Update 11 Oct 2023: Toa Payoh Kachang Puteh Seller’s Sister Opens Similar Stall In Boon Lay, Paying $10K A Month In Rent
It’s by now well-known that Peace Centre’s beloved kacang puteh seller Amirthaalangaram Moorthy has moved to a new spot at Toa Payoh bus interchange and is doing very well there. A new, similar kacang puteh kiosk recently opened at Boon Lay bus interchange, and it’s run by a woman who claims to be Moorthy’s sister.
Compared to the Toa Payoh OG kiosk, the Boon Lay stall has a smaller selection of nuts and tidbits — about 18 types — and is priced at a flat $1.50 per paper cone portion. This includes the classics like fried kacang puteh, peas, sugared peanuts, steamed chickpeas and murukku. The stallowner, who gives her name as Revthi, doesn’t appear to be very fluent in English. But she tells 8days.sg in her halting English that she’s Moorthy’s “sister”.
And compared to Moorthy’s stall, which is rent-free due to an arrangement with SBS Transit, Revthi says she is paying “$10,000 a month in rent.” This is confirmed by Revthi’s daughter Malar, 29, who says her parents are winding up their stall at the end of this month as their middling sales could not justify the high rent.
Guess who's back: Well-loved kacang puteh stall from Peace Centre spotted in Toa Payoh
Decades ago, old-school snacks like kacang puteh could easily be purchased from hawkers outside cinemas and along the streets. But sadly, it is now a dying trade.
Running one of the last few kacang puteh stalls in Singapore is Amirthaalangaram Moorthy, a third-generation owner of his family business. His humble pushcart stall used to be located at the entrance of Peace Centre, but it was shuttered earlier this year with the building undergoing a makeover.
However, it seems like the business is back with a bang because some sharp-eyed netizens spotted Amirthaalangaram manning a kacang puteh booth at Toa Payoh Bus Interchange. On the menu, cashew nuts are going for $2 while the rest of the tidbits like peanuts and chickpeas are going for $1.50.
Peace Centre Kacang Puteh Seller Relocates To Toa Payoh Heartland After Mall En Bloc Sale
In February this year, kacang puteh seller Amirthaalangaram Moorthy faced the loss of his longtime rented spot. The 56-year-old was a familiar sight at Peace Centre, where he had been selling his nostalgic tidbits like murukku, fried nuts and steamed chickpeas from a pushcart.
After being sold en bloc in 2021, Peace Centre was earmarked for redevelopment. Business owners started moving out of the mall, including Moorthy, who was offered a six-month rent-free period by the new consortium owner to continue plying his trade outside the shopping centre before its makeover. Good news for those who fear that Singapore will lose one of its few — if not last — kacang puteh uncles after the redevelopment of Peace Centre: Moorthy has now shifted his business to Toa Payoh Bus Interchange.
According to him, the relocation came about as he was approached by SBS Transit to sell his kacang puteh at the interchange. Instead of his iconic mobile pushcart, Moorthy now operates out of a permanent kiosk adorably painted with a cartoon mural depicting a kacang puteh man with his customers and tidbit jars. The busy Toa Payoh transport hub is a boost for Moorthy’s sales, as he explains that footfall at Peace Centre was dwindling as the area was going through redevelopment. Smiling happily, he tells 8days.sg in his heartfelt colloquial English: “Business better here. There are many people here, Chinese, Malay, Indian. They all eat kacang puteh.”
‘No Time To Makan, No Time Go Toilet’: Kacang Puteh Sellers Thriving After Toa Payoh Relocation
It’s 2023 and old-school kacang puteh is still trending in Singapore — thanks to Amirthaalangaram Moorthy and his wife Vasantha, who are one of the last few sellers here. The couple still pack their homemade tidbits in hand-folded traditional paper cones for snacking on the go.
8days.sg first reported that Moorthy and Vasantha moved from their longtime outdoor spot at the entrance of Peace Centre, which is now undergoing redevelopment. Moorthy explains that he was approached by SBS Transit to shift his kacang puteh business to Toa Payoh Bus Interchange, as he was struggling with dwindling footfall at his former spot. The move proved to be a boost for his business, as the couple have since gone viral after reopening on 1 Aug and now have a queue at the transport hub. According to Moorthy, SBS Transit is not charging him any rent at Toa Payoh. He operates out of a kiosk provided by the transport company and occupies just a tiny spot along a pedestrian walkway without any water supply.
It’s similar to his setup at Peace Centre, except now husband-and-wife get to work in an air-conditioned environment. “We buy water to drink and use the public toilet,” Vasantha explains to 8days.sg of their work arrangement. If you are hoping to buy some kacang puteh, make your way down quickly. Since going viral, the couple has been selling out early. Although their official opening hours are from 11am to 7pm, Mondays to Saturdays, Vasantha says they had to close at 4.30pm today (5 Aug).She share s colloquially: “Today very long queue. We put out 17kg of steamed chickpeas, very fast finish at 3pm. That’s why we also closed very fast at 4.30pm.”
Landlord Offers 6 Months Rent-Free To Kacang Puteh Seller Who Closed His Stall Due To Poor Biz
The third-gen hawker is one of the last few — if not only — kacang puteh sellers in Singapore running an old-school pushcart stocked with nuts, steamed chickpeas and murukku
Here is a national treasure that must be protected — the old-school kacang puteh man, whom folks of a certain age would remember as a mainstay outside cinemas. He presides over a pushcart stocked with jars of tantalising tidbits like fried nuts, murukku and steamed peanuts and chickpeas. Upon ordering, he scoops the reliably tasty snacks into paper cones for cinemagoers to munch on.
Amirthaalangaram Moorthy, 55, is widely considered as one of the last few kacang puteh sellers in Singapore. He took over his business from his grandfather, who started selling tidbits over 50 years ago. Moorthy plys his trade outside Peace Centre, an old shopping mall that made headlines in Dec 2021 for being sold en bloc for S$650 million. His pushcart occupies a tiny outdoor spot just at the mall’s entrance, for which he pays a monthly rent of $600. He charges around $1.30 to $2 a scoop for nuts and murukku, most of which he fries at home with his family. But the past few years have been very tough for Moorthy, who had almost no business during the pandemic. He had to stop operating for two months due to the Circuit Breaker, and footfall at Peace Centre was lacklustre even till today. “Every day I open, but two years no business. Very very difficult,” the Chennai-born told 8days.sg in 2022.
To make ends meet, he had to borrow money from his father, a retired kacang puteh seller who sold off a house in India to help his son. “No business, how? Makan, rent, everything. This place is $600. I take the money, makan,” Moorthy lamented to us. Sadly, it appeared that business has not improved, as Moorthy decided to close his stall earlier this month because he could not make enough sales to cover his rent. He wheeled his pushcart home but gave customers the option to engage his services for parties and weddings. In the meantime, he told us, he was looking out for another cost-friendly location to reopen. But good news: Moorthy is resuming business next Monday (Feb 27) at his usual spot outside Peace Centre. “My landlord gave me six months no rent,” he explained, an offer which alleviated some of his financial burden and allowed him to continue operating his pushcart.
Family-run kacang puteh stall in Selegie sells property in India to tide business through pandemic downturn
Mr Amirthaalangaram Moorthy, probably Singapore's last kacang puteh seller, says his business is slowly picking up again. PHOTO: 8 Days
This may well be Singapore’s last kacang puteh stall, and the Covid-19 pandemic nearly finished it off. Times were so bad that the owner’s family had to sell property in India to pull through.
But this Indian trade that came over to Singapore still survives, in a tiny rented space on Selegie Road. The kacang puteh seller, once a common sight, especially outside cinemas, has all but vanished. Except for Mr Amirthaalangaram Moorthy, who sells his peanuts, chickpeas and other snacks from the space marked out at the entrance of Peace Centre. In 2018, the Michelin Guide called his pushcart “the last bastion of Singapore’s yesteryear snack culture”.
Mr Amirthaalangaram is a third-generation kacang puteh seller. His grandfather came to Singapore from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where hot roasted peanuts sold in paper cones has for long been a popular street snack. The business started around Hougang in the 1960s. Later, Mr Amirthaalangaram’s father picked it up, selling the snacks outside the Hoover Theatre in Balestier. After the cinema was demolished, the stall moved to Peace Centre. Mr Amirthaalangaram himself took over in 2004. The 54-year-old is now a permanent resident in Singapore.
The Kachang Puteh Man
Parked at the entrance of Peace Centre in Selegie Road is the last bastion of Singapore’s yesteryear snack culture. Over the past two decades, a humble pushcart peddling an eclectic assortment of kachang puteh (“kachang” refers to nuts and “puteh” or “putih” means white in Malay) has remained a fixture along the bustling street.
Simply known as “Kachang Puteh”, the metallic pushcart is crammed with 20 types of nuts, legumes and crackers that are housed in bright red-capped bottles. Popular nibbles include cashew nuts, tapioca fritters, sugar-coated peanuts, prawn sticks and murukku. For those who prefer to pop something warm into their mouths, there are also lightly-salted boiled peanuts and chickpeas that are served warm from an electric steamer. Customers can pick and choose which munchies to fill up their folded paper cones (from $1 for two types of snacks).
Mending the stall is Amirthaalangaram Moorthy, a third-generation kachang puteh seller, who arrived here in 2004 from his native Tamil Nadu to continue his family business. The Singapore permanent resident hails from a family that has a long-standing history with kachang puteh. The 51-year-old says that many kachang puteh sellers live in his ancestral village in southern India due to the abundance of nuts grown in the area.
The Ice-Cream Uncles
Hi Foodies, according to a Facebook post by Happy People Helping People community, our beloved Sim Lim Ice-Cream Uncle is back selling ice cream at the same spot! We are so happy that he is finally able to operate his business after being closed due to the circuit breaker.
87-year-old ice cream seller, Ng Teak Boon, had recently caught the attention of netizens after CNA insider released videos exposing poverty in Singapore. For more than 10 years, Mr Ng had been selling $1.50 ice-cream from a bicycle cart beside the Sim Lim Tower. As selling ice-cream is his only source of income, the videos prompted overwhelming support from citizens throughout Singapore.
Ever since the touching story of Mr Ng went viral, many viewers offered to help Mr Ng live a better life. One of them was Andre Chiang, owner of recently closed-down Michelin Starred restaurant, Restaurant Andre. He created an ice-cream sandwich dessert as a tribute to Mr Ng. For every ice-cream he sold at his restaurant, he would donate $5 to Mr Ng.
