(Third from right): Yeen Tham with her brother Chuin Tham (pictured below) of Lion City Coffee. (PHOTO: Lion City Coffee)

By: Kelly Ng

Brother-sister duo Chuin, 35, and Yeen Tham, 38, may have moved with their parents to New York city over 30 years ago, but their love for Singaporean food remains in their hearts. They co-founded Lion City Coffee last August 2018 in a bid to introduce a taste of the Singaporean-style kopitiam.

As kids, both Chuin and Yeen Tham often found themselves yearning the experience of sipping and stirring a full-bodied cup of tea and coffee in open-air kopitiam. “We grew up eating home-cooked food, which incorporated elements of Singapore cuisine, including chicken rice, laksa, chai tow kueh,” shared Chuin. “Every few years, we would take a holiday, go back home to visit and basically enjoy what’s important in terms of eating and experiencing the culture.”

Inspired by Singapore’s literal namesake, Lion City Coffee currently operates as a pop-up which participates at food festivals and providing catering services for events.

But more than that, Lion City Coffee was conceived in memory of their father, who died in February 2016 after a long bout with cancer.

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The Thams family. (PHOTO: Chuin, Yeen Tham) More

A tribute to their father

“He was always very interested in culinary adventures, always curious about how to make certain things,” said Yeen. “At home, he would clip out articles about how to make certain Asian dishes, even Singaporean dishes that he has come to miss.” After moving to New York, he started working as a dishwasher then worked his way up to becoming a chef at Imperial Szechuan in Connecticut.

The Tham siblings have fond memories of outings with their father to coffee shops, wet markets and hawker centers back home in Singapore.

“One of my favourite pastimes as a child was to go to a kafei dian (coffee shop in Mandarin),” said Yeen. “My dad would take us to the kafei dian, at the bottom of our flat, and we’d just sit down to pick whatever food (we) like, and have a taste of everything. And it was always a gratifying feeling of having very tasty food.”

Mr. Tham. (PHOTO: Chuin and Yeen Tham) More

It’s no wonder that coffee shops were the usual haunt for the Thams – the late Mr. Tham was a health inspector for coffee shops back in Singapore. “So he knew everyone at the coffee shops, and whenever he stopped by, people recognised his face right away,” Chuin recalled.

However, the siblings think their father would not have been very fond of their business endeavour if he were still around. “To be very frank, if he knew of us doing this, he’d probably say, ‘Are you sure you want to do this with all your education? You guys are crazy’,” Chuin said.

“He’d probably yell at us. But, truthfully, he would be smiling from cheek-to-cheek,” Yeen added. “He is a very, very Singaporean person.”

The ever popular nasi lemak dish. (PHOTO: Lion City Coffee) More

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