Read a summary of this article on FAST.
FAST
SINGAPORE: Sumadi Supari’s father was in a hospital bed when he asked his son if the latter wanted to take over the family business.
Sumadi’s grandfather had started their hawker stall in 1973, and his father, Sapari Temon, took over in the 1980s, with Sumadi helping out “on and off” while in secondary school.
When he started working, he helped his father on some evenings at their stall at Adam Food Centre. But his father told him to concentrate on his career first and “not think about the business”, recounted Sumadi, 57.
So he continued as a telecoms engineer for more than 20 years while his father went about serving mee soto and mee rebus, building a loyal following and winning Makansutra and other food awards.
One of the awards Sapari Temon won.
Then his father, a survivor of three heart attacks, developed cancer. The thought of not continuing his family’s legacy saddened Sumadi, and he took over the stall in 2014.
“When (my father) was still sick, I always sought his advice. Sometimes I brought (the food) to hospital (to) let him taste,” Sumadi recounted. “He’d just smile, (which made) me … happy. So that meant it was okay.”
But customers had their doubts, which shook his confidence. “They said, ‘(When) you cook, (it) really doesn’t (match up to) your father,’” he recounted.
“So I just followed what my father said, did whatever he did (and) didn’t change the recipe. … To win their confidence, it (took) more than six months.”
In the years that followed, he has taken the business further and earned a place on the Michelin Bib Gourmand list since 2023. He is the first hawker with a Bib Gourmand for mee soto and mee rebus.
WATCH: Singapore’s Michelin Bib Gourmand hawkers — Selamat Datang Warong Pak Sapari (22:35)
Besides his stall, Selamat Datang Warong Pak Sapari, he now has five franchised stalls across Singapore.
And with that expansion, the On The Red Dot series, I Am A Hawker, explores what he must do to protect the authenticity of his father’s recipes.
It is among the challenges faced by four Michelin-honoured stalls featured on the programme, along with the question that looms ever larger: Whither the future?
When Sumadi first received news of a Michelin award for his stall, he thought it was a joke.
Stall assistant Mohamed Aza Hari Rawi (left) with Sumadi, recounting how they learnt of their first Bib Gourmand.
Stall assistant Mohamed Aza Hari Rawi had phoned to say there was a letter from Michelin waiting for him — which Sumadi disbelieved because his car never had Michelin tyres. “Too expensive for me,” he quipped.
Only when he opened the envelope and saw the Michelin sticker did he remember the company’s food awards such as the Bib Gourmand, which recognises the world’s best budget-friendly establishments.
“That was a surprise,” he recalled, because to him, his dishes were the “classic” mee soto and mee rebus.
Nonetheless, there is something distinct about his family’s mee soto. The broth has more than 20 spices, instead of the typical 10 to 18 spices, he said.
“A lot of customers say, ‘Hey, it’s quite different. (It has) the smell and the taste of the spice, rather than just a clear soup.’”
Soto is a traditional Indonesian soup.
The broth in mee soto is all-important, agreed Adam Shah Mohamed Zain, co-founder of The Halal Food Blog, who described Warong Pak Sapari’s broth as “very bold, very flavourful”.
“You see dozens of stalls selling mee soto. But not everyone is willing to go through the hassle of making it from scratch,” he said, “as opposed to using instant paste that you can get from the supermarket.”
Cost is a key factor. The most expensive ingredients in mee soto are the spices, according to Sumadi.
As for mee rebus, Adam Shah said if hawkers “don’t use proper ingredients, or they take shortcuts, the gravy will become watery very fast”. He sees this happening “a lot” nowadays.
Referring to Warong Pak Sapari’s mee rebus, he added: “If it remains thick like this, … you know that you’re getting good quality.”
Adam Shah Mohamed Zain reviewing Warong Pak Sapari’s mee rebus and mee soto.
He is “very proud” that the stall is the first with a Bib Gourmand for the two dishes.
“It’s a big deal,” he said, because “a lot of people grew up with these dishes, from the time we were kids until today”.
For Sumadi, the award makes him proud for another reason. “I thought I couldn’t do what my father did,” he said.
“The pressure is always there because I have to keep up … and make sure that whatever my father taught me isn’t lost.”
When his father died in hospital, it was “really unexpected”, he recalled, shedding a tear. “I believe he’d be happy because … I put (the stall) under his name — Warong Pak Sapari — to remember his name.”
The stall’s brightly lit fascia displaying its name.
One thing his father would have said no to, however, would be franchising, said Sumadi. “Because he’d worry that I can’t control the quality.”
It was not long after the stall was awarded its first Bib Gourmand that people approached him to franchise the business. One of them was Dennis Loo, who became his franchise partner when they soon opened the first franchise.
“The Bib Gourmand is kind of an acknowledgement of the quality of your food,” said Sumadi, which is why, he added, Loo wanted to act quickly. But the eventual location — Lau Pa Sat — came as “quite a surprise” to him.
“It’s kind of a historical (and) tourist area, and the expectation is higher.”
Sumadi driving to Lau Pa Sat to do one of his outlet checks.
Six months after he earned his Bib Gourmand, a customer told him there was a difference in quality between the Lau Pa Sat stall and the Adam Road stall.
“I told him … ‘Thank you for the feedback, and I’ll look into it,’” recounted Sumadi, who felt responsible as the franchisor “because my name is there, … and the SOP (standard operating procedure) is there”.
While the Bib Gourmand has been given to his Adam Road stall, customers may think all the franchises have received a Michelin nod, he said. For him, that is a source of stress.
Noting that consistency is important, he added: “This is also branding.”
At the Adam Road stall, Aza Hari is also “a little bit stressed”. There have been more customers since it received the Bib Gourmand. And the queue moves slowly when there are many orders. “I have to (be) patient,” he said.
Aza Hari was also a stall assistant for Sumadi’s parents and his grandfather.
It can get “quite overwhelming” as there are only two people manning the stall at any given time, acknowledged Sumadi, who estimated the increase in customers to be at least 30 per cent.
Even before he opens the stall at 8am — after arriving at about 4am to prepare everything — a queue will start to form, as early as 7.45am.
“Sometimes we have to explain to them that (they must) wait for a while because we can’t serve (them) unless … everything is cooked well,” he said. “I was surprised they were willing to wait.”
Sumadi’s late father would wake at about 1.30am to 2am to go to Tekka’s wet market and then bring his purchases to the stall. But now Sumadi has everything delivered, and he wakes at about 2.30am.
Sumadi leaving his flat at 3.30am.
“I don’t want (life) to be so hard, (as it was for) my father,” he said. “(What’s) important is you must have two or three good suppliers to send all your items.”
When he took over the business, he asked his wife, Rokiahti (Kathy) Bonyamin, to help him. So she quit her job as a manager in an international humanitarian organisation.
The couple had not planned on having their lifestyle and income disrupted. But they had to live “a simple life” compared to before, when they “used to travel a lot”, she said.
Sometimes “business wasn’t so good”, said Sumadi, so they had to use up some their savings. They had enough set aside, however, for their daughter who was studying overseas. And that was important, he added.
Sumadi with his wife, Rokiahti (Kathy) Bonyamin, in their car.
“Luckily, my children all understood (the situation). Sometimes we said, ‘Never mind, don’t buy this thing. This thing won’t run away. It’ll come another day,’” he shared.
Thinking back on the difficulties he has faced since young got him all teary-eyed. People even looked down on his parents, he lamented.
“When (my father) took over … from my grandfather, he said he’d try his best. So he worked hard,” said Sumadi. “That’s why I try to do (my) best.”
He does not know if his son, a polytechnic student studying electrical engineering, will want to take over in future.
But as a way of preserving his family’s legacy regardless, he and his wife came up with a mee soto paste and mee rebus paste in 2017 for his father’s recipes “to be shared”.
Packets of Warong Pak Sapari’s pastes at a Tekka wet market stall.
The pastes, manufactured by NTUC Foodfare, are used at Warong Pak Sapari’s franchised stalls to maintain consistency and are also sold to businesses — but not in the supermarket because “we aren’t ready yet”, he said.
Reflecting on his journey as a hawker so far, he remarked: “(It) isn’t an easy life. You have to sacrifice. … You must have faith in what you’re doing.”
His grandfather “always thought” about the survival of the business, while his father “thought of the family and … the running of the business”.
“But (when it) comes to me,” he said, “I must think of the family and the future of the business.”
Watch this episode of the I Am A Hawker series here. The programme, On The Red Dot, airs on Channel 5 every Friday at 9.30pm.
Source: CNA/dp
Newsletter
Subscribe to the best of CNA Insider
CNA's best current affairs documentaries with a deeper look at issues affecting Asia, sent to your inbox weekly.
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Download here
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app
Join here
Continue reading...
FAST
SINGAPORE: Sumadi Supari’s father was in a hospital bed when he asked his son if the latter wanted to take over the family business.
Sumadi’s grandfather had started their hawker stall in 1973, and his father, Sapari Temon, took over in the 1980s, with Sumadi helping out “on and off” while in secondary school.
When he started working, he helped his father on some evenings at their stall at Adam Food Centre. But his father told him to concentrate on his career first and “not think about the business”, recounted Sumadi, 57.
So he continued as a telecoms engineer for more than 20 years while his father went about serving mee soto and mee rebus, building a loyal following and winning Makansutra and other food awards.
One of the awards Sapari Temon won.
Then his father, a survivor of three heart attacks, developed cancer. The thought of not continuing his family’s legacy saddened Sumadi, and he took over the stall in 2014.
“When (my father) was still sick, I always sought his advice. Sometimes I brought (the food) to hospital (to) let him taste,” Sumadi recounted. “He’d just smile, (which made) me … happy. So that meant it was okay.”
But customers had their doubts, which shook his confidence. “They said, ‘(When) you cook, (it) really doesn’t (match up to) your father,’” he recounted.
“So I just followed what my father said, did whatever he did (and) didn’t change the recipe. … To win their confidence, it (took) more than six months.”
In the years that followed, he has taken the business further and earned a place on the Michelin Bib Gourmand list since 2023. He is the first hawker with a Bib Gourmand for mee soto and mee rebus.
WATCH: Singapore’s Michelin Bib Gourmand hawkers — Selamat Datang Warong Pak Sapari (22:35)
Besides his stall, Selamat Datang Warong Pak Sapari, he now has five franchised stalls across Singapore.
And with that expansion, the On The Red Dot series, I Am A Hawker, explores what he must do to protect the authenticity of his father’s recipes.
It is among the challenges faced by four Michelin-honoured stalls featured on the programme, along with the question that looms ever larger: Whither the future?
A SURPRISE AND POINT OF PRIDE
When Sumadi first received news of a Michelin award for his stall, he thought it was a joke.
Stall assistant Mohamed Aza Hari Rawi (left) with Sumadi, recounting how they learnt of their first Bib Gourmand.
Stall assistant Mohamed Aza Hari Rawi had phoned to say there was a letter from Michelin waiting for him — which Sumadi disbelieved because his car never had Michelin tyres. “Too expensive for me,” he quipped.
Only when he opened the envelope and saw the Michelin sticker did he remember the company’s food awards such as the Bib Gourmand, which recognises the world’s best budget-friendly establishments.
“That was a surprise,” he recalled, because to him, his dishes were the “classic” mee soto and mee rebus.
Nonetheless, there is something distinct about his family’s mee soto. The broth has more than 20 spices, instead of the typical 10 to 18 spices, he said.
“A lot of customers say, ‘Hey, it’s quite different. (It has) the smell and the taste of the spice, rather than just a clear soup.’”
Soto is a traditional Indonesian soup.
The broth in mee soto is all-important, agreed Adam Shah Mohamed Zain, co-founder of The Halal Food Blog, who described Warong Pak Sapari’s broth as “very bold, very flavourful”.
“You see dozens of stalls selling mee soto. But not everyone is willing to go through the hassle of making it from scratch,” he said, “as opposed to using instant paste that you can get from the supermarket.”
Cost is a key factor. The most expensive ingredients in mee soto are the spices, according to Sumadi.
As for mee rebus, Adam Shah said if hawkers “don’t use proper ingredients, or they take shortcuts, the gravy will become watery very fast”. He sees this happening “a lot” nowadays.
Referring to Warong Pak Sapari’s mee rebus, he added: “If it remains thick like this, … you know that you’re getting good quality.”
Adam Shah Mohamed Zain reviewing Warong Pak Sapari’s mee rebus and mee soto.
He is “very proud” that the stall is the first with a Bib Gourmand for the two dishes.
“It’s a big deal,” he said, because “a lot of people grew up with these dishes, from the time we were kids until today”.
For Sumadi, the award makes him proud for another reason. “I thought I couldn’t do what my father did,” he said.
“The pressure is always there because I have to keep up … and make sure that whatever my father taught me isn’t lost.”
When his father died in hospital, it was “really unexpected”, he recalled, shedding a tear. “I believe he’d be happy because … I put (the stall) under his name — Warong Pak Sapari — to remember his name.”
The stall’s brightly lit fascia displaying its name.
AN OPPORTUNITY AND SOURCE OF STRESS
One thing his father would have said no to, however, would be franchising, said Sumadi. “Because he’d worry that I can’t control the quality.”
It was not long after the stall was awarded its first Bib Gourmand that people approached him to franchise the business. One of them was Dennis Loo, who became his franchise partner when they soon opened the first franchise.
“The Bib Gourmand is kind of an acknowledgement of the quality of your food,” said Sumadi, which is why, he added, Loo wanted to act quickly. But the eventual location — Lau Pa Sat — came as “quite a surprise” to him.
“It’s kind of a historical (and) tourist area, and the expectation is higher.”
Sumadi driving to Lau Pa Sat to do one of his outlet checks.
Six months after he earned his Bib Gourmand, a customer told him there was a difference in quality between the Lau Pa Sat stall and the Adam Road stall.
“I told him … ‘Thank you for the feedback, and I’ll look into it,’” recounted Sumadi, who felt responsible as the franchisor “because my name is there, … and the SOP (standard operating procedure) is there”.
While the Bib Gourmand has been given to his Adam Road stall, customers may think all the franchises have received a Michelin nod, he said. For him, that is a source of stress.
Noting that consistency is important, he added: “This is also branding.”
At the Adam Road stall, Aza Hari is also “a little bit stressed”. There have been more customers since it received the Bib Gourmand. And the queue moves slowly when there are many orders. “I have to (be) patient,” he said.
Aza Hari was also a stall assistant for Sumadi’s parents and his grandfather.
It can get “quite overwhelming” as there are only two people manning the stall at any given time, acknowledged Sumadi, who estimated the increase in customers to be at least 30 per cent.
Even before he opens the stall at 8am — after arriving at about 4am to prepare everything — a queue will start to form, as early as 7.45am.
“Sometimes we have to explain to them that (they must) wait for a while because we can’t serve (them) unless … everything is cooked well,” he said. “I was surprised they were willing to wait.”
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Sumadi’s late father would wake at about 1.30am to 2am to go to Tekka’s wet market and then bring his purchases to the stall. But now Sumadi has everything delivered, and he wakes at about 2.30am.
Sumadi leaving his flat at 3.30am.
“I don’t want (life) to be so hard, (as it was for) my father,” he said. “(What’s) important is you must have two or three good suppliers to send all your items.”
When he took over the business, he asked his wife, Rokiahti (Kathy) Bonyamin, to help him. So she quit her job as a manager in an international humanitarian organisation.
The couple had not planned on having their lifestyle and income disrupted. But they had to live “a simple life” compared to before, when they “used to travel a lot”, she said.
Sometimes “business wasn’t so good”, said Sumadi, so they had to use up some their savings. They had enough set aside, however, for their daughter who was studying overseas. And that was important, he added.
Sumadi with his wife, Rokiahti (Kathy) Bonyamin, in their car.
“Luckily, my children all understood (the situation). Sometimes we said, ‘Never mind, don’t buy this thing. This thing won’t run away. It’ll come another day,’” he shared.
Thinking back on the difficulties he has faced since young got him all teary-eyed. People even looked down on his parents, he lamented.
“When (my father) took over … from my grandfather, he said he’d try his best. So he worked hard,” said Sumadi. “That’s why I try to do (my) best.”
He does not know if his son, a polytechnic student studying electrical engineering, will want to take over in future.
But as a way of preserving his family’s legacy regardless, he and his wife came up with a mee soto paste and mee rebus paste in 2017 for his father’s recipes “to be shared”.
Packets of Warong Pak Sapari’s pastes at a Tekka wet market stall.
The pastes, manufactured by NTUC Foodfare, are used at Warong Pak Sapari’s franchised stalls to maintain consistency and are also sold to businesses — but not in the supermarket because “we aren’t ready yet”, he said.
Reflecting on his journey as a hawker so far, he remarked: “(It) isn’t an easy life. You have to sacrifice. … You must have faith in what you’re doing.”
His grandfather “always thought” about the survival of the business, while his father “thought of the family and … the running of the business”.
“But (when it) comes to me,” he said, “I must think of the family and the future of the business.”
Watch this episode of the I Am A Hawker series here. The programme, On The Red Dot, airs on Channel 5 every Friday at 9.30pm.
You may also be interested in:
Source: CNA/dp
Newsletter
CNA Insider
Subscribe to the best of CNA Insider
CNA's best current affairs documentaries with a deeper look at issues affecting Asia, sent to your inbox weekly.
Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Download here
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app
Join here
Continue reading...