Cover Mama's Home-Cooked Dishes (Image: Founder Bak Kut Teh)

The founders of the stalwart bak kut teh joint has launched the Mama's Home-Cooked Dishes menu to honour of the matriarch of their house

Nigel Chua, who runs the popular Founder Bak Kut Teh restaurant with his father (and its founder), Chua Chwee Whatt, says that even though it has been two years since the passing of his mother, “my father and I have never stopped missing her”.

So as a tribute to her from a husband and a son, the restaurant, which was established in 1978, launched a Mama’s Home-Cooked Dishes menu in March, available exclusively at its Hotel Boss outlet at Jalan Sultan. The menu features 12 nostalgic dishes, including “Hong Kong Supper” and “Mama’s Signature Simple Steamed Fish”, tweaked to suit modern taste buds. “We took notes of the recipes she verbally passed on to us and fine‑tuned them,” explains Chua, who admits that Hokkien cooking can be on the saltier and oilier side.

(Related: Where You Can Get Cakes Delivered for Mother’s Day During The Circuit Breaker Extension In Singapore)

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Photo 1 of 6 Year 1988 Teochew steamed fish
Photo 2 of 6 Once Upon a Gathering
Photo 3 of 6 Best with the Rice
Photo 4 of 6 "Ah Lau" Pan Fried Fish
Photo 5 of 6 Grandma's Pork Belly
Photo 6 of 6 Cheeky Secret

To offer diners an insight into the family’s fond memories of its matriarch, the dishes have been given quirky names. Chua’s favourite is “Too Moody to Eat”, a dish of pan‑fried garlic marinated chicken. He recalls how he and his siblings would spend all day playing outdoors and refuse to eat during mealtimes. “Mama had a trick up her sleeve. She would prepare this dish to entice us, and it worked every time.”

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Photo 1 of 6 Hong Kong Supper
Photo 2 of 6 Neighbour's "Ho Liao"
Photo 3 of 6 Mama's Signature Simple Steamed Fish
Photo 4 of 6 Mama's Stamp of Approval
Photo 5 of 6 White Braised Duck
Photo 6 of 6 Too Moody to Eat

To get her children to eat more vegetables, Chua’s mother would secretly add spinach and mushrooms to her home-made tofu dish, which they always happily polished off, without knowing the “secret ingredients”—hence the name, “Cheeky Secret”.

The dishes were always made with love. Chua reminisces, “As I got older, I realised Mama’s commitment and love for us was unwavering.”

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