Toa Payoh hawker stall run by 90 year-old great-grandfather serves prawn noodles and pork rib soup for under S$7

Running a hawker stall is no easy feat — even stalls run by young hawkers have their fair share of challenges, including low footfall and physical fatigue. 

With struggles wearing down people decades younger, what keeps this 90-year-old hawker in Toa Payoh going?

Tucked inside a coffeeshop, a five-minute walk away from Toa Payoh MRT station, lies Pork Rib Prawn Noodle at 183 Food Court Toa Payoh Central. 

It’s a simply named stall, but if you take a closer look, you’ll find 90-year-old Lee Song Kun behind the stove. It is run as a one-man show, and was opened recently in May.

Uncle Lee comes from a mighty big family, and is now a great-grandfather, but you could call this hawker stall the newest addition to the family.

Doing it (running a hawker stall) for the plot 

Uncle Lee is what you would call an extremely seasoned veteran in Singapore’s cutthroat food industry, having cooked from the age of 18.

After over seven decades in the industry, we can’t help but wonder: why does he not retire and take life easy?

We can only describe his mantra as “doing it for the plot” — the jovial Uncle Lee says that running the hawker stall is a way for him to pass the time, and alleviate the boredom of staying at home. 

He helms the stall from 9am to 7.30pm daily — his routine consists of prepping all the ingredients by himself, from stewing soups to peeling prawns, and of course, dishing up his small but mighty menu.

Comforting and affordable home-cooked classics 

Since pork rib prawn noodles are the stall’s signatures, we had to get them. 

We started with the prawn mee soup (S$5) — a clear seafood soup with bouncy yellow noodles, topped with a generous portion of sliced pork and butterfly prawns. 

Instead of the heavier and murkier prawn noodle soups that can be heavy-handed on the seasoning, Uncle Lee’s soup leans light and umami-forward, with comforting flavours that reminds us of our grandparents’ home-cooking.

If you’re a fan of dry prawn noodles, there’s also a pork rib prawn mee (S$6) and pork rib mee (S$6), both available in dry or soup options.

The unassuming star of our meal was the pork ribs rice (S$6), which comprises a bowl of pork ribs soup and a heap of white rice.

We were expecting a peppery soup similar to bak kut teh, but were pleasantly surprised by its upfront sweetness, and subsequent mild pepper aftertaste. 

Uncle Lee says the secret to his pork rib soup lies in the pepper — instead of a black pepper for a sharp initial kick, he uses white pepper for a more mellow and earthy spice

We’d recommend having it like a gukbap — dunk your white rice in and have it together as a soupy rice dish. Each bowl also gets five pieces of pork ribs and if you love your proteins with a bite, you’ll love the lean and chewier pork ribs here. 

If you’re craving some spice during your visit, go for a hearty bowl of laksa (S$4) — a fiery coconut soup coats each strand of bouncy rice noodles, and comes served with fish cake, fried tofu puffs and a hard-boiled egg.

If you prefer laksa spicy rather than creamy, you’ll want to go for this. While the soup’s on the thinner side, the fragrant rempah makes up for it — it clings onto each strand of noodle, yet stays drinkable after you’ve finished the noodles and toppings.

If you’re around the Toa Payoh area and craving some local hawker fare, stop by Uncle Lee’s stall for lunch or dinner. Be sure to chat him up for some words of wisdom, while you’re at it!  

For more ideas on what to eat, check out this new Muslim-owned cafe-bakery at Siglap and this new takeaway spot serving up made-to-order onigiris in the CBD!