#GOLDEN DIM SUM FULL#

The batter consists of just rice flour and potato starch, which he stirs and spoons onto a wet cloth placed over a steamer. At the start, I was very flustered and kept making mistakes, but it’s better now,” chirps Pik Yung.Īccording to Yiu Man, the cheong fun recipe he uses is an adaptation from the one he used at Crystal Jade. “He needed my help, so of course I helped – but it’s hard and tiring. He chides her when she sprinkles the shallots over the congee a little messily – but gently, and she boxes him in the arm in return.

His steely demeanour cracks somewhat when it comes to his wife, a long-time homemaker who now takes orders and plates the rice rolls after he’s cooked them.

You can’t just hire people and teach them, then expect them to cook it well,” he scoffs. He waves his hand offhandedly when we ask if he has fears of being crowded out by other HK-style chee cheong fun hawkers, some of whom are expanding aggressively. Yiu Man decided to become a cheong fun hawker after decades preparing and tasting the dish.

#GOLDEN DIM SUM FULL#

In 2021, he decided to call it quits: “I’ve been working for 46 years, so for my last few years before retiring, I wanted to try working for myself.” Being a hawker was ideal, as it’d give him full control over his working hours, he says. His most recent appointment before becoming a hawker was as dim sum head chef at Select Group (whose concepts includes Hong Kong Sheng Kee Pau and Pho Street) for three years. He returned to Crystal Jade Culinary Concept Holdings as chief chef, where he continued to oversee dim sum production for another eight years. The couple decided to return to Singapore to raise their daughter (a grad who’s now working in marketing here). I discussed it with my wife, and I knew that if I gave it up, it’d be very difficult to get it again,” he shares. “But who knew I was so lucky to get my PR. He stayed for five years before going over to Yauatcha in London for a year as head chef. Thereafter, he made his way to Singapore with his wife, and found a job in 2001 as executive dim sum chef at Crystal Jade, overseeing dim sum production at various outlets. We weren’t so lucky to get a education before working,” he shares. “Last time, everyone came out to work first. Before that, he started out at no-frills tea houses when he was only 13, right after primary school. Speaking to us in a mixture of Mandarin and Cantonese, Yiu Man talks us through his impressive resume: back in Hong Kong, he worked at the likes of Hotel Miramar in Tsim Sha Tsui (now rebranded to The Mira Hong Kong) as a dim sum chef. Now both Singaporeans, they also sell Cantonese congee and Hong Kong-style glutinous rice studded with lup cheong (waxed sausage) and shiitake mushrooms.Īll photos cannot be reproduced without permission from 8days.sg

There, he and his peppy 49-year-old wife (previously a homemaker and also from Hong Kong), Chan Pik Yung, hawk the chee cheong fun they grew up with – silky made-to-order rice flour rolls stuffed with char siew or prawns and drizzled in a savoury soy-based sauce – rather than the thicker, sweeter Singapore version.

He hung up his chef’s whites to open Sing Lung HK Cheong Fun on January 11 in an airy kopitiam beside the more popular Golden Mile Food Centre. The veteran chef also had a one-year stint at Yauatcha, a formerly Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in London. Sing Lung HK Cheong Fun is this year’s new entrant: it’s run by feisty native Hong Kong-born Kong Yiu Man, 59, who spent the last four decades honing his dim sum skills in Hong Kong teahouses, hotels and Crystal Jade Culinary Concept Holdings once he came to Singapore in 2000 (his last position with the CJ group was as chief chef he left in 2015). Last year, we saw a bumper crop of Chinese restaurant chef-turned-hawkers peddling their take on the well-loved breakfast staple, chee cheong fun.

Golden dim sum