For many Gen Zs, starting a small cafe or home-based business has become an appealing path, especially those focusing on trendy items such as matcha and French bakes. Yet few would choose to build their ventures around traditional heritage foods or take over long-standing hawker stalls. That’s what Gen-Z-run Teochew kueh store AhMah’s Legacy has done, blending tradition and modernity with inventive takes on ang ku kueh, muah chee and more.
Its owner, 27-year-old Shiny Phua, sees her store as a way to honour her grandmother, as well as change young people’s perceptions of traditional food.
Descending three floors into the basement of an old and dank mall near Upper Thomson Road, we found AhMah’s Legacy lit up brightly against a gloomy row of shuttered shops. As we visited on one of their prep days, Shiny was hand-making ang ku kueh tirelessly with the help of a full-timer, but still found boundless energy to welcome us into her store.
Shiny and I chatted over a cup of her favourite Longjing tea—an uncommon choice for two Gen Zs, but fitting for someone so rooted in tradition. Our conversation delved into what it means to be a young kueh maker today, and how AhMah’s Legacy is carrying the torch for a craft that might otherwise disappear.
The reminiscences of Shiny’s ah ma come in the form of kueh; from her savoury png kueh to the sweet ang ku kueh. An immigrant from China, she came to Singapore in the middle of the 20th century, peddling everything from low-cost ingredients, including eggs, to more premium handmade treats such as kueh.
Of course, those were just stories to Shiny, for she was born five years after her grandmother stopped selling her kueh in 1992. The kueh would be an occasional homemade affair, and her ah ma would make them when the family had the case of “zui ba yang” (itchy mouth).
“She’s the kind (of grandma) who, when you buy kueh from outside, she would say ‘I could do better’, and make it within the next week to show you that her version is better”, recounts Shiny. “Of course, whatever she made for our family was better than those outside”.
Memories of her ah ma would lead Shiny to conceptualise AhMah’s Legacy, initially as a part of her final year project at LaSalle, where she researched the loss of appreciation for traditional foods in Singapore.
“AhMah’s Legacy was created as an argument that a good story and a good brand are needed, alongside storytelling and visuals, to help traditional foods blossom”.
Her business would start during the COVID-19 lockdown period, during which she made kueh at home to be sold on the weekends, incorporating techniques that were imparted to her by her grandmother. The side hustle would later be realised as a full brick-and-mortar establishment two years later.
It’s quite hard to fathom that Shiny started this business fully from scratch, Solo Levelling-style. She tells me her grind when she opened her physical location was 18 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Before I had my first full-timer this year, I was handling everything by myself, one person handling the production, making, marketing, and whatnot. Of course, my family helps me a bit with things that I cannot do in my own time, like roasting peanuts. After all, there’s only 24 hours in a day, and I’m spending 18 hours working.”
As tough as that sounds, it was only the beginning of the hardships that AhMah’s Legacy faced. For one, rent prices. It was indeed quite striking to find the shop dug deep into an inaccessible Basement 3 of a rather ulu mall. The air-conditioning felt damp, and many shops were shuttered with a “For Rent” sign plastered on.
It all makes a lot of sense after Shiny explains that she would have to pay four times as much for a store that sees sunlight above. But that’s not even where it ends.
“You see this stall opposite? They just left because the rental just increased by 1.5 times”. Indeed, the shuttered stall lent to the gloominess of the facade. “I locked my space down for three years, and if I didn’t, my rent would have also gone up by 1.5 times this November. For this tiny 200 square foot place, that’s very bo hua (not worth)”.
“Being in this longkang, cheaper rent is a gamble. On some days you may get footfall, others you may not. Some weekdays I only sell $100 or less, and if it rains, GG, the sales are cut by half”.
Additionally, even running pop-ups and workshops is a heavy risk, as the meagre returns may not justify the uncertain effect of increasing her exposure.
“For the first year, I was doing one event every month for exposure, and for a one (woman) show, it was damn shag”. The glint in her eye almost seemed to betray the memories of her hardships. “Each pop-up, I only get about $120 to $150. I always had to ask myself, can this suffice or not?”
What I found most striking in our conversation was actually about customer perceptions of her products. You see, ang ku kueh is commonly known to be a cheap local snack that commonly costs about a dollar or two. As such, the prices of Shiny’s ang ku kueh, priced from $3.50 to $6, might come across as a big shock.
Shiny insists on using fresh sweet potatoes and glutinous rice flour for her ang ku kueh skins, instead of the cheaper and more widely used sweet potato flour. What you get is a much more supple skin texture that isn’t too sticky, but this results in a higher cost as well. The premium ingredients she uses for fillings also contribute heavily to her costs.
“I could sell cookies at $3.50, and nobody would (bat) an eye. If I sell cupcakes for $3.50, nobody would (bat) an eye. But when I sell ang ku kueh for $3.50, people shout and scream. It’s all about customer perceptions for these traditional foods, even though the cost price of ingredients and the production labour is a lot more”.
Many Singaporeans tend to associate traditional foods and snacks with being inexpensive. However, despite the premium ingredients and meticulous effort Shiny puts into crafting her products, customers may struggle to appreciate their value—especially when comparing them to old-school ang ku kueh that’s usually priced under $2.
This hit home for me after I dabao-ed Shiny’s kueh for my family. My grandmother had high praise after tasting her ang ku kueh, but when I told her how much they cost, I could almost feel the stabbing disapproval from her response:
“Why so expensive? I can buy ang ku kueh for less than $2 outside!”
Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom for Shiny, as the seeds she had sown over the past two years have finally borne fruit. AhMah’s Legacy, as a business, has been slowly but surely seeing growth, and Shiny has managed to take on a full-timer on board as well as a team of three rotating part-timers.
“Our growth is steady and slow, but still got growth better than no growth la”, she quips quirkily.
While Shiny incorporates the techniques she learnt from making ang ku kueh with her ah ma, Shiny’s spin on the traditional kueh is very much rooted in her own philosophies. For one, her stunningly bright and colourful kueh use zero artificial food colourings.
“My ah ma also used sweet potato in her ang ku kueh skin, but she did not shy away from food colouring”. Shiny pours me more tea as she continues. “There are a lot of health issues when it comes to food colourings, so I’ve been using beetroot, potatoes, and different vegetables to create different colours”.
Another obvious difference would be the unconventional fillings in her kueh, which range from pistachio to Biscoff.
“Being Gen Z, we grew up in this foodscape whereby we are exposed to many different cultures, foods, and textures. I knew I had to have a zhnged-up, modern version of these traditional foods here”.
For Shiny, preserving her ah ma’s heritage is not a matter of reproducing her techniques and products as a mirror copy, but rather of creating her own spin on them while staying true to their roots.
AhMah’s Legacy offers a wide menagerie of ang ku kueh variants, as well as a miscellany of other Teochew delights, all with a bold, modern twist. Just like every brand, the shop has a range of stalwart mainstay flavours, alongside more unique, experimental creations.
“Gen Zs nowadays are always going with the vibe, rather than the meaning behind the food or heritage”, laments Shiny. “I think how my kueh attract them is the aesthetics and unique flavours, and what keeps them coming back are the mainstay, classic ones”.
The Pure Pistachio Gu Kueh ($6) is Shiny’s signature creation; its pale jade skin harbours a rich filling made with toasted pistachios and pumpkin seed butter.
The Taro Milk Gu Kueh ($4) is made for orh nee fans: silky-smooth, deliciously creamy, and full of earthy taro flavours.
The Salted ($4) and Sweet Mung Bean Gu Kueh ($3.80) offer inventive twists, the former earthy and peppery with Sarawak spice, the latter creamy and rich with beetroot-tinted skin.
Other flavours include the more traditional Teochew Red Bean ($4.50) and Peanut Sesame ($4), the more eccentric Milo Gao ($4.50), and the Christmas-inspired Spiced Lotus Biscoff ($4.50).
Aside from ang ku kueh, AhMah’s Legacy offers other traditional Teochew dishes, such as Ah Mah’s Teochew Glutinous Rice ($8.50) and Shroomy Black Glutinous Rice ($5).
Shiny hand-pounds her muah chee the traditional way, creating chewy, bouncy Goma and Almond ($6.50) and Salty Pistachio ($9.50) variants topped with crunchy nuts and shallot oil.
As for the future ahead? Shiny knows there won’t be smooth tides upcoming—the ruthless F&B scene in Singapore shows no signs of calming, with rents soaring and preferences ever-changing. Yet Shiny remains positive that AhMah’s Legacy can get bigger and better.
“Ideally, if we can expand in the future, I would want a place where people can relax and chill, bring along their families, and feel at home”.
Watching Shiny arduously make her kueh and listening about her business struggles made me ponder the mountainous effort needed to conserve our traditional foods. To simply make kueh the original way may be much easier, but capturing the hearts of the younger audience requires much more—something Shiny knows all too well.
Teochew kueh is just one of the many Singaporean traditions slowly fading away, alongside hawker culture and wet markets. While government efforts can only do so much to preserve them, passionate individuals like Shiny ensure that the legacies of our elders endure.
If you’re interested in traditional kueh, check out our soon kueh stalls guide. You might also be interested in our feature on the preservation of wet markets in Singapore.
Address: 11 Sin Ming Road, #B3-09 (Unit 3), Thomson V2, Singapore 575629
Opening hours: Wed-Thurs 11am to 4pm, Fri-Sun 11am to 6pm
Website
AhMah’s Legacy is not a halal-certified eatery.
Photos taken by Jordan Ong.
This was an independent visit by Eatbook.sg.