Wing Seong Fatty’s dishes served in Qantas lounges

SINGAPORE – As a young Royal Australian Air Force pilot in 1974, Ronald Haack got a first taste of the “best Chinese food” he had eaten, at Wing Seong Fatty’s first location in Albert Street.

For the next five decades, the Australian returned to the restaurant whenever he was in Singapore.

Haack, 74, who went on to become a Boeing 747 pilot with Australian airline Qantas and is now retired, did not find the restaurant by chance.

Patronising the restaurant was a longstanding practice begun and sustained by his fellow air force servicemen.

The Cantonese restaurant was famed among pilots of the Royal Australian Air Force and Qantas, as the founder Au Yuen and his son Au Chan Seng – endearingly nicknamed “Fatty” – had secretly given food to prisoners of war during World War II.

It also became a haunt for crew from other carriers such as British Airways and Emirates.

The restaurant announced on Facebook in April that it would be shutting down on June 28 after 100 years, as it was unable to find a successor to continue the business.

After learning about its impending closure, Haack and his wife immediately made plans to fly from Sydney to Singapore, to dine at Wing Seong Fatty’s at Burlington Square in Bencoolen one last time.

It had operated across three locations, first from a shophouse in Albert Street, then at Albert Complex, and finally, from Burlington Square.

Two of the restaurant’s dishes – crispy spring rolls and nuclear chicken – will endure at Qantas’ lounges at Changi Airport, albeit for a limited time.

Describing this as “a way of carrying something of Fatty’s forward”, Qantas said its lounge chefs learnt to cook the dishes from the Au family and the restaurant team.

Nuclear chicken, affectionately named by the crew, refers to claypot curry chicken.

To be launched on July 1, the spring rolls will be available at the Qantas first-class lounge for about three months, while the chicken will be on the menu at its business-class lounge for at least a month.

These dishes could be available for a longer time if they are popular among visitors, the airline said.

When the Haacks went to the restaurant on June 20, they could not get a table during dinnertime. The snaking queue would take at least two hours to clear, they were told, so they had no choice but to leave hungry and gutted.

But the couple were determined to have one last meal at the restaurant. On June 23, the day they were due to fly back to Australia, they arrived more than an hour before noon, when the restaurant opened for lunch.

They got themselves a table and handed a carefully wrapped gift – an air force medallion – to Au Kok Wing, a grandson of the restaurant’s founder.

“I can’t imagine Singapore without Fatty’s,” Haack told Au Kok Wing, who is otherwise known as Skinny because of his leaner build compared with his father, Fatty.

The week before, a group of Qantas crew organised a private farewell dinner there.

At the June 19 dinner, an entourage of some 20 pilots – fronted by Qantas chief pilot Dick Tobiano – presented Skinny and three other Au siblings with scrapbooks of photos and notes.

Among the pilots was Tony Waters, training captain for the Qantas Boeing 737 fleet, whose fondest memories of the restaurant were from 2004 to 2012, when he took his children there.

As his family relocated to Singapore during that time when he was seconded to the now-defunct Jetstar Asia, Waters said his children spent many evenings at the restaurant, with Skinny treating them to ice cream after dinner.

“They grew up knowing Skinny, Kelvin (Skinny’s brother), and the rest of the family,” the 56-year-old added.

Noting that his 22-year-old daughter recently made a trip to Singapore just to eat at the restaurant before it closed, Waters said it showed how much Wing Seong Fatty’s meant to her.

Through the decades, the restaurant became a cornerstone for social gatherings among Qantas crew, so much so that Skinny curated a “Qantas menu” to make it easier for the crew to place orders.

It included dishes such as spring rolls, nuclear chicken, sweet and sour pork, black pepper prawns, vegetables, barbecued pork and fried rice, in addition to beer.

Captain Brett Walker, who flies Qantas’ Airbus A330 planes, welcomed this menu, as it “took the thinking out of ordering”, since Skinny knew what dishes the pilots enjoyed.

The 45-year-old said: “Despite (Skinny) not having a conventionally welcoming demeanour, he would always give us a smile and make space for us.”

The restaurant’s history means something to Walker on a personal level, as his grandfather was interned at Changi Camp during the war.

“My grandfather used to tell me stories of the local Chinese who snuck him extra rice, claiming it kept him alive… (This kindness) is a very real and special thing,” he said.

When The Straits Times visited the restaurant on June 23, all tables were reserved, but there was still a queue of about 15 people waiting to enter as walk-in customers at noon.

It is also well-loved by some Singaporeans, including retired teacher Daniel Ng, 82, who has frequented the restaurant monthly for the past six decades. He had visited its first store in Albert Street with his parents.

Ng described his last meal there as a way to give the restaurant “a final send-off”.

Lu Jiahui, a 36-year-old software developer, had joined the queue after discovering the restaurant on social media. He was willing to wait up to an hour, given that it was closing.

As for Au Kok Wing, he said he has made plans to meet some Qantas crew members in Australia when he is there on holiday in November.

On his retirement plans, he told ST: “It is finally time for me to relax and eat, gain weight and… not be ‘Skinny’.

“It’s time to enjoy life.”