Hougang Muah Chee – Delicious Little Black Gems worth Queuing for

Queuing must be Singaporeans’ favourite pastime but would you queue 30 minutes or more for something that will be devoured in less than 5 minutes? Well, when it comes to Hougang Muah Chee, we would! Following his father’s footsteps, Mr. Teo started making muah chee at a tender age of 14 and took over his father as a second-generation hawker. Mr. Teo has been in the business for about 60 years and in the past, he prepares all the raw ingredients by hand, from milling rice to flour, to roasting and grinding peanuts for the muah chee coating. Some of these processes have been taken over by machines nowadays but Mr. Teo strongly insists on manually proportioning each ball of muah chee, meticulously pinching each small globule and dabbing a dollop of shallot oil on them before tossing them in either grounded peanuts or black sesame. Mr. Teo explained that the muah chee loses its springy-ness if snipped with scissors.

Indeed, the muah chee here tastes artisanal as it is so much “tenderer” than the typical chewy types we get elsewhere. We actually went around trying other muah chee stalls after trying Hougang Muah Chee just to make our own comparisons. Another good thing about Mr. Teo’s muah chee is the coating of grounded peanuts and black sesame. It wasn’t overly sweetened with sugar unlike the other stalls where we could detect sugar bits in their peanut coating. The coating here is fragrant and gives a good crunch! It’s so addictive we couldn’t help popping one after the other into our mouths. Moreover, it is served warm so you really get the maximum enjoyment out of this snack!

This nostalgic Hougang Muah Chee brought us back to our childhood days and it’s almost impossible to find such artisanal muah chee that’s still made by hands in the 21st century. Although the big portion we had was priced steeper at $5.50, we felt worthwhile paying due to the tedious, back-breaking manual work that goes behind serving you their delicious plate of muah chee.

MissTamChiak.com made anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.