Ng introduced the Uncle Roger Special Fry Rice in his video. — Screengrab from X/@MrNigelNg
Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng, best known by his online persona Uncle Roger, has opened his first restaurant, Fuiyoh!, at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur on Sept 11.
The restaurant’s menu features an array of fried rice starting from RM16 for ‘Uncle Roger’s Egg Fry Rice’ while the signature dish ‘Uncle Roger’s Special Fry Rice’ is RM18 with added ingredients like garlic shrimp costing extra.
“Niece and nephew know, Uncle Roger reviewed fried rice from all over the world, and I found all my favourite ingredients and put them into this one dish,” he said in a video introducing his signature dish, adding that paying extra for additional ingredients will be worth it.
Ng rose to fame in 2020 when a YouTube video of him condemning a fried rice recipe video by BBC presenter Hersha Patel went viral.
Dressed in an orange shirt and speaking in an exaggerated Chinese accent, Ng’s Uncle Roger slammed Patel’s unusual cooking method, which included draining boiled rice through a strainer.
“What (is) she doing? What (are) you doing? Drain the rice? Oh my god! You’re killing me, woman. Drain the rice? Haiyah,” he said in the video.
The video has garnered more than 38 million views on Ng’s YouTube channel, where he now has more than nine million subscribers.
Since then, Uncle Roger has established himself as an expert of sorts in fried rice as well as other Asian food and has even roasted the likes of celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay in other viral videos.
Ng rose to fame in 2020 when a YouTube video of him reacting to a fried rice recipe video by BBC presenter Hersha Patel went viral. — X/@MrNigelNg
Can online fame fuel real success?
Ng joins a growing list of YouTubers who turned their viral fame and online following into a food business.
Nur Nadhirah Rosdi, better known as Drah Eyra, a gaming YouTuber with over 600,000 followers, opened Drah Eyra Cafe in Kuala Terengganu last year.
Apart from menu items like cakes and various drinks, Nur Nadhirah Rosdi told Sinar Harian that the cafe also serves as a location for fan meetings.
“There are fans who have contacted me every time they come to Kuala Terengganu. So I’m using this opportunity to open up a cafe so it will be easier for me to host events that involve meeting up with fans,” she said.
Nur Nadhirah also mentioned that it cost her RM50,000 to start the restaurant, which she said was funded by income from her YouTube channel.
In 2011, YouTuber Ryan Tan (formerly of Night Owl Cinematics fame, a once-top Singaporean YouTube channel with over 900,000 followers) announced that he has partnered with the owner of his favourite childhood restaurant, Xin Mei Xiang Lor Mee, to open a new branch in Singapore.
“Since I was 5 years old, my mum introduced me to @xmxlormee, and she would always bring me to eat this before school. This lor mee is one of the few treasured memories I had with my mum,” he said in an Instagram post.
Food at Tan’s restaurant was reportedly sold out by 1pm on its opening day.
Back in 2020, YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, best known as MrBeast, launched MrBeast Burger, a virtual restaurant chain operating through a delivery-only model with existing kitchens preparing the food.
Huge crowds were drawn to MrBeast Burger pop-ups thanks to Donaldson’s promotional stunts. In a video shot during the pandemic, Donaldson, who has over 300 million subscribers, showed how he gave away stacks of cash to fans who showed up at a MrBeast Burger drive-through in the United States.
Then in 2022, he even opened the first MrBeast Burger restaurant at a mall in the US, drawing over 10,000 people.
However, in 2023, Variety reported that Donaldson launched a legal suit against the ghost kitchen company that operated MrBeast Burger, seeking to terminate the deal.
He alleged that the burgers served were met with negative reviews, which affected his reputation. The company responded by suing Donaldson for failing to honour his contractual obligations, seeking US$100mil (RM433.3mil) in damages.
“This case is about a social media celebrity who believes his fame means that his word does not matter, that the facts do not matter, and that he can renege and breach his contractual obligations without consequence. He is mistaken,” the suit against Donaldson stated.
