23-year-old opens Reverie, a viral hawker stall in Clementi with affordable restaurant-quality pasta & western fare
Nowadays, running a successful F&B business isn’t as easy as just having good food. You need to have good marketing to get eyes on your food, and feet to your stall.
Luckily for 23-year-old Reuben Koh, who has just opened his hawker stall Reverie at Clementi, he got all the attention he needed.
He had gone viral on social media — especially on TikTok — garnering about 485,000 views, at the time of publication, since his first post on Jan 9. And no, it wasn’t for trendy dance numbers or unhinged antics.
Rather, he posted a series of heartfelt videos that shared his story, raw and unfiltered.
Reuben’s story has it all — an unruly youth, a prison stint, and subsequently, running a school canteen stall.
But what really resonated with viewers was perhaps his goal for Reverie.
Besides his passion for cooking, Reuben also talks about using his fine-dining experience to provide the everyman with high quality western dishes at affordable prices.
And he has the skillset to realise that vision, with his past experience at upmarket restaurants, including craft brewery Level 33.
That online interest has translated to real-life crowds. Reuben tells us many people have visited Reverie after seeing him on TikTok.
It seems Reverie has even drawn in the older crowd.
“A few aunties came and bought from me when I opened, and even came back to try other stuff. I was surprised, since I thought older folks will be put off by the prices, like a S$20 pork chop,” Reuben says.
An affordable pasta hawker
But what’s the most in-vogue western dish in Singapore right now? The crown undoubtedly belongs to pasta.
We’ve seen the rise of pasta hawkers in recent times — that includes newly opened The Fresh Pasta, Bronzo, and Eightisfy, an oldie-but-goodie that boomed in popularity last year.
Unlike these, Reverie doesn’t use handmade pasta in its dishes, but this keeps the costs down. Here, we see prices ranging from S$9 to S$12, with only one pasta costing S$14.
Honestly, quality store-bought pasta can be excellent, too, when cooked well.
Reverie cooks its pasta just a bit past al dente — which seems to be the preferred texture for most Singaporeans — and that gives it a nice snap.
What’s missing is perhaps just a tad of that bounciness that handmade pasta is known for.
One dish that’s great for dried pasta is the ever-popular carbonara (S$12) — the OG, no-cream way!
“Authentic” carbonara in Italian households usually use dried pasta, since it actually originated as a dish that takes advantage of leftover pantry ingredients.
The carbonara served at Reverie is pretty good, with the sauce fabulously emulsified, so each strand coats your mouth with a silky eggy texture, and a pop of pepper fragrance to complement the richness.
If there’s one dish we think everyone should order from Reverie, though, it’s the white beef bolognese malfada (S$12).
Unlike the usual beef bolognese pasta that’s usually made with tomatoes, this is a cream-based dish and also contains pork.
It’s immensely hearty and fragrant, plus the chilli oil zing imbues it with a great bit of depth — our favourite pasta dish here!
Remember how we said there is one pasta on Reverie’s menu that’s an outlier, and priced at S$14?
Well, the beef short rib ragu mafalda (S$14) definitely justifies its price, with the tender chunks of beef short rib and that moreish ragu sauce.
Oodles of beef richness, married with a delightful tomato acidity — we think this beef ragu would not be out of place at a pasta restaurant!
The heavy-hitters
For the non-pasta options on Reverie’s menu, the pricing is a bit more varied. Prices start from S$11 for the chicken chop served with demi-glace, and fish & chips that come with a beer batter.
Most of it is under S$20 — even the braised beef short ribs at S$16 — with only the pork chop (S$20) and striploin (S$22) as the exceptions.
But it’s not unreasonable, since Reuben aspires towards using cafe- and restaurant-quality ingredients. Similar dishes at these places would usually cost a fair bit more.
We also spotted a rather uncommon dish, the chicken parmigiana (S$14), which is usually found in cafes, and almost never in hawker settings.
The chicken parmigiana at Reverie is one thicc, chunky boy, encased in the crunchiest, airiest beer batter — more like what you’d find on atas (upmarket) fish & chips, rather than chicken cutlet.
Besides the juiciness of the chicken, we also appreciate how well the herbaceous marinade worked with the tangy tomato sauce — it helped cut through the heft of the batter and melted mozzarella.
As for the steak, it’s not amazing, but a pretty solid rendition, nonetheless. As is the striploin, (S$22) a higher quality cut than those that are more frequently used by western hawker stalls.
Reverie’s execution is solid — though it can be a bit dry at the edges, the pink medium-rare centre is nice and tender.
It’s not perfect, but with the perpetually rising costs of eating out, Reverie is a breath of fresh air with its restaurant-quality dishes priced more accessibly than at restaurants.
Maybe it’s too early to say, but some of the best known western food brands in Singapore had started out as humble hawker stalls, too.
Who knows? If Reuben and team can keep it up, and keep improving, we might also see Reverie in a mall someday!
For more ideas on what to eat, read our stories on the first local outlet of Korean fast-food chain Lotteria and the authentic izakaya gem in Orchard Plaza run by the cutest couple!
Wed 11am - 3pm, 5pm - 9pm
Thu 11am - 3pm, 5pm - 9pm
Fri 11am - 3pm, 5pm - 9pm
Sat 11am - 3pm, 5pm - 10.30pm
Sun 11am - 3pm, 5pm - 10.30pm
- Clementi
Evan started off writing about food on Instagram, before joining outlets such as Buro and Confirm Good to pursue his passion. His best work usually comes after his first whisky shot in the morning.
Read more stories from this writer.
