A Hainanese chicken rice stall with deep roots in Singaporean hawker culture is soft-opening this week inside Time Out Market New York, Union Square, with chef Alan Choong set to officially unveil the new location on Monday. Lou Yau Kee is returning to the same 14th Street address where it first found its footing, now under a different food hall banner and with Choong fully in charge of the kitchen.
According to Time Out, Choong moved to New York in 2022 with the goal of expanding Singaporean culture worldwide, and he first brought his Prawnaholic Collections concept to Midtown's Urban Hawker food hall that year. It didn't take long for the city's most influential food critic to take notice.
A Critic's Early Praise Set the Stage
In a January 2023 review for The New York Times, critic Pete Wells praised Prawnaholic Collections' noodle soups and its wok-fired oyster omelet, going so far as to call the omelet a masterpiece, per the same Time Out report. That early acclaim, paired with the broader momentum behind Singaporean hawker food in the city, helped set up Choong's next move: opening Lou Yau Kee in 2023, a stall specializing in Hainanese chicken built around the expertise of a certified Singapore chicken rice master whose family helped popularize the dish back home.
Lou Yau Kee's Hainanese roots run deep. Earlier reporting from AsiaOne ties the stall's original 2023 launch at Urbanspace Union Square to a partnership involving Raymond Kiang Long Peng, son of Chatterbox chicken rice co-creator Kiang Joon Toh, known as Sergeant Kiang. Choong took over operations at Lou Yau Kee in 2025, bringing the stall back to Union Square under the Time Out Market banner.
How the Chicken Gets Made
Choong prepares the Hainanese chicken the traditional way, poaching whole birds in broth seasoned with pandan leaves, ginger and a confidential blend of spices before shocking them in ice water, a step that creates the dish's signature gelatinous skin texture, the report notes. The rice itself is cooked in that same chicken broth before being finished in a wok, and the chicken is served alongside house-made chili, ginger and dark soy dipping sauces.
The relaunched stall won't stop at the classic version. Lou Yau Kee will serve traditional, roasted and lemon-fried chicken, along with a platter that combines all three styles for diners who can't decide. Porridge topped with chicken will also be on the menu, alongside half and whole chicken orders paired with rice-and-soup combos.
Part of a Bigger Union Square Comeback
The market opened at Zero Irving in late September 2025. Time Out Market New York, Union Square, opened at the 10,000-square-foot ground-floor venue at 124 East 14th Street, according to Forbes. The space now offers seating for around 240 guests, including an outdoor terrace, alongside seven food vendor kitchens and a full-service bar, per Forbes. Hoodline previously covered the market's star-studded launch plans ahead of that September debut.
Lou Yau Kee's return also comes against the backdrop of a shrinking Midtown hawker footprint. Urban Hawker, the 135 West 50th Street market where Choong got his New York start, permanently closed on July 17 after the building was sold for redevelopment, according to East Table. That closure has pushed some of the city's Singaporean hawker talent to look for new footholds, with Choong's move back to Union Square offering one example of how that displacement is playing out.
Choong and New York's Singaporean Food Scene
Separately, a launch event for Fried Rice King was supported by the Singapore Global Network.
Running a hawker-style stall in Manhattan has never come cheap compared with Singapore's government-subsidized hawker centers. When Choong launched Prawnaholic in 2022, he charged $18 per bowl for prawn noodles and noted that New York minimum wage rules and shift limits required paying monthly assistant salaries of up to $5,000 across two shift teams, according to AsiaOne. Those costs help explain why building a reputation in New York, and securing a steady venue, matters so much for hawker operators trying to make the economics work.
For Union Square diners, Lou Yau Kee's soft opening this week, with a full debut scheduled for Monday, offers a chance to taste that heritage without leaving 14th Street.
