CNA – Cher Yam Tian of Palm Beach Seafood Restaurant and Roland Restaurant – and widely recognised to be the creator of Singapore’s iconic chilli crab – died on Wednesday. She was 90 years old.
Tributes for Cher have been pouring in, including from food blogger Dr Leslie Tay and Makansutra founder KF Seetoh.
“It was Cher Yam Tian that came up with our iconic chilli crab in the 50s, that inspired the legendary sambal version we revere today, dreamt up by the Chef Hooi of the Four Heavenly Kings (close friends of the family). Her audacious idea to cook a bold crab with a bolder chilli sauce has made it into our makan history,” Seetoh wrote in a Facebook post yesterday. “We will remember you and thank you for this gift of culinary. May you rest in peace.”
According to Singapore Infopedia, Cher came up with the dish way back in the mid-1950s when she added bottled chilli sauce, instead of her usual ingredient of tomato sauce, into a dish of stir-fried crabs.
She said in an interview that she started serving her chilli crab dish to her friends and family, which led to them telling her that she should start selling her signature creation.
So in 1956, Cher, together with husband Lim Choon Ngee, began selling the now iconic dish from a pushcart along Kallang River. Business was so good that they eventually opened a restaurant in 1962 along Upper East Coast Road and named it Palm Beach Seafood.
