91 Yo Hawker Of Historic Wonton Noodles Stall Force to Give Up Stall Due to Pandemic
In the wave caused by the current pandemic, we have found more food vendors are facing difficulties and tougher challenge to continue on with their food business due to lack of walk-in customers or demands just went downwards within overnight. As a post spotted by CNA, where one of the Singapore’s oldest hawker stalls which is Mdm Leong Yuet Meng, 91 years old is one of Singapore’s oldest hawkers and the founder of Nam Seng Noodle House has decided to call it a quit after running her stall for nearly 6 decades.
This stall is located just outside of the old National Library in Stamford Road where her stall is currently having a drastic drop in business overnight and it is very hard to continue on. Her stall which is date back to 1962 when Leong and her late husband were used to opening their little stall in front of the Old National Library which they started to sell chicken porridge and macaroni but later on she learned to make wonton mee from her cousin and an amah who also sold this dish in Chinatown.
The name of the stall which the “NAM” means Nanyang, which represents the meaning of the region of Malaya and Southeast Asia and Seng represents success in business. Which it all started from 30 cents a bowl, then, later on, increased to 50 cents and until today which is $5. Plus, Leong is still very involved in running the stall which she will wake up in the morning to pick up fresh produce at the wet market in Toa Payoh and she would spend the day making the wontons from scratch and taking customer orders. She also mentioned that “If you want to make money, don’t complain about hardship. Go back home to sleep if you worry about hardship.”
