VERY SPECIAL: LOO’S HAINANESE CURRY RICE
By Carolyn Oei, 11 January 2022
Cover image of Mr Loo by Marc Nair. And that’s Melvin in the cap in the background.
I’m a proud Singaporean. I love my hawker food and I love my hawker brothers and sisters.
Loo Kia Chee is high on my list of special hawker lao bans. [I was chowing down on his Hainanese curry rice as I wrote this on 7 January.] The man is a true manifestation of “salt of the earth”. He works hard, is never rude, doesn’t overcharge and always - always - piles on extra rice and his magic curry to our plates.
Special.
Mr Loo’s work shirts are white cotton t-shirts not from Uniqlo. These are paired with dark-coloured bermudas. By about 4.30pm, the end of the work day for Mr Loo, he ambles to this car, opens the doors to cool it out a bit and changes into a regular t-shirt. In the carpark. We’ve watched him do this on several occasions.
“Watched” is such a suspicious word; certainly more suspicious than “seen”.
He parks his car in the carpark across from where we live. Our balcony is a great vantage point from which we observe (and, sometimes, police) our neighbourhood. And then he drives off.
Special.
My managing to buy food from Mr Loo on any given day is nothing short of fortuitous. COVID-19 has been hard on so many people but also a game-changing thing for so many others. The queues for Loo’s Hainanese Curry Rice were ridiculous pre-COVID and pre-lockdown in Singapore.
The queues now are just soul-crushing.
I’d reckon it’s a 25-minute wait, standing in line (rain or shine), at the minimum. On really tear-your-hair-out days, it’s more like 40 minutes. But lockdown did something for Mr Loo. All them WFH (work-from-home) folks started buying their and their families’ packed lunches from Mr Loo and they don’t see the need to quit now. It was only a four-person queue when I went downstairs that day. So, I jumped right in. By the time I was done, the queue was snaking down Eng Watt Street with maybe 15 people in line.
Special.
When we took this photo in 2015, Mr Loo insisted on wearing a nicer shirt. He’s otherwise in his plain crew-neck white cotton t-shirt not from Uniqlo. Photo: Marc Nair.
Of course, there are times when I use my “I (heart) Mr Loo” card and jump the queue. Either I ask Melvin* to place an order for me or I ask Mr Loo himself.
There was this one time, Mr Loo was taking a break in the back alley, he was standing barefoot and trying to get some light exercise in. Bless him. I walked up to the man, interrupted his important “alone time” and thrust my tingkat at him.
“Please, Lao Ban. Please.”
He sighed ever so quietly. “Come back at 12.” He took my tingkat and walked back into the coffeeshop.
Special.
[*Melvin’s another salt-of-the-earth guy. He runs a little pastry stall called Nicher in the same coffeeshop although he isn’t there much anymore because he’s expanded the business. More on Nicher here.
The 7 January interaction with Mr Loo was slightly different. It was convivial, yes, but it was also almost business-like. He spoke to me in English. He rarely speaks to me in English.
I handed him my food box.
“How is your husband?”
“He’s good. Very busy!”
“Busy is good, lah.”
Then he slips back into Mandarin, “We’re moving to the market in mid-March.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Change of environment.”
He hands me an updated business card.
“Spread the word for me on the internet.”
Very Special.
So, this one’s for Mr Loo.
“From 18 March 2022, you can queue for Loo’s Hainanese Curry Rice at Tiong Bahru Market & Food Centre, 30 Seng Poh Road, #02-67/68 (beside Teck Seng Soya Bean Milk). ”