Haji Maksah Barkat Chahya Food Stall

Address Bk 221 B Boon Lay Place 01-106, Boon Lay Place Food Village

Opening Hours 6.30am-3pm/ 9pm-3am Closed on Mondays

They scoop about one hundred kilos of rice every day, except for weekends when the amount dramatically escalate. Of course, they are too polite to reveal the actual figure or perhaps they can’t be bothered to count as they are too busy turning in close to one thousand customers most nights at a churn rate of about forty seconds each.

Selling at an average price of $2-$3 dollars a portion, you go do the math. They are successful, due in no small part, to their methodic operations with an eight man team, manning a space half the size of your small HBD bedroom. The queue at mealtimes, are relentless. On weekday evenings, it snakes out of the hawker centre to the motorcycle park lots. And on weekends, it’s like a 4-D queue at a most-winners-booth for a top prize of $10 million.

I would venture that this is the longest nasi lemak queue in Singapore.

Of course, their nasi lemak is outstanding, but that’s the minor story here. I was ever curious just how they oil a hawker stall machinery to efficiently cater to such thronging crowds, especially on weekends, and most importantly, maintain consistency.

They put four workers outside the stall, three to handle orders and one to stack the hundreds of regular daily dapau orders. Four cooks handle the fried chicken, grilled otah, fried fish, ikan bilis kachang, fish fillet, sambal petai etc…They offer about 16 items each day.

“Sometimes I sell till I got no more strength to clip a chicken wing with the tong. I just scoop it over.”, shares Pak Untong Kasmani, the senior cousin who has been helping his younger relatives man the stall over the last two decades. It all started over three decades ago, when the late Haji Maksah started the humble stall there. They sell good and simple nasi lemak…no big deal. But when grandson Mr Badrol Hisham Ramli was asked to inherit the stall, business took a northward turn. His mother was then manning the stall in the mornings so Badrol decided to try his luck with the nocturnal hunger pangs.

He alluded to his customers’ feedback and delivered with “fresh, hot and cheap” makan. But what turned them in was the variety. “Slowly we began to introduce non regular nasi lemak toppings like hash browns, begedil, sambal sotong-which goes very fast, otah spring rolls, fried quartered chicken and mmmmm, oh yes, fish fillet”, Badrol lost count, I counted 15 on the shelf, but some items were being replenished. I gave up as the impatient queue was passing snide remarks, “ so popular already why need publicty, waste our time”.

I wasn’t there to recommend their dry, rich, soft and grainy nasi lemak (very kampong like) or their thick sweet, sour, savoury and spicy sambal (the type that purist frown upon but has mass appeal, especially to the majority Chinese customers).

I wanted to know how they handled the impatient queue and deliver effortlessly. He mumbled some jibberish that did not quite make sense till I witnessed what he said clearly, “Just give customers whatever they want, quickly and preferably with a smile”, even packing each ingredient separately, including the sambal, for a picky customer. She ordered seven items and they cleared her within one minute, without question and without a sigh. And every customer they know or recognize (60% are regulars), they make some friendly remark without pretense.

Their simple visual tricks like putting the fresh hot tub of steaming nasi out in front of the stall right before the customers was enticing. I doubt it was intentional; they just could not fit a fly (pun) into the crowded stall anymore.

As a customer who patiently stood through a 15-20 min queue, you will
be blitzed, when your turn arrives, with steaming hot rice, an array of
sixteen items, including the ubiquitous fried chicken) sambal if you
simply winked. And it all doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket. Chicken
wings, fried ikan selar (freshly fried and crispy), otah, ikan bilis
and peanuts, beckoned by the unusual sambal cockles, spicy fish cakes
and even sambal petai (stink beans). And it comes with a chap who will
patiently cajole you to try more stuff and will tambah (add more)

Their success model, I deduced, is the good old school theory of good and fresh makan, cheap price, bewildering variety and unpretentious warm service. It never fails because it is so basic.