A gift to remember: US tourist surprises Singapore hawkers with Lego models of their stalls

SINGAPORE – Hawker Melvin Soh could not believe his eyes when an American man showed up one day at his stall with a Lego model of his old shop, replete with kaya toast and a figure of his late mum.

The models, made by engineer Matthew Hine, brought back waves of memories of Mr Soh’s mum, who helped him run their breakfast food stall in Old Airport Road Food Centre for 17 years.

Until his mother died of skin cancer, or melanoma, in 2024, she slogged day and night with him, taking turns to brew coffee and tea and toast sandwiches at their stall, Toast Hut.

The mother and son also had lunch together – minced meat noodles or duck rice – before heading home.

Speaking to The Straits Times on April 27, Mr Soh said: “I was touched because the figurines look just like us.

“My mum was usually the one helping me, and she passed away two years ago, so this symbolises her efforts setting up the stall with me and reminds me of her.”

Mr Soh, 42, was also touched that Mr Hine appreciated his food enough to create the diorama. He moved out of Old Airport Road Food Centre and reopened in Bukit Merah in 2025.

Mr Hine’s model features miniature pieces, such as the stall’s drink blender, ice bucket and bottles of condiments, with a brick-by-brick recreation of his original stall’s layout.

He contacted Mr Soh on Instagram a week before giving him the model. Although Mr Soh felt a little apprehensive, not having met the man before, he was overcome with emotion when he saw the completed model.

It now takes pride of place on a cabinet in his living room, and he is reminded of his mother and the old hawker stall when he looks at it.

“My mum would definitely have loved this,” Mr Soh said.

Mr Hine, 48, also gave a Lego model of the Rahmath Cheese Prata hawker stall in Toa Payoh to its retired owner, who declined to be interviewed.

The two hawker stalls hold a special place in Mr Hine’s heart, and he visits them when he is in Singapore. He has been coming to the city regularly since 2005 with his wife, who has family here.

Mr Hine, who lives in the city of Dallas in Texas, US, said he took nine months to design and complete the sets.

He gave the two Singapore hawkers the models of their stalls in March 2025, and their photos became widely circulated online after he posted them on forum platform Reddit on April 21, 2026.

“I love the multiculturalism of Singapore and the obsession with food; all of these things come together in hawker centres,” Mr Hine said.

“You could see guys sitting at a table sipping coffee, a family at another table, or nicely dressed office people coming to pick up food before going back to work,” he added.

“You also have these hawkers who specialise in this one thing that they have to make a thousand times a day, and they’re so good at it. This high level of attention to detail is something you get in mainly high-end restaurants in the US, but it’s something everyone in Singapore has.”

Mr Hine began building Lego sets in his childhood and resumed his hobby three years ago as a way to relax. He came up with the idea of building Lego models of the hawker stalls after seeing photos of sushi and ramen shop miniatures online.

“Hawker stalls have so much meaning to me, and I wanted to have something from Singapore that I recognise, so that when I look at it at home I can remember the good times I had there,” he said.

Mr Hine looked at photos in his personal archives and Google images of the hawker stalls before designing the model using the Lego Studio app.

He made sure to get as many details as possible right, he said, from the signature red cup used by the Rahmath Cheese Prata stall to Mr Soh’s dark blue ice bucket at Toast Hut.

Both shop owners looked shocked when they received the replicas, Mr Hine said. They also sent him thank-you messages later.

Mr Soh even met Mr Hine on his day off and gave him some coffee drip bags.

Mr Hine has also built Lego sets of wet market stalls and tea shops in Hong Kong, documenting them on Instagram. He plans to make more replicas of hawker stalls, but first has to find room at home to display them.

“In any job, it’s easy to feel like you’re working anonymously. You never really know how someone out there could be impacted by what you do. If I were in their shoes, I would want someone to go, ‘Hey, I like your food so much I built this model of your shop’,” he said.

“Shahul, the previous owner of Rahmath Cheese Prata, told me he retired recently. It’s turned into a way for me to connect with actual people in Singapore, and it feels nice to contribute a little bit to this culture I’ve come to respect,” he added.

“I was worried they would think I was a bit crazy, but it turned out to be so much more than I’d originally thought. Melvin told me the story about his mum, and I was fighting back tears.”