No Asking Price For Min Jiang Kueh Recipe After Kueh Pulau Pinang Hawker Closes Stall
His new spot in the kopitiam, Ah Bee said, was just too cramped to continue his operations. “If they didn’t move my stall I would have continued working until I couldn’t,” he told us. So Ah Bee decided to wind up his stall on Aug 31. “On my last day there, there was a long queue from 6.30am,” he shared.
On selling his min jiang kueh recipe
It’s not unusual these days to hear of longtime hawkers attempting to sell their recipes before they retire, like Maxwell Food Centre’s China Street Fritters or Toa Payoh Lor 4 bak chor mee stall Lai Heng, who recently made headlines for asking $500,000 for a complete takeover of their business and recipes.
When we asked Ah Bee if he would sell his pancake recipes, he had no clear answer. The hawker hadn't even thought about profiting from his brand, and had only entertained his “good friend”, a taxi driver, who insisted on learning how to make min jiang kueh from him.
“I said to him, ‘You’re doing well driving. You want to learn how to make min jiang kueh for what?’ But he insisted on it,” recalled a bemused Ah Bee, who ended up accepting a token ang pow from his friend in return.According to Ah Bee, the reward of imparting his recipes is not the money. “I can teach people how to make my pancakes if they are willing to uphold my standard — even do it better than me — and they can make a living out of it,” he said.
A hypothetical asking price
As for how much he intends to ask if he sells his recipes, Ah Bee pauses for a long time before saying: “People can quote a price, and I’ll see if it’s suitable.” He was reluctant to put a price on his recipes, as he said: “I’m not trying to be a min jiang kueh master teaching people how to make pancakes, I don’t think I’m qualified for that.”
This is in spite of Ah Bee having refined his recipes since he was a child, tasked by his father to sell min jiang kueh at pasar malams. The humble pancakes may appear simple to make, but Ah Bee averred that making good traditional min jiang kueh requires a lot of nuanced skills.
“For example, you cannot just use the flour to make batter right after it’s delivered; you have to let it sit for a few days so the pancake is crispier,” he said. “And you need to get the heat right while cooking so the pancake can remain soft inside — a lot of my customers have told me that my pancakes are exceptionally soft.”Ah Bee also makes his fillings by hand from scratch, instead of buying them from a factory supplier: he fries and grinds peanuts for the min jiang kueh, and sweetens grated coconut with gula melaka. For all that effort, he sells his pancakes at just $1 a piece.
Starting a home-based business
The good news for Ah Bee’s customers is that he is planning to continue selling his min jiang kueh from home, a one-room rental flat in Buangkok where he lives with his wife.
A home-based business may be more suitable for him, Ah Bee reckoned. “You have to pay rent for coffeeshop stalls and be subjected to the management’s attitude, but you don’t have to worry about things like rent when you sell your food from home,” he pointed out. While he knows basic social media terms like “Facebook”, Ah Bee said he is enlisting the help of his children to market his biz.
He happily shared with us that he had already “ordered some flour” to experiment with making min jiang kueh at home, estimating that he will be ready to take orders in “about two weeks’ time.” The setup, he said, will likely be arranged according to staggered time slots for collection. “I can make the pancakes, my wife will help set them aside and people can come collect them,” he said.
Photos: Alvin Teo
