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 1
May 31, 1998: THE
SUNDAY
TIMES
_________________________________________________________________________________
HongKong KangKong
Forget sambal |
At
last someone has come up with a different way
to cook the
silky smooth yet crisp vegetable which
is spicy and
healthy at the same time. |
|
IN THE
kingdom of vegetables, kangkong is the king of
crunch.
Hands up those of you
who take divine pleasure in chomping down on its crisp,
hollow stems.
Or who salivate up a storm
just thinking about its silky smoothness, never mind if
it leaves remnants of foliage on your
teeth.
It is a mystery then, how the
veggie, also known as water convolvulus, is commonly
cooked in restaurants here in only two sauces –
sambal or oyster.
To some,
sambal may be too spicy, while to others, oyster
sauce is a little too mild.
And both are equally oily and high in
cholesterol.
But since November last year, the
Koo Kee Yong Tow Foo Mee stalls at various shopping mall
foodcourts have been offering kangkong with
fermented beancurd and sliced red
chilli.
The
dish is popular among the Cantonese, but is usually
cooked at home, where it is
stir-fired.
The version sold by Koo Kee,
however, comes from Hong Kong.
In
this version, the vegetable is
boiled.
Mr. Chong Yik Hwee, 44, Managing
Director of Gao Ji Food, which operates the 20 Koo Kee
outlets, first tasted the dish in a Shatin dianxin
restaurant in Hong Kong.
“It’s
different, and it’s healthy, just like our niang
doufu dishes.”
“ So I decided to sell it in our stalls,” he
said.
Fermented
beancurd
kangkong,
he said, is not
|
oily and has
plenty of protein from the soy
beans.
And each dish comes
with a satisfying portion of boiled kangkong with a
blanket of creamy, fragrant beancurd sauce on
top.
The fermented
beancurd, called foo yu in Cantonese, is made in
China’s Guangdong province, said Mr
Chong.
Soft
cubes of it are beaten with sesame seed and sugar into a
creamy smoothness in a
blender.
Fermented beancurd,
which is commonly eaten with plain rice porridge, may
taste a little strange to diners not used to its
unusual flavour.
“ But it will grow on you,
” said Mr Chong.
“See, I just ate two to
three plates of it and it was no
problem.”
Since yesterday, the
chain has been serving the Good Ole Meal – a set meal
which teams fermented beancurd kangkong with a
plate of niang doufu and a bowl of noodles – all
for a value-for-money price of
$4.
This
was all part of a strategy to update and improve the
company’s image and business, which had its humble
beginnings back in 1954 when Mr Chong’s father ran a
mobile niang doufu stall in Chinatown.
The chain’s staff has also been given new uniforms –
snazzy green and maroon aprons over white T-shirts and
dark trousers.
Colourful signs, workers in
bright uniforms, and set meals at reasonable prices –
these features are all reminiscent of Western fast-food
chains.
And Mr Chong admitted willingly that
hamburger giant McDonald’s was an inspiration in his
company's revamp.
Now, if only McDonald’s
restaurant would serve kangkong,
too. |
A good meal deal is Koo
Kee’s Good Ole Meal,
a $4 feast of kangkong,
niang doufu Koo Kee Yong Tow
Fu Mee
Outlets in Bugis Junction, East
Point,
Great World City, Junction 8, KK
Women’s
and Children’s Hospital,
Lucky Plaza, North Point,
Orchard
Emerald and Tiong Bahru Plaza.
Opening hours: Daily from 10.30am
to 9.45pm.
Rating: *****
| |
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The
Strait Times, Saturday, 28 May, 1994
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Million-dollars niang doufu
business |
The
Sights And Sounds of New Chinatown
Sit Yin
Fong
|
|
WHEN Mr
Chong Yik Hwee, 40, slashed the price of his Hakka
niang doufu from $3 to $2 seven years ago, his
business boomed.
At his Koo Kee Yong Two Foo
Mee stall in People's Park hawker center next to OG
department store and 10 over franchise branches all over
Singapore - he dishes them out at a rate of two bowls a
minute. It is a million-dollar business, he says,
declining to be more specific.
Unlike in other
stalls, his customers do not choose the fishball, bean
curd, stuffed ladies' fingers and other ingredients but
are served a standard bowl. A large bowl costs a dollar
more.
He had planned to franchise his
business from the day he relaunched Koo Kee in 1987 from
an old stall behind the Majestic Theatre open since 1954
and run by his father.
Today, you
can also enjoy exactly the same bowl of niang
doufu in shops and food centers in Marina Square,
Bishan, Jurong East, Tampines, Marine Parade,
Northpoint, Geylang, Bendemeer Road, Upper Thomson Road,
Clementi and Toa Payoh.
Under the franchising agreement,
the ingredients of the dish
are supplied by Mr Chong to the
franchisee from his factory in Toa
Payoh. |
The franchisees
also pay him a
3 per cent surcharge on top of the
price of the ingredients.
Unlike Western
franchising, he does not take a
cut from the franchisees' profits, presumably because he
already make profit on the ingredient he
supplies.
From as early as 3 am, two
factory vans fan out all over Singapore to make the
deliveries to the stalls. Some franchisees come to
collect their supplies.
His franchisees include
relatives, but others have also approached him. He is
thinking of opening another shop in Junction 8 in
Bishan, which he will run himself.
He
sees no end to the growth potential of a business
started in 1954 by his mother, Madam Hu Ying, originally
in an old shop at Keong Siak Street, and later at zinc
and wooden shacks hawker centre, on which the People's
Park Complex stands today.
It was Mum's
recipe which used to cause queues at her zinc-roofed
stall which Koo Kee is using today at enchant
present-day gourmets.
There is a
well-known saying in Chinese food circles which claims
that only a Hakka can produce good niang doufu,
as it takes only a Teochew to make good fishball
guotiao soup.
This is the
last in the Chinatown series. Old town, New City, also
by Sit Yin Fong, will bow in next
week. |
A kitchen
run with military precision ensures
that it takes
only 30 seconds to whip up a
bowl of niang
dofu.
Mr Chong Yik
Hwee(below) cut the price
of his niang dofu
and franchised his
business, turning it into a
million-dollar
concern.
|
|
Speedy way to your stomach
A HUMAN
conveyer belt is used to transfer cooked food from
kitchen to customer in the Koo Kee set up in the
People's Park hawker centre - that is why the whole
process takes only 30
seconds.
The
relay chain starts with Cook No.1, splicing up with
sauce the mee, mifen or guotiao wanted by the
customer.
He hands it to Cook No.2,
who standing by his elbow, ladles out the steaming
pieces of niang doufu with the soup on which they float,
on to the noodles to complete the
dish.
The kitchen has room
for two cooks only, who work non-stop. Like runners
passing on a baton, two waiters stationed just outside
the kitchen pass on the food to the rest of the Koo Kee
service team - six or more waiters, who cover not only
two large tables in the front of the stall, but also
speed to customers in the vast concourse of the People's
Park hawker centre.
Table numbers of
customers have been noted on little order
forms.
Koo Kee owners Chong
Yik Hwee certainly does not believe in the self-service
concept, which he said would clog up the traffic around
the kitchen.
He
obsession with speed derives from his own experience of
having to endure the torture of waiting to be served in
some places. He said: A customer is already hungry when
he comes along. He is the pay-master. How can you make
him
wait? | |
 2
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