Hawker Hustlers: Salt’s Kenny Ngoo relishes selling Korean fried chicken and comfort food
Hawker Hustlers is a HungryGoWhere series spotlighting young and emerging hawkers with compelling stories. Read through all the way for an exclusive GrabFood promo so you can try their food, too.
- Salt is a family-run business with two branches: Old Airport Road and in the CBD.
- It serves comfort food of various types, such as Korean-style fried chicken, fried rice and even herbal soups.
- Kenny joined when he was only 23 and now runs the Old Airport Road branch.
- He doesn’t regret joining this industry and takes pride in bringing joy to his customers.
Old Airport Road Food Centre is known for its many beloved hawker eats — speak the name, and many would instantly think of the legendary long-queue lor mee and the famous dry-style Hokkien mee, amongst others.
Sadly, the hawker centre closed for a three-month renovation stint in June, but now it’s back and fresher than ever. We immediately headed down to revisit our favourites.
That’s when we noticed one popular stall serving something peculiar — we’re talking about Salt, Old Airport Road’s Korean fried chicken expert.
We seem to have missed it on prior visits, but the stall has actually been around since 2014!
The stall is nestled towards the back of the hawker centre, surrounded by stalls such as Tiong Bahru Lor Mee and the Michelin-recommended To-Ricos Kway Chap.
Eschewing the usual hawker fare, this stall serves saucy Korean-style fried chicken, usually paired with fried rice or pasta, and you’ll find loyal customers already swarming in around 6pm — not long after the store opens for the evening.
At the back of the unit, you’ll find a young man hard at work, hunched over a wok and frying up plate after plate of fried rice — that’s Kenny Ngoo, the owner.
Jumping into the hawker life fresh out of army
Kenny may only be 30 this year, but has already been in the trade for seven years.
“Salt is a family-run business. I started because my sister asked me when I just came out of the army. I also had a lot of free time,” he says, on why he took on the challenge.
He jumped into this field, despite not having any culinary training or experience — quite the opposite, he had majored in accounting and marketing in school.
Some expect younger folks to struggle in a hawker environment, but Kenny didn’t have much trouble settling in.
While running a hawker stall usually means sacrificing things such as having a social life, Kenny is grateful for his understanding friends.
They visit the stall when they want to hang out, which meant he didn’t feel like he had to put anything on hold for his new career.
At the same time, he also felt a strong sense of ownership — it was a family business and he never felt it a hassle, even though the heat can be quite bad at times.
In fact, it gave him a new direction in life, since he was apprehensive about going into the accounting industry full-time and was pondering his next steps.
Seven years on, he has taken on the mantle of running Salt’s Old Airport Road operations with his father, while his sister and mother handle the CBD-based branch, which, in turn, focuses more on takeaway bentos and such.
He adds: “After one year, I already realised there’s a satisfaction I got from running Salt that I’m not sure I can get from outside!”
So, would he do it all over again? Kenny says yes, confidently.
Making comfort food for all
So, here’s the big question: Why Korean fried chicken in a hawker centre?
On Salt’s raison d’etre, Kenny says: “We basically want to make our comfort food for our customers. So we serve our favourites, such as fried chicken and pasta.”
Essentially, his sister had fallen in love with Korean fried chicken and was subsequently stuck with constant cravings for it.
That was something they wanted to recreate — making Salt’s customers think about its chicken all the time.
“We put in greater effort to ensure the food is of better quality,” he says.
This includes painstakingly marinating the fried chicken for 24 hours to ensure the best texture and flavour, as well as using higher quality ingredients – as in its pasta, for example.
It also led them to experiment further with their grilled chicken, which they prepare sous vide for a more tender bite.
You might also find that Salt offers an assortment of traditional Chinese herbal soups on its menu, too, under the brand Hebrew Xibutang.
It might seem a little out of place, but it makes sense, in its own way.
Says Kenny: “My mum works in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and she has sources in China for quality, untreated herbs, as well as recipes from her mother and grandmother.”
It’s a way to “combat” Salt’s heaty foods and also to bring a different kind of nourishing comfort to customers!
Getting people to try Salt
Although Kenny is very confident in the quality of his food, the biggest challenge to running the stall is getting customers to try Salt’s food. Old Airport Road is a huge compound with many famous stalls, after all.
It was tough at the start, since they went about it without proper marketing.
Fortunately, the big break came when Makansutra covered Salt’s Old Airport Road stall in 2018.
The business has since snowballed, with many curious diners coming by to first try the food, then subsequently became regulars!
And while we mentioned that they originally didn’t have much plans in the way of marketing, Kenny has since veered in a different direction.
You can go on Salt’s social media now and find a series of quirky reels, usually featuring Kenny as the protagonist.
These range from touring Old Airport Road’s new toilets, funny trends, and also a very intriguing golden ticket series.
Yes, Kenny hosted a golden ticket hunt where he would hide the ticket somewhere within the hawker centre, and customers could hunt it down and redeem a free meal.
It might be quite an unorthodox thing to do for a hawker brand, but Kenny enjoys jumping on trends and finding creative ways to promote the store.
He adds: “I wanted to give back to the customers who have supported us for the past decade. But I also wanted to make it fun!”
Tasty fried chicken and fried rice combo
Naturally, we had to taste Salt’s signature fried chicken wings (S$7.80) to gauge for ourselves. And we have to say: These are superb and like a mix between local-style and Korean fried chicken.
The outside is thin and crispy, without being too oily, while the inside is tender and juicy. It’s coated in sauce, Korean-style, but the batter doesn’t get soggy at all.
Four flavours are available, including Korean hot and Thai chilli lime, but our favourites were the umami-filled soy garlic and simple salt & pepper!
It’s truly addictive and trumps many Korean fried chicken chains.
However, our vote for the standout dish on Salt’s menu had to go to the signature chicken cutlet with soy garlic fried rice (from S$7.90).
All our attention was gobbled up by the fried rice — this is one smoky and flavourful plate, where the soy garlic sauce is well caramelised to add even more flavour.
On top of that, the hulking chicken cutlet might actually be even better than the wings. The batter is thicker and lightly coated with sauce, and the meat even more succulent. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Taiwanese chicken chop.
The fried rice is also available with a choice of sous vide grilled chicken (from S$7.90) or fried salmon steak (from S$9.90).
Besides the fried rice, there’s pasta options on Kenny’s menu — either aglio olio or carbonara.
We got the sous vide grilled chicken with aglio olio (from S$6.90).
While Salt’s grilled chicken is pretty solid — it’s consistently tender with silky skin from the sous vide process — we still preferred the fried chicken.
One very commendable thing about the aglio olio pasta is that it’s rich and garlic fragrant, but doesn’t feel like it’s drowned in oil — a sin many kopitiam Western stalls are guilty of.
The aglio olio can be made either spicy or non-spicy too, depending on your spice tolerance!
If you’re conscious about “heatiness” in the TCM sense of the word, you can also add some herbal soup to alleviate the symptoms, with comforting options that include ginseng chicken soup (S$9.90) and Imperial dan gui collagen soup (S$9.90).
If you ask us, it’s definitely worth a visit — it might be one of our new favourites at this storied hawker centre!
Good news for our readers who scrolled all the way to the end!
Here’s your exclusive GrabFood delivery promo for Salt Fried Chicken & Herbal Soup (128) – Old Airport Road, valid from Dec 20, 2024 to Jan 20, 2025.
How it works:
- Use the promo code HGWSALTFRIEDCHICKEN for S$3 off your basket (minimum spend of S$15) when you order from Salt Fried Chicken & Herbal Soup (128) – Old Airport Road
- Stackable with free Salt Fried Chicken & Herbal Soup delivery (up to S$3 off) with a GrabUnlimited subscription.
- While redemptions last, capped at one redemption per person.
For more stories on young hawkers, read about Nam from M+ Fried Rice Paradise. And if you have a Korean fried chicken craving, why don’t you check out the new Doran Chicken?
Salt Fried Chicken and Herbal Soup is on the GrabFood delivery service and offers free delivery (up to S$3 off) with GrabUnlimited.
Enjoy up to 50% off when you dine with GrabFood Dine Out.
You can also book a ride to Salt at Old Airport Road Food Centre for Korean fried chicken.
Salt (Old Airport Road)
Old Airport Road Food Centre, 01-128, 51 Old Airport Road
Nearest MRT: Dakota
Open: Monday to Thursday and Saturday (12pm to 2:30 pm, 5pm to 8:30 pm)
Old Airport Road Food Centre, 01-128, 51 Old Airport Road
Nearest MRT: Dakota
Open: Monday to Thursday and Saturday (12pm to 2:30 pm, 5pm to 8:30 pm)