It's tough to be a hawker.

Not only does one have to manage a business amidst rising rents, and cook for hours daily, but customers could leave poor reviews online as well.

As customers, we've probably seen our share of neutral-sounding customer service responses, or situations where the stall simply chose not to reply.

One Muslim food stall in Marsiling, however, adopted a different approach, dishing out some choice comebacks to a number of negative reviews on GrabFood. These range from appealing to the customers' sympathy, threats to stop taking orders from them, and to straight-up personal attacks.

The stall, simply named "Muslim Food Stall", is located at Marsiling Lane Food Centre and has been open for at least six years, according to its Facebook page.

It has garnered a 4.6 average rating on the GrabFood platform, across 2,870 reviews, as of Sep. 3.

Savage replies

Reviews seen on the platform included complaints about dishes being overcooked, either too salty or under-seasoned, or ingredients tasting like they had gone bad.

A few of the stall's responses followed a similar trend — questioning the quality of the customer's teeth, or dental hygiene.

"I think maybe your teeth like ahkong teeth":

"I think you never brush teeth LOL":

The stall also replied to this customer's advice to "please try to cook tasteful food" with "jadi perempuan masak sis!" which translates to "become a cook, sis!".

"Never brush your teeth ah?":

The customer here had complained that dishes were "very very salty" and that the lontong had a "sour-spoiled taste".

Translated into English, the stall's reply reads, "That’s why I wanna close Grab. Because people like to complain and like c** b*i. Never brush your teeth ah? Lontong from 5am cook till 4pm under fire stove. Never mind, you want free things just say".

Being a hawker is not easy

Similarly, other replies put into perspective the struggles of a hawker, and challenged customers to have some empathy.

"You try work 19 hours 1st before asking"

A particular customer complained that the beef was "totally tough and not possible to eat", and added "Kindly cook properly if you want to serve it to people".

The stall retorted by challenging the customer to put in the hours first before making that statement, and addressed them with the term "bingai" which means "arrogant" in a Johor dialect.

And for another case of an incorrectly packed delivery, the stall claimed that the elderly employee who packed it was recovering from sickness.

The stall added "Takpa lah (never mind lah) we'll just add you to the reject list".

Quick comebacks

A couple of the stall's replies were shorter, but no less punchy.

And then there was this comeback, which may have been triggered by the user's choice to write in all-caps for the comment "the Soto Ayam gravy taste like water".

The stall's response, translated from Malay, reads "Your mouth don't c** b*i boy".

Mothership has reached out to the stall for comment.

What the stall is known for

As part of its menu, the stall sells traditional Malay dishes like nasi lemak, nasi padang, mee soto, mee goreng, mee siam and so on.

It is known for its lontong kering (dry lontong) and nasi jenganan, or rice with blanched vegetables slathered in peanut sauce and served with staples like begedil and tempeh.

The stall was also featured in this 2020 YouTube video featuring halal hawker food at the Marsiling Lane Food Centre:

Related:

Top image from Muslim Food Stall on Facebook / screenshots via Grab app.