Japanese Restaurant Owner Who Lost $100K In Biz Becomes Curry Rice Hawker
Located at Chinatown Complex Food Centre, Jiakali, which means “eat curry” in Hokkien, stands out with its funky signboard. The curry rice stall opened on 18 July 2023 with a simple menu, serving chicken, mutton, pork rib and chicken cutlet Indian-inspired curry with bread or rice.
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The stall is single-handedly run by Larine Goh, 39, who tells 8days.sg that she “does everything, reaching [the stall] around 6am” and only leaving at 9pm. The first-time hawker used to own a casual Japanese fusion restaurant called Oh! My Bento Booze at Kovan, which she ran for five years before closing it down last December.
Larine shut down her restaurant due to “increasing rental, manpower and cost [issues]”, which caused her to lose over $100K in her final year of operations. Despite the steep losses and punishing schedule, she chose to stay in F&B and became a hawker, which arguably requires more hard work as a one-woman show. “Many people ask me why [I became a hawker], but I still like the food industry — it’s my passion”. She invested about $20K into opening Jiakali. Why sell curry instead of sticking to Japanese food? She reasons, “Japanese food is quite readily available these days, so there’s no point fighting the giants”.
Chicken curry, $5
Indian-style curry with toned down spices
And why Indian-style curry? Larine says she’s a “huge fan of Indian food and prefers thicker curries with different spices'' as opposed to milder Chinese-style curry. She came up with her recipe through trial and error, describing it as “90 percent Indian curry”, but with slight tweaks to “suit more people’s [taste buds]”.
Mutton curry, $6.50
While 8days.sg hasn’t dropped by the stall yet, Larine says her curries are stronger on spices, a bit more fiery and less coconutty than Chinese curries. But unlike most Indian curries, she adds house-made chicken stock to it, which she says mellows the heat a little.
The menu
What we find unusual at Jiakali is both the Indian and Chinese influences in the curries. For instance, there is pork rib ($6) and chicken cutlet ($5) paired with curry — items usually found at Chinese curry rice stalls. But then there’s also the Indian standard of mutton curry ($6.50) here. Unsurprisingly, the most popular item on Jiakali’s menu is the universally loved chicken curry ($5).
Pork rib curry, $6
Larine tells 8days.sg she used to sell masala fish and prawn curry but later removed them from her menu to cut costs. She plans to re-introduce seafood curry when business picks up.
Jiakali is located at #02-051 Chinatown Complex Food Centre, 335 Smith St, S050335. Open Tue - Sun 10am-8pm. Closed Mon. More info via Facebook.
Photos: Larine Goh
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