Satisfying your taste bud
Self-professed foodie quits events director job to be a hawker
Ms Shen Tan hopes her stall, Madam Tan’s, at Maxwell Food Centre will be a launchpad for a chain of similar outlets. Her nasi lemak has received a rave review on AsiaOne’s food site SoShiok.com and the stall is set to be profitable ahead of her projected time frame. — ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
By Cassandra Chew
JUST a few months ago, Ms Shen Tan, 37, was rubbing shoulders with corporate titans in her role as events director for business magazine publisher Forbes.
She often dealt with some of the world’s richest men, including property magnate Li Ka-shing and steel king Lakshmi Mittal.
Now she is living her dream – working long hours running her own nasi lemak stall at Maxwell Food Centre, unfazed at launching her business amid a recession.
Indeed Ms Tan hopes the stall ‘Madam Tan’s', which opened in June, will be a launchpad for a chain of similar outlets.
So why the dramatic change of career?
Ms Tan, who spent more than a decade managing events and conferences, has had a long-time passion for cooking.
But part of the inspiration also came from Hong Kong property mogul Ronnie Chan, who told his story at the Forbes Global CEO Conference here in 2006 that she helped to organise.
Mr Chan, a billionaire, described the way his father refused to support him beyond his school years.
This spurred him to earn his own keep, which eventually gave rise to Hang Lung Properties, one of Hong Kong’s largest real estate developers today.
‘I was very inspired by him,’ recalls Ms Tan. ‘What struck me most was that he had the passion to follow his dreams.’
She quit her position at Forbes last November to pursue her love of cooking, and spent months on research, scouting locations and creating her signature dishes, before opening the stall.
The deepening recession did not trouble her. ‘Any new business, for me, is the same, recession or not. The same business concepts of keeping overheads low and cash flow going apply.’
She highlights some advantages of setting up shop during a recession.
Moving from a corporate environment, the opportunity costs are lower. She was able to pick out good help easily, and suppliers were more willing to give her a break.
But unlike many hawkers, who are content to run a single stall, Ms Tan wants to build a recognisable brand name through which she will market products like her extra spicy nasi lemak chilli.
Her focused approach to building a successful business has been evident from the start.
Before deciding on a location, she spent six months observing different food centres, studying her target market to determine the food preferences of different demographic groups, and the ideal location for her business.
Over seven months, she developed her own range of signature dishes, including crispy pork, roast beef and spiced mutton chop.
She allows herself no shortcuts. Her food is free of monosodium glutamate (MSG) because she recognises that ‘flavour can be layered in so many different ways, and customers can tell the difference’.
Besides a bright and clean signboard with professionally taken photographs of her dishes, Ms Tan dons a ‘Got Lemak?’ T-shirt, a play on the American milk campaign slogan ‘Got Milk?’, for easy brand recognition.
She avoids being too reliant on the passing lunch and dinner crowds, which can ebb and flow according to the weather. To do this, she caters to nearby offices and delivers for orders over $30.
She even engaged a public relations consultant to publicise her food in the media and online, through her website and social networks Facebook and Twitter.
Considering her careful attention to detail, including two- and three-year business plans, it may come as a surprise that this is Ms Tan’s first business venture.
The University of New South Wales Master of Commerce graduate was immersed in the world of events and conference management for over a decade.
Her passion for local fare began miles away in Sydney when she was a post-graduate student missing the comforts of Singaporean food.
She got on the phone with her mother, Doreen, 64, a former corporate travel agent, and after 20 minutes of instructions, Ms Tan was on her way, preparing carrot cake, prawn noodles, claypot chicken and stewed pork buns.
When she returned to Singapore in 2001, the self-professed foodie craved nasi lemak but could not find any that met her standards.
‘I wanted to return to our roots of old kampung-style nasi lemak when the rice was really very ‘lemak’. That’s how I decided this was what I should sell,’ says Ms Tan, who prefers her rice to taste richly of coconut milk.
With seed funding of $20,000 – mostly capital injections from friends and family – she paid the deposit for her stall in May, and dived in headfirst.
Every day, she wakes up by 5am to open her stall at 7.30am. She cooks for at least four hours straight and spends the rest of her day serving customers.
Her schedule leaves little time and energy for much of a social life, but these are sacrifices she is willing to make.
‘I am tired, but I don’t feel like it’s a chore. In any start-up, you will see the same passion because it’s very difficult to make a business succeed,’ she says.
But she is unafraid of the challenges.
She first needed to adjust to a much smaller cooking space than she was used to. She relied on her helper, who has 30 years’ experience, to learn the best operating procedures in tight spaces.
On one occasion, the drains got clogged and she had to manage with water around her ankles for over an hour.
The long hours of cooking have also put a strain on her body. Ms Tan now suffers a wrist condition – carpal tunnel syndrome – as a result of the long cooking hours. Occasionally, it is even difficult to clench her fist.
She admits to days when it all seems a little overwhelming.
‘When you are peeling onions for hours or de-seeding chillies and your hands burn and itch, you do encounter moments of self-defeat, but this is normal for any entrepreneur.’
In those times, she draws inspiration from Iron Chef Cat Cora, who during a television interview encouraged young chefs never to give up.
‘She said you have to follow your heart. That struck a chord with me because I don’t want to keep thinking about what it should have, could have or would have been if I was doing something else.’
And so she presses on, and takes courage from the strong support her family provides.
Once a week, her mother and aunts descend upon the stall in ‘Got Lemak?’ T-shirts and help serve as walking advertisements for Madam Tan’s.
When The Straits Times visited a month ago, one customer complimented Ms Tan on her rendang, which he described with delight as being very tender.
She also received a rave review on AsiaOne’s food site SoShiok.com, which described her rice as ‘so ‘lemak’ you can swim in it’.
Word of her nasi lemak has spread so quickly that the food is now sold out daily by lunch time, even after the quantity has been increased.
As such, Madam Tan’s looks set to be profitable in just nine weeks – almost two months ahead of Ms Tan’s projected time frame.
But the greatest reward?
‘I found my passion, and for the first time I feel I am really living my life,’ she says.
casschew@sph.com.sg
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