Ka-Soh, heritage brand known for its fish soup, to shutter last outlet in Bukit Timah in September, Lifestyle News
Ka Soh restaurant, a heritage brand known for its Cantonese-style fish soup, announced the closure of its last outlet at Greenwood Avenue in Bukit Timah via social media on Saturday (July 26).
The outlet's final day of operations will be on Sept 28.
According to the restaurant, it will not be renewing its lease once it's up. View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Ka-Soh Restaurants (@kasohsg)
At its peak, Ka-Soh Restaurant had three outlets.
In addition to the Greenwood Avenue outlet, they also ran a flagship store at Outram which shuttered in June 2022 and a sister eatery, Swee Kee Eating House in Amoy Street which closed down in May 2021.
The flagship outlet in Outram, which was located in Singapore General Hospital, had been a Michelin Bib Gourmand recipient since 2016.
Ka-Soh is known for its Cantonese-style fish soup. The signature creamy and milky broth gets its flavour by boiling fish bones at high heat for several hours, according to Michelin Guide Singapore.
It was founded in 1939 as a humble push cart stall in Great World Amusement Park, and currently helmed by Cedric Tang, the third-generation owner.
When the flagship outlet in Outram announced its closure in June 2022, the owner attributed it to manpower issues and rising costs, as reported by The Straits Times.
Prior to the outlet's closure, the business also took a hit as its sister eatery Swee Kee Eating House in Amoy Street shuttered in May 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic affecting the business' footfall.
[[nid:583146]]
carol.ong@asiaone.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
38 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Trump fires US labor official over data and gets earlier than expected chance to reshape Fed
Signage is seen at the United States Department of Labor headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 29, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - President Donald Trump on Friday fired a top Labor Department official on the heels of a market-shocking weak scorecard of the U.S. job market, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the figures and adding to already growing concerns about the quality of economic data published by the federal government. In a second surprise economic policy development, the door for Trump to make an imprint on a Federal Reserve with which he clashes almost daily for not lowering interest rates opened much earlier than anticipated when Fed Governor Adriana Kugler unexpectedly announced her resignation on Friday afternoon. The two developments further rattled a stock market already reeling from his latest barrage of tariff announcements and the weak jobs data. The benchmark S&P 500 Index sank 1.6% in its largest daily drop in more than two months. Trump accused Erika McEntarfer, appointed by former President Joe Biden, of faking the jobs numbers. There is no evidence to back Trump's claims of data manipulation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the statistical agency that compiles the closely watched employment report as well as consumer and producer price data. A representative for the BLS did not respond to a request for comment. Friday began with BLS reporting the U.S. economy created only 73,000 jobs in July, but more stunning were net downward revisions showing 258,000 fewer jobs had been created in May and June than previously reported. "We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Opening of Woodlands Health has eased load on KTPH, sets standard for future hospitals: Ong Ye Kung Singapore New vehicular bridge connecting Punggol Central and Seletar Link to open on Aug 3 Singapore New S'pore jobs portal launched for North West District residents looking for work near home Business Property 'decoupling' illegal if done solely to avoid taxes: High Court Singapore HSA investigating teen who was observed to be allegedly vaping in MRT train Asia KTM plans new passenger rail service in Johor Bahru to manage higher footfall expected from RTS Singapore Tengah facility with over 40 animal shelters, businesses hit by ticks Singapore 60 years of building Singapore DATA CONCERNS A Trump administration official who requested anonymity said that while all economic data is noisy, the White House has been dissatisfied with how large the revisions have been in the recent data and issues with lower survey responses. The problem started during COVID and has not been addressed in the years since. "There are these underlying problems that have been festering here for years now that have not been rectified," the person said. "The markets and companies and the government need accurate data, and like, we just weren't getting that," the official said. The BLS has already reduced the sample collection for consumer price data as well as the producer price report, citing resource constraints. The government surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies, representing approximately 631,000 individual worksites for the employment report. The response rate has declined from 80.3% in October 2020 to about 67.1% in July, BLS data shows. A Reuters poll last month found 89 of 100 top policy experts had at least some worries about the quality of U.S. economic data, with most also concerned that authorities are not addressing the issue urgently enough. In addition to the concerns over job market data, headcount reductions at BLS have resulted in it scaling back the scope of data collection for the Consumer Price Index, one of the most important gauges of U.S. inflation, watched by investors and policymakers worldwide. Trump's move fed into concerns that politics may influence data collection and publication. "Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act," said Michael Madowitz, principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute's Roosevelt Forward. "Credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America's economic data is the foundation on which we've built the strongest economy in the world. Blinding the public about the state of the economy has a long track record, and it never ends well." FED CHANGE SOONER THAN EXPECTED Meanwhile, Kugler's surprise decision to leave the Fed at the end of next week presents Trump an earlier-than-expected opportunity to install a potential successor to Fed Chair Jerome Powell on the central bank's Board of Governors. Trump has threatened to fire Powell repeatedly because the Fed chief has overseen a policymaking body that has not cut interest rates as Trump has demanded. Powell's term expires next May, although he could remain on the Fed board until January 31, 2028, if he chooses. Trump will now get to select a Fed governor to replace Kugler and finish out her term, which expires on January 31, 2026. A governor filling an unexpired term may then be reappointed to a full 14-year term. Some speculation has centered on the idea Trump might pick a potential future chair to fill that slot as a holding place. Leading candidates for the next Fed chair include Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and Fed Governor Chris Waller, a Trump appointee who this week dissented with the central bank's decision to keep rates on hold, saying he preferred to start lowering them now. Trump, as he was leaving the White House to spend the weekend at his Bedminster, New Jersey, estate, said he was happy to have the open slot to fill. "I would not read any political motivation into what [Kugler is] doing, although the consequence of what she's doing is she's calling Trump's bluff," said Derek Tang, an analyst at LH Meyer, a research firm. "She's putting the ball in his court and saying, look, you're putting so much pressure on the Fed, and you want some control over nominees, well, here's a slot." REUTERS
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
More purring, more buying: Why bookstores showcase their pets
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox A cat named Hank at the Literary Cat Co. in Pittsburg, Kan. Hank is known as the regional manager of the Literary Cat Co. UNITED STATES – Wander into Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis and you might miss the tawny cat napping in the window, spine pressed against the sunniest corner of the sill. Venture deeper into the cosy warren of picture and chapter books and you will begin to detect a theme, if not a whiff, of birdseed. That lazy feline known as Booker T. Jones turns out to be one of many beasts on the premises. Dave is a 27-year-old cockatiel who looks as if he applied too much coral rouge. Mo, a 26-year-old Barbary dove, roosts peacefully in a cage atop the sale shelf. There is also Newbery and Caldecott, a pair of gentle chinchillas; the Stinky Cheese Man, who, like all crested geckos, licks his own eyeballs; and Eartha Kitt, a jet-black Manx who politely recoiled from a visitor's hand while curled, cinnamon bun-style, in a mail bin. And, finally, there are 10 fish in a tank in the bathroom, all named for the children's book illustrators Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris. Their successors will be too, according to bookstore tradition. A menagerie like this has been a hallmark of Wild Rumpus since the store opened in 1992. When the original owner sold the business to four employees in 2024, the critters were part of the deal. 'They're the No. 1 draw,' said Ms Anna Hersh, a co-owner and animal care coordinator who visited the brood daily during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. 'We get a whole bunch of readers, but people really come to see the animals.' Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore New vehicular bridge connecting Punggol Central and Seletar Link to open on Aug 3 Singapore Tengah facility with over 40 animal shelters, businesses hit by ticks Business Property 'decoupling' illegal if done solely to avoid taxes: High Court Singapore HSA investigating teen who was observed to be allegedly vaping in MRT train Singapore 60 years of building Singapore Asia 'Every day, we think about how to upgrade': China's factories see rise in robot adoption Sport Spurs captain Son Heung-min says he is leaving the English Premier League club Life Tastemakers: Burnt-out serial entrepreneur cooks up $16m success with Lau Wang Claypot Delights Docile dogs and aloof cats have long been fixtures of independent bookstores, as ubiquitous as free bookmarks. For the most part, they serve as quiet mascots – steadfast and loyal, deigning to have their heads patted or ears scratched while humans tend to the business of words. A child pets Eartha Kitt, a jet-black Manx, at Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis. PHOTO: ERIC RUBY/NYTIMES Now, thanks to social media, many stores have put themselves on the map with the help of little creatures, including some unlikely stars (bearded dragon, anyone?). The pairing makes sense: Books and animals both provide joy, companionship and windows into other worlds. The former are, admittedly, a lot tidier. At Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vermont, a Russian desert tortoise named Veruca Salt lords over the children's room from his 1.2m tank on the second floor. Ms Claire Benedict and her husband inherited the turtle – previously presumed to be female – from a school librarian. The store hosts an annual birthday party for Veruca, who is around 35, with games, cake and stories. The Tortoise And The Hare is a favourite. Like many bashful creatures, Veruca found his 'voice' on Instagram, where he has more than 2,000 fans. It is hard to say whether animals affect sales, but they certainly bring in foot traffic. 'You have people coming in saying, 'I think there's a tortoise here who I follow,'' Ms Benedict said. Moo and Chip fraternise with young readers at Scattered Books in Chappaqua, New York. PHOTO: VINCENT ALBAN/NYTIMES At Scattered Books in Chappaqua, New York, three litter-trained bunnies – Moo, Chuck and Chip – have the run of the place when they are not feasting on farmers' market lettuce in their triple-decker mansion with a view of the great outdoors. The bunnies have their own basket of pre-chewed books, but that does not stop them from occasionally sinking their teeth into a mystery or romance. 'We don't have books on the bottom shelves,' said Ms Laura Schaefer, who opened Scattered Books in 2017. 'The rabbits lend a nice comedic atmosphere. They don't make any sounds, but they can communicate.' Rabbits on a bookshelf at Scattered Books. PHOTO: VINCENT ALBAN/NYTIMES In 2018, Moo climbed up former President Bill Clinton's leg while CBS was interviewing him about his collaboration with novelist James Patterson on The President Is Missing (2018). And at the end of a bunny-centric story hour, Ms Schaefer said: 'A non-verbal autistic child tapped on my leg and signed, 'Thank you.'' Ms Schaefer makes hiring decisions with Moo, Chuck and Chip in mind. 'People come in and they're like, 'I love to read.' I'm like, 'How are you with rabbits?'' Of course, it is not all rabbit-themed tea parties and clever hashtags (#bringcelery). Recently, Scattered Books bid farewell to its first rabbit, Acorn, who was 14. 'It's very hard to break news of a bunny's death to the community,' Ms Schaefer said. 'Staff was crying, kids were crying and leaving notes.' At the Literary Cat Co in Pittsburg, Kansas, readers have the opportunity to adopt a pet while they shop. The store partners a local rescue organisation, hosting about seven cats at a time, along with three permanent feline 'employees': Hank, the regional manager; Scarlett Toe'Hara, the assistant regional manager (she is polydactyl); and Mike Meowski, the assistant to the assistant regional manager. A cat named Scarlett Toe'Hara at the Literary Cat Co. PHOTO: DAVID ROBERT ELLIOTT/NYTIMES Ms Jennifer Mowdy, the store's owner, described each cat's role, personality and origin story with the air of a matriarch ticking off successful grandchildren. Speaking of the upper respiratory illness that cost Mike Meowski an eye, she sounded stoic. He was a kitten; she was there for him. They soldiered through. Ms Mowdy created a glass alcove for allergic customers – and to deter escapees – and a 'kitty conference room' (accessible by cat door) for litter boxes. With regular scooping, four air purifiers and daily mists of Mrs Meyer's room spray, she said the scent of the store is neutral to positive. In the past 1½ years , the Literary Cat Co has facilitated 50 adoptions. 'We've only had one cat that didn't work out,' Ms Mowdy said. 'Too much fight in her.' Kittens tend to wreak havoc. Ms Mowdy prefers a mature animal of the 'Don't call me, I'll call you' variety. Felines are welcome to scale shelves and interact with readers as they please, which is their way. 'They get to practise being a good house cat,' Ms Mowdy said. 'They get socialised.' Occasionally, the right cat finds the right reader's lap. The rest is destiny, with the rescue organisation handling logistics and the Literary Cat Co simply making the introduction. Dog lovers, never fear. Plenty of bookstores cater to the canine crowd, including Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, where employees are welcome to bring their best friends to work. The current roster includes Miller, a French bulldog; Barnabus, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel; Winnie, a tiny hound mix; and Nemo, who is half Bichon and half poodle, according to novelist Ann Patchett, who owns the store. Her rules for shop dogs are simple: 'No barking. No biting. You have to like children and be patient, and you can't run out the front door.' While cats, birds, rabbits and lizards can be left alone overnight, dogs generally cannot, which makes them slightly more complicated as bookstore pets. But they can be excellent listeners; as Patchett pointed out, beginning readers feel comfortable testing their skills with a dog. The chinchilla brothers Newbery and Caldecott at Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis PHOTO: ERIC RUBY/NYTIMES Ms Hersh enjoys taking her Lhasa Apso, Penny, to Wild Rumpus, but she is leery of committing to an official shop dog. For now, she is happy with the book-to-animal ratio at her store, and the visitors who enjoy both. Booker T. Jones is an especially good cat to practise 'gentle' on, she said, although Wild Rumpus has a rule that patrons are not supposed to pick up the pets. Because it is impossible to predict the behaviour of children and animals, Ms Hersh added: 'We obviously have fun Band-Aids.' NYTIMES
AsiaOne
3 hours ago
- AsiaOne
27-year-old who helps run family's hawker business opens own restaurant: 'I should maximise what I can do at this age', Lifestyle News
On a typical Friday night, many youths would either be hanging out with friends, preparing for a night out or heading to bed. And then there is Delonix Tan, who is just waking up and getting ready to go to the wet market at Kim Keat Palm Market and Food Centre. For the 27-year-old, this is a weekly routine that will only get more hectic when his new F&B venture at MyVillage called San Dai Yong Tau Foo, which sells hearty bowls of yong tau foo, opens in September. Prior to pursuing this project, Delonix juggled a full-time job at a catering company — which he recently resigned from — while helping his parents with the daily tasks at their family wet market stall, San Dai Fishball. In his free time, he manages and creates content for San Dai Fishball's social media platforms, in which he also shares the day-to-day routine of helping manage the stall and amassing a modest following of more than 23,000 and almost 9,000 users on Instagram and TikTok respectively. @sandaifishball Pros and Cons of Machine Made Fishballs ⚙️🐟 #sandaifishball ♬ Shipyard Sample - Official Sound Studio With so much on his plate, Delonix initially had been hesitant about pursuing something as adventurous, risky and challenging as a new F&B concept, he told AsiaOne when we paid him a visit at his uncle's yong tau foo stall, Xin Mei Cooked Food, where he is learning how to operate a yong tau food business. "I had been thinking about [setting up my own F&B business] for quite some time already, but I never really took action because I had a full-time job and I was struggling with all the social media stuff [for San Dai Fishball], so I was pretty maxed out," he revealed. But fast forward to March, and a collaboration with a popular local F&B brand would turn his dream into a reality. The pressures of being a third-gen hawker For the past eight years, Delonix's life has revolved around food, specifically fishballs and yong tau foo. He first dipped his toes in the industry by working part-time at San Dai Fishball while he was completing National Service. "When I first joined the business, it frankly was very brutal. I couldn't really get used to it," he told us bluntly. "But after some time, after I got used to the flow, it eventually became a part of my identity." Apart from the job being physically and mentally taxing, it put a strain on his relationship with his family, especially his father. While working in the family business did allow him to spend more time with them, this also led to more room for friction. "The headache part is handling the conflict. Initially, when I started out at the family business, my dad and I had a lot of conflict. It was a shaky period for us, especially since outside of the business, we have a very good relationship," he shared. There is the pressure to perform, too. "Being a third-generation hawker is a bittersweet experience. It's good in the sense that we already got a base so we don't need to start from zero," he shared. "But it's also very stressful, because let's say if I fail, I'm not only failing as a person, but I feel that I will tarnish my family's five decades of legacy." After several years of honing his skills, he had attempted to strike it out on his own in 2020 by opening a stall at Amoy Street Food Centre selling fishball noodles. Unfortunately, this was short-lived because a few months later, the Covid-19 pandemic happened. "We went into lockdown and the Central Business District virtually had nobody at all," he recounted. "I opened during Covid-19 and I closed during Covid-19 because I didn't know how long the pandemic would last. I'm lucky I closed it because I would have bled out even more money if I had continued." While Delonix tried to keep the business afloat during those dark times, the Circuit Breaker measures and drop in footfall didn't help his new business, so he eventually had to shutter it. During the pandemic, he also attempted starting a business outside the F&B scene: A photo studio called Pixslut. However, after a year of managing it, he sold it away. "I tried a few things and realised that all businesses are difficult," he shared. In December last year, Lau Wang Claypot, a popular chain restaurant specialising in traditional claypot dishes, asked Delonix if he could do a three-month collaboration with them. "They just reached out to me and I thought, why not give it a shot?" said Delonix. The collaborative event, which kicked off in March, featured two dishes — Curry Yong Tau Food and Collagen Soup — that were prepared with San Dai Fishball's 100 per cent yellowtail fish meatballs, yong tau foo and fishballs. And these were a huge hit with diners. "It reassured me that my idea of a retail arm for San Dai Fishball is workable and people want to eat our cooked food. In fact, a lot of our customers texted me saying they were happy with our collaboration with Lau Wang Claypot because now, they can eat our food without the inconvenience of coming down to the market in the morning to buy our products." So, after the collaboration was done and dusted in May, Delonix pitched the idea of opening a yong tau foo stall to Lau Wang Claypots founder Mark Jeremy Low, sharing that while it was something he has wanted to try for a long time, he "lacked the expertise". He offered to "run the show" while the folks at Lau Wang Claypot would teach him how to do branding and turn the business into a "small quick-service restaurant", and the two parties agreed to be business partners. Delonix's father will also be helping him with the yong tau foo production. Initially, Delonix had wanted to operate in a hawker centre but after some discussions, he and Mark agreed to open their very first outlet in a mall at Serangoon Gardens. "After I discussed this with Mark, I think this makes sense. We want to bring our food to the next level," he said. Delonix elaborated that by having an eatery in a mall as compared to a hawker centre, it's easier to hire manpower because potential employees would prefer working in an air-conditioned environment. Another reason is that a restaurant would give them more flexibility with the menu. "For example, in a coffee shop, there are many things I can't sell, such as drinks, because there will already be a drinks stall. But with my own restaurant, I can sell whatever I want and be more innovative with what I want to portray for my brand," he explained. Ungodly hours, 7 days a week To prepare for the opening of San Dai Yong Tau Foo, Delonix has had to tweak his day-to-day schedule. In the past, on weekdays, he worked full-time at his friend's catering company, Kitchen Haus Group, as a senior operations executive. And on weekends, he was at San Dai Fishball from 12am to 10am. Now, since he quit his job, he spends Mondays to Fridays at his uncle's yong tau foo stall at Hougang Hainanese Village Centre, learning the ropes from around 6.30am to 2pm. And over the weekends, he continues to help his parents with the family business at San Dai Fishball. On top of that, he and his partners at Lau Wang Claypot would meet to do research and development for the San Dai Yong Tau Foo, which includes trying out different recipes for the noodles. Things will only get busier for Delonix once his new yong tau foo stall officially opens next month. San Dai Yong Tau Foo will operate all seven days a week from 9am to 9pm, and though Delonix will be hiring employees to manage the day-to-day operations, he plans on working every day at the new eatery with no breaks until the business stabilises. This involves him producing fishballs and yong tau foo at San Dai Fishball in Toa Payoh from midnight to 7am and heading to his new eatery afterwards around 8am to prepare the food. He will only end work at about 3pm and after which, his staff will take over. To him, this arrangement is already quite "sustainable". "We are operating every day with no off days, Monday to Sunday. It's to increase our likelihood of breaking even," he elaborated. Apart from the ungodly hours, Delonix shared that running an F&B business will be much harder than what he is used to doing at his parents' wet market stall. "If you're talking about the difference between a wet market stall and a cooked-food store, it is very different. Working at a cooked-food stall is way more intense. At a wet market stall, once I've produced the fishballs, I can just sell them and go back home," he explained, adding that for an F&B business, there are additional steps such as preparing and cooking the food. "[A cooked-food stall] is more dangerous as well. The soup is hot so your hand may get burnt." Delonix also shared that the snippets of his life that he shares on San Dai Fishball's Instagram don't fully show how tough the nature of his job is. "Think twice if you want to work in F&B, it's not as easy as you think. It looks very glamorous. When people see my social media posts they think that I'm doing well, but they don't see the long hours and the sacrifices," he said. Preparing for something new In total, Delonix and his partners have pumped more than six digits into the business, with him being the majority shareholder. And with it being "unknown territory" for him, he's certainly feeling the pressure, especially since he's already run into some challenges. But Delonix still finds all this "very exciting" because he's learning plenty of new things. To cite an example, he talked about the renovation process and how he now understands that landlords have many different requirements. View this post on Instagram A post shared by DELON (@sandaifishball) He also has to settle things like manpower, furniture, electricity, pest control and his Singapore Food Agency License. And while preparations for the new eatery are going relatively smooth, Delonix admitted that he's still a ball of nerves. "Frankly, I'm very scared. Even now, I'm still scared. Because the risk level is way higher as compared to [running] a hawker stall," he explained. Some may wonder why Delonix is willing to spend his youth to pursue something so risky and taxing. But to him, it's all worth it. "It's my goal to carry on my family business. And I'm still in my 20s, so I should maximise what I can do at this age. I mean, I can't do this when I've got a wife and kids next time. "So now is the time to chase after my dreams and follow my passion. Now I can be more selfish with my time." [[nid:720688]] melissateo@
