Chan Mei Yan (陈美燕) also known as Gu Ma, is the iconic figure on Gu Ma Jia’s logo. She has a strong passion for cooking, especially scrumptious home-cooked dishes. She is the face of Gu Ma Jia, a Chinese restaurant established since November 2009 that serves up a variety of home-cooked dishes for families to enjoy and bond over food.

Growing up in Pulau Ubin, Gu Ma literally grew up cooking dishes for her other siblings from when she was young. She experimented with cooking as young as 7 years old, having had to scramble onto a stool just to be able to even reach the stove. The natural environment in which she grew up around had abundance of seafood, where Gu Ma would handpick the good fresh seafood to create a satisfying dish for meals. Oysters stuck along a bridge at Gu Ma’s home back then were one of her favourites, allowing her and her siblings to share the freshness of these oysters. This shaped Gu Ma’s mentality positively, always ensuring that Gu Ma Jia serves up fresh and delicious seafood dishes to everyone. Gu Ma’s inquisitive nature also encouraged her to come up with ideas to constantly improve her cooking, a trait that she embodies even till today.

Gu Ma’s close relationship with food continued to grow, as she eventually opened a food stall that sold chicken rice and wanton noodles. She also had a hand in a steamboat business, showing her extensive history and experience in the food industry. In 2007, Gu Ma had a Chinese restaurant that opened in Shanghai, which also served authentic home-cooked food. Since young, Gu Ma has placed great emphasis on cooking healthy home-cooked dishes, a personal value that she has practiced till today, be it cooking for her own family at home or the dishes cooked at Gu Ma Jia.

Serving up quality home-cooked food is always important to Gu Ma. She regularly works with the chef to experiment and devise methods to better the dishes at Gu Ma Jia. Less oil and less MSG is also used, aligning with the restaurant’s take on serving authentic home-cooked food. A high standard of food is always served at Gu Ma Jia. They do not use instant processed food or preservatives. Instead, all ingredients are bought fresh from the market daily, handpicked by Gu Ma and her dedicated team.

Gu Ma also loves to share her own recipes with customers, often providing advice on cooking tips using healthy methods as well as instilling family and life values to our valued customers.