very first restaurant there. Fuiyoh!”']
['Seventeen-year-old ', '\xa0', 'Kelly Jie Seafood', '\xa0has a pretty decent 4.1 star rating on Google. But it seems patrons don’t come just for the ', 'crab dishes here - they also pop by for the two generations of attractive lady bosses that run the place.\xa0', 'The 170-seat eatery in Toa Payoh is currently run by second-gen owners, Rachel and Zara Lim, 32 and 27 respectively. They took over the reins from their mother just last year.', 'According to the chirpy duo, some customers visited the shop just to see, ahem, them. “We’ve met some customers who are sorta the ', 'ah beng', ' type, and they like to ', 'ka chiao ', '(disturb in Hokkien) us and say things like, ‘Eh! I saw you on Facebook, that’s why we came to try [the food] leh!’. We don’t know if they’re joking though,” Rachel laughs. But spoiler alert - both ladies are already engaged.\xa0', 'No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from ', '8days.sg', '.', 'Kelly then began working for her brother ', 'who owns Mellben Seafood, at its HQ', ' outlet at Ang Mo Kio, where she learned how to run an F&B biz for the first time. In 2006, she', ' ', 'left to open her own shop, Mellben Toa Payoh, before rebranding it to Kelly Jie Seafood in 2017.\xa0', 'Even though she was no longer performing, the songstresses’ star power followed her into her food biz. Rachel chimes in: “Because of how [', 'sociable', '] she is, a lot of customers like her, and they would come back for her, rather than the food. It’s also for the food lah, but the bonus is because of her also”. ', 'These days, Kelly still performs for the elderly while doing voluntary work ', 'at eldercare centers', '. She no longer visits Kelly Jie daily, but often comes down to help on weekends. ', 'As for whether she’ll ever perform at Kelly Jie, Rachel laughs and says: “It’s a restaurant leh, how to perform? But sometimes she’ll chit chat with customers, and at times she’ll sing together with them”.\xa0', 'The sisters add that they don’t regret giving up or sidelining their corporate jobs to focus on Kelly Jie. “There’re a lot of things to learn also in managing a business - we are doing management, customer service and more, so it’s very interesting,', '” says Rachel.', 'Since they took over, the sisters have made a couple changes. “We changed the flooring, installed air conditioning and also changed our menu by lowering the prices and increasing food portions,” Rachel says. ', 'They assure us that they haven’t compromised on any ingredients: “We will never compromise on our food quality. We always choose the best ingredients, our chef takes a lot of pride in his food,” Zara says.\xa0', 'She adds that business has been picking up: “Not only did we manage to reconnect with our old customers, we also gained new ones”.']
['A ', 'Facebook post', ' on foodie group Toa Payoh Makan Places piqued netizens’ curiosity yesterday (Jul 3), as it shared that celeb F&B boss Ben Yeo’s ', 'Tan Xiang Sliced Fish Soup', ' stall in Toa Payoh had shuttered. ', "The poster, Wang Pei Wen (transliterated from Chinese), wrote: “Ben Yeo's fish soup closed down [sic]. Haven’t got a chance to try it.”", 'The stall opened just nine months ago in September 2023, and specialises in KL-style Cantonese fish soup, which features a cloudy broth made by boiling fish bones for hours. ', 'No part of this story or photos can be reproduced without permission from ', '8days.sg', '.']