2020 and the pandemic saw many people pivoting from longtime professional careers to the F&B industry. But while most were content with home-based food businesses, interior designers Kinstons Sim, 40, and Louis Chia, 43, opened HeyMe, a hawker stall specialising in prawn broth-based dishes in Upper Boon Keng Market last month. One of their signature dishes is “prawn porridge” — which looks pretty similar to the popular pao fan.

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Kinstons (left in pic) and Louis belonged to different interior design firms (they met in 2014 at an exhibition), and had each found some success — with over eight and 15 years of experience in the industry respectively. Some of the major projects completed by Louis’s company, Archetype Ptd. Ltd. (of which he was the sole owner) included nightclubs in Clarke Quay, such as Attica and FClub, and he had been featured on CNA for his work in interior design.

However, according to Louis, they both started getting more jaded about their prospects in the industry. “The industry isn’t as bright as it used to be, back in the good old days,” said Louis, who is married with kids.

“At that time [in the late 2010s], it was getting very saturated.” He also cited the shifting mindset of clients, who “started expecting more and more things for free”.

Eventually, Kinstons decided to leave the interior design industry completely in 2017. Louis himself remained in the industry, though he drastically scaled back on his business — downsizing his staff of 30 to just himself — and only did small residential projects and the occasional commercial project by referral.

“I would do perhaps two to three projects a year. It was just enough to support my family,” says Louis, who has three kids aged between 4 to 10 years old.

Born and raised in Penang, Louis describes the impact that his roots had on how he views food. “Food culture in Penang is very, very strong — particularly when it comes to hawker food.” Having grown up in an environment where he was “surrounded by so much cheap and good food”, Louis’s belief that delicious food didn’t have to be expensive was solidified. As such, he had always felt an affinity towards the F&B industry.

In 2018, his break came when he got the chance to start his own eatery in a Tanjong Pagar shophouse unit, selling Penang-style minced meat noodles. “It was all going well initially. However, I ran into funding issues last-minute.” Due to this, he had to give up the space and his dream of starting his own eatery.

“This failure was something that really stuck with me. It gave me the drive to want to start again in the future.”

After he left his design firm in 2017, Kinstons explored a couple of different industries — he even became a car salesman at one point — but he couldn’t settle on a job he wanted to pursue long-term. “It was quite a rough start, those two years.”

However, an unexpected opportunity in 2019 changed things. A good friend of his introduced him to the lady boss of a prawn mee shop in an Ang Mo Kio kopitiam who was looking for an assistant. Seeing it as an opportunity to glean some cooking knowledge, Kinstons took on the offer.

“Eventually, I progressed to the point that I was able to do pretty much everything — from cooking the broth to running the shop’s operations day-to-day.”

Early this year, Kinstons and Louis met over a pint to catch up. In the midst of their conversation, Louis suddenly had a brainwave. “Kinstons can already run a prawn mee stall by himself even though he’s working for someone else. I started and failed my noodle shop due to cashflow issues, but my passion for food is still strong.

“Together, we have the expertise, knowledge and passion when it comes to food. So what if we joined forces to start a shop of our own?”

Kinstons and Louis then spent the first two months of 2020 doing R&D for their menu and perfecting their recipes for a prawn broth speciality stall — playing off Kinstons’s expertise and experience. “All the recipes are based on what I know, with many tweaks along the way to improve the flavors.”

Despite the circuit breaker and COVID-19 restrictions, the two were determined to set up their stall. “Even in COVID times, we persist,” says Louis.

“Even though we had perfected our recipes, cash was still tight for the both of us,” says Louis. To get their stall off the ground, they had to think of ways to either bring in investments or subsidise their costs.

After doing some research, Kinstons and Louis came upon the NEA’s Incubation Stall Programme, and realised it was the perfect way to get them that much-needed jumpstart. After applying in March and submitting their business plan, Kinstons presented his final dishes to a panel of judges at the food tasting session. They passed with flying colors.

On why they decided on Upper Boon Keng Market — located a walk away from Kallang MRT station — Louis replies that out of the other options like Smith Street in Chinatown and at Golden Mile Food Centre (which is closed for renovations till the end of February next year), this location would get them decent footfall with not much competition.

HeyMe opened for business last December. “Business has been slowly picking up since,” says Louis, though it could be better. We’re guessing it’s the location of the stall — tucked all the way at the back of the hawker centre — that’s affecting the traffic somewhat. “We’re confident that after more people try our food, business will pick up.”

Kinstons and Louis hope to open more outlets across the island in the future, though their focus is now on getting their first stall at Upper Boon Keng Food Centre off the ground before looking into expansion plans. “By having more stalls around Singapore, this will sustain both our families”, says Louis.

HeyMe’s menu is succinct. All their dishes are prawn-based — there’s prawn mee, prawn porridge and one side dish: prawn meat roll.

The first thing we noticed was how reasonable the prices were. A basic bowl of prawn mee and prawn porridge each starts from $3.50, with the most expensive items being the largest portion of their Speciality Prawn Noodle and Prawn Porridge, which goes for $9. We’d be hard-pressed to find prawn dishes at this price point from most other hawkers.

“At HeyMe, our flagship ingredient is the broth,” says Louis. “It’s used as the base for all our main dishes, and a lot of hard work and soul goes into prepping it.”

According to the pair, the broth is made every day, from a whopping 10kg of prawn shells and prawn heads (sans the meat), as well as 10kg of pork bones and another six ingredients that they prefer not to disclose. That’s over 20kg of ingredients for one batch of soup.

Kinstons stays back after the stall closes at 2pm to prep the broth — this includes deshelling all the grey prawns and making sure the broth is up to par. The prawn meat is then used in the regular prawn noodles and prawn porridge.

“The shells and the head are really what we’re getting at. I guess you can consider all the remaining meat a ‘byproduct’ of our soup base!” laughs Louis. It simmers for over three hours, before it’s ready to be kept for the next day.

At first glance, HeyMe’s Prawn Porridge looks a lot like pao fan — hot seafood-based soup poured over rice. The most basic portion comes topped with two pieces of grey prawn, as well as a few slices of pork loin and fish cake.

When asked if they were riding on the recent pao fan craze, Louis shakes his head. “We started out not following any trend — I didn’t even really know what ‘pao fan’ was until recently! He adds: “there’s actually a similar dish made with seafood in Northern Malaysia, that’s where we got our inspiration from. To me, this is the perfect fusion of our two backgrounds — Kinstons’ expertise in prawn broth, and my own culture.”

As we dig in, we start to identify some differences. Unlike regular pao fan where the broth is poured over cooked rice just before serving, Kinstons and Louis simmer the rice in the boiling pot of prawn soup for two minutes, until the rice grains change color and the soup thickens up. Their rendition also omits the usual crispy deep-fried rice that’s sprinkled on pao fan. During their R&D process, they also discovered that a mix of old and new rice grains give the best texture. The resulting mouthfeel of the prawn porridge is indeed softer and thicker than pao fan — it reminds us a bit of Teochew porridge, albeit less watery.

Each seafood-kissed spoonful saturates the almost-melty rice grains. Compared to the regular prawn broth on its own, the flavours are slightly richer, probably due to the liquid being thickened by the creamy rice. The thin pork slices are tender as well, with no trace of gaminess.

Like the Prawn Porridge, the Soup Prawn Noodles come with two pieces of prawn, pork loin and fishcake. On its own, the soup has a clean crustacean sweetness shining through with just the mildest hint of brightness because it has a tiny dash of vinegar in it (the hawkers say this is to round off the flavours). “Some of our older customers gave us feedback that it has that ‘lost traditional taste’ that they don’t really find anymore,” says Kinstons. It’s a pleasant broth to sip on as it isn’t overly salty — it’s not as rich as some of our fave prawn mee soups, but we can appreciate the balance in this.

The Speciality Dry Prawn Noodles are a major upgrade in terms of toppings — with more pork slices, fishcake, and crowned with two hulking Ang Kar (red leg) prawns. Not bad, for $9.

“We wanted to come up with a special dry noodle recipe, one that’s different from your typical prawn mee,” says Louis. According to him, five ingredients go into each bowl, along with a splash of concentrated prawn broth.

It reminds us of an umami-fied bak chor mee, with a strong edge of heady prawn flavour in the sauce that clings to the springy mee kia noodles. The touch of sambal here is fantastic, adding just the right amount of heat and salt — Kinstons makes the sambal from scratch as well, which takes three hours to grind, fry and blend with belacan. Delish.

The only side dish on HeyMe’s menu, the Prawn Meat Rolls are made from Kinstons’ family recipe. “This recipe originally belonged to my late grandmother. I managed to learn it from an only surviving relative who knows the recipe.” The Prawn Meat Rolls are limited as Kinstons and Louis makes them from scratch each day.

$2.50 gets you one plump roll of sliced ngoh hiang stuffed with prawns and minced pork, fried to a crispy golden-brown. Incredibly juicy and tasty — you can see pieces of diced prawns in its cross-section with delightfully crunchy cubes of water chestnut. Kinstons’ late grandma would be proud.

More than decent prawn noodles made with heart, at a reasonable price point. Definitely try the unique Prawn Porridge and moreish Prawn Meat Rolls.

HeyMe is at #01-84 Upp Boon Keng Market & Food Centre, 17 Upper Boon Keng Rd 380017. Open Sat to Thurs 7am - 3pm. Closed Fri.

Photos: Kelvin Chia/ 8 Days

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