Ex-fine dining chef opens hawker stall selling customisable rice bowls

Tanjong Pagar Plaza Market & Food Centre recently welcomed a new addition to its hawker lineup – Braissers Rice Bowl, serving customisable rice bowl sets!

Braissers Rice Bowl isn’t your usual hawker stall – there’s a bit of a backstory behind how it started. It turns out that the owner, Wei Jie, used to work as a professional chef at some high-end restaurants and fine dining eateries. These include Iru Den, Birds of a Feather, Bam! and Le Bistrot du Sommelier. He now uses these cooking skills in his current pursuit to serve affordable yet excellent food to customers.

Before his current business, Wei Jie was also active at his friend’s hawker stall, Meat & Rice, at ABC Brickworks Food Centre. He worked under the business that his friend started, and with the help of his friend’s father, they developed the recipe for its braised pork rice bowls.

While working at Meat & Rice, he noticed that there were instances where customers requested that they didn’t want certain items in their rice bowls. This observation inspired him to attempt opening his own stall and try out a different model of rice bowls that would allow diners to customise their dishes.

At Braissers Rice Bowl, a base bowl starts with short grain rice, meat and salted vegetables. There are 4 options for protein: Pork Jowl (S$5.80), Duck Breast (S$6.30), Chicken (S$5.80) and Pork Trotter (S$5.80).

A selection of side options is available for diners to mix and match to create a bowl of their liking, such as Mushroom (S$1) and Taukwa (S$1).

The best-selling meats are Pork Jowl and Duck, but Chicken is a popular option for the more health-conscious people. Meanwhile, Pork Trotter does well among older customers due to its high level of collagen and tenderness.

There are a limited number of bowls daily, so come down early to Braissers Rice Bowl when they open at 10.30am for a taste of good quality food!

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