A hawker stall selling traditional Hakka lei cha (thunder tea rice) at People's Park Centre has turned heads recently for one of the most expensive side dishes on its menu, "specialty chilli sauce".

The stall, Fire Flies, sells the likes of kolo mee, braised tofu and organic brown rice as sides for its staple thunder tea rice. 

These range in price from S$1 to S$3.50.

The most eye-catching item on the menu, however?

One level teaspoon of "specialty chilli sauce", listed at S$2.

First two teaspoons are free, so is regular chilli: Stall

However, the 37-year-old stall owner Cai Youzhao (transliteration) clarified with Shin Min Daily News (Shin Min) that they typically provide up two teaspoons of the specialty chilli to customers for free.

It is only if they request for a third teaspoon, he said, that the stall will charge them the S$2.

Cai's stall also serves regular chilli sauce to customers at no additional charge.

Cai said the intention of the S$2 charge was not to make a profit, but to reduce unnecessary wastage from customers who ask for the special chilli without actually eating it.

"Some customers have quarrelled with us over this matter, thinking that as a business we should provide the [special] chilli for free. But I think the choice of paying more for extra chilli is up to them," he said.

He added that they have customers who like the special chilli so much that they don't mind paying for it.

'Special chilli' vegan-friendly & time consuming to make

Cai shared that the specialty chilli sauce is made using a vegan recipe and due to manpower issues, the stall is unable to produce large quantities of it everyday.

"The sauce isn't easy to prepare. We don't use onions, garlic, eggs or shrimp paste, just chilli peppers and a number of spices, which are stir-fried together," he said.

Here's what the sauce looks like:

Cai added that the process of preparing it is labour-intensive, and can take two hours or more.

Currently, his mother is the only one preparing it.

"In the past, when the stall had more manpower, we used to sell our specialty chilli sauce separately, but now I'm not taking orders as I don't want to tire my mother out," he said.

Previously called 'Thunder Tree', reopened in May

The stall is not unfamiliar to the People's Park Centre crowd.

Previously called Thunder Tree, the stall operated at People's Park Centre from 2017.

Its new name comes from the Fire Flies Health Farm, an organic vegetable farm in Lim Chu Kang Lane 2, where some of the stall's lei cha ingredients were sourced from.

Thunder Tree then closed its outlets at People's Park Centre and VivoCity around the same time as the farm ceased its operations, in Jul. 12, 2022.

The People's Park outlet subsequently made a comeback, reopening as "Fire Flies" in end-May 2024 to some media fanfare.

Top image from Mothership / Shin Min Daily News