Meet the hero who pulled his fellow hawker to safety in Hong Lim food centre fire
Hedy Khoo
The Straits Times
Jan 17, 2026
The lunch rush was building at Hong Lim Market & Food Centre on Jan 2 when Western fusion stall hawker Eddy Wan caught a glimpse of flames leaping from the stove of the zi char stall opposite.
At first, the 45-year-old thought nothing of it and even remarked to his wife that the 80-year-old hawker of Ho Kee Seafood was cooking with serious fire for wok hei at his age.
Seconds later, as he turned to plate an order, the flames shot higher.
Something was wrong.
Mr Wan switched off his stove and ran towards the stall opposite, leaving slabs of salmon on the grill. Inside his neighbour's stall, a wok of oil was on fire, the flames climbing more than 1m high. When Mr Wan told the stall owner Teo Koon Guan, who was standing outside his stall, that there was a fire, Mr Teo remained rooted to the spot.
"He was stunned and in a daze," Mr Wan says.
He told Mr Teo to move farther away to a safe spot, grabbed a nearby tablecloth and rushed back to his stall to soak it with water. When he returned, he found Mr Teo inside the stall, next to the blazing wok.
Mr Wan shouted for him to come out. When Mr Teo did not move, Mr Wan went in and dragged him out by the arms, as smoke thickened around them. Mr Teo, who had been working alone at that time, was trembling.
"I was frightened he might die in the stall," Mr Wan says. "My mind was on his safety."
His alertness and instinctive response had been honed years earlier by fire safety training he underwent while working as a private chef on a superyacht.
From kampung to kitchens
Born in Kuala Kangsar, a small town in Perak, Mr Wan learnt the value of hard work early on. His father was a carpenter, while his mother ran a pushcart selling economy bee hoon. From age six, he helped his mother, shelling cockles, cleaning bean sprouts and cutting vegetables for a curry gravy which went with the bee hoon.
At 15, he dreamt of becoming a DJ. A year later, he changed his mind. "I needed a skill that could last," he says. Watching chefs in crisp whites on television, he decided cooking would be his rice bowl.
He enrolled at Syuen College in Ipoh, completing a two-year culinary certificate before coming to Singapore at 19 to look for work. Rejected by more than 10 hotels and restaurants, he tore up the certificate in frustration. "Most employers here did not recognise it," he says.
Eventually, he landed a job as a line cook at The Oriental Singapore at Marina Square, now known as Mandarin Oriental. He started at its all-day dining outlet Cafe des Artistes before transferring to the hotel's main kitchen. Within six months, he was promoted to second cook.
Western cooking drew him in. "It was fancy and flexible," he says. He watched cooking programmes obsessively, curious about techniques and flavours.
By 24, he was junior sous chef at Pabulum, a bistro at Millenia Walk that expanded to four outlets. There, he learnt menu planning, staffing, outlet set-up and management. "People doubted me because I was young," he says.
At 25, an offer arrived that changed everything. Mr Wan was hired as a personal chef on a superyacht in Nice, France, owned by a Saudi billionaire with a fleet of three superyachts. He joined as the lowest-ranked of three chefs and was promoted to second chef the following year.
He cooked with ingredients he had never heard of. "We used caviar like it was peanut butter, and truffle was used as plentifully as onion," he says, chuckling.
He sailed to Seychelles, the Maldives, Mauritius, Monaco and Spain, spending months at sea. Fire safety training was mandatory.
"At sea, we have to be prepared for emergencies," he says. "Fires, storms, even waves, can turn into situations where we may need to abandon ship. Staying alert at all times, even when sleeping, became second nature to me."
The experience widened his world. "I was a kampung boy seeing how the super rich live," he says. "I wanted to earn a bucket of gold and return to marry my girlfriend."
He had met Ms Serene Tan, now 49, years earlier while they were colleagues at The Oriental Singapore. The Singaporean started as an intern, then progressed to a secretary.
In 2008, Mr Wan was offered a promotion to head chef on a new superyacht his boss had acquired. Even though he was earning about US$4,000 a month then, he turned it down. "I promised Serene I would return after three years out at sea," he says, adding that though the job was exciting, it was also lonely.
Back in Singapore, he moved through a series of senior roles in French and modern European restaurants before becoming a permanent resident in 2009, getting married and striking out on his own at 30.
He opened the first iteration of Eddy's as a foodcourt stall at China Square, selling Western dishes. He invested $30,000 and paid $7,000 a month in rent. The first nine months were rough. He worked from 8am to 10pm, went without pay for six months, and faced stiff competition from stalls selling local fare such as yong tau foo and chicken rice.
"I broke even only in the 10th month," he adds. At its peak, the stall earned more than $10,000 a month. He saved aggressively, took public transport and bought ingredients from wet markets to keep costs low.
Ambition pushed him further. He wanted to open a restaurant before 35. At 33, in 2013, he invested all his savings into The Rustic Bistro By Eddy's at Far East Square. The 80-seat restaurant cost $300,000 to set up. A friend and his brother-in-law joined him as partners.
"I worked like a mad dog," he says. "It looked glamorous, but I was earning less than my employees." He did not draw a salary on months when business was poor.
Rental, labour and utilities crushed margins. By the end, the partners had poured in another $200,000. "My dream turned into my nightmare," he says. "But I learnt how not to run a business."
After the lease ended in 2016, with his savings depleted, he wrapped up operations and took on a salaried role as executive chef of now-defunct soba chain Wheat Baumkuchen. Regular hours followed.
"Life was very sweet," he says. Friends envied him for his weekends off and regular hours.
He also took on cooking demonstrations for cookware companies at department stores. With the extra income, he made more than $10,000 a month.
Then Covid-19 hit. Business and his pay dropped by 80 per cent. Freelance work dried up. In August 2020, he quit, feeling it was time for a new challenge.
Becoming a hawker
With his savings largely gone and his wife now a homemaker, Mr Wan took a gamble.
He bid for a hawker stall at Hong Lim Market & Food Centre, opening Eddy's in 2020. He put in almost everything he had left: $20,000. At the time, the couple's only son was 10.
"I told my wife, if I fail, we may lose everything," he says. "But I had learnt my lesson."
She told him to go for it.
This time, he planned carefully. He studied footfall, customer profiles and pricing. He wanted to serve "cafe food in a hawker centre", focusing on value and flavour. Within two weeks, he designed an 11-item menu.
The top signature dish, till today, is his Duck Confit With Mashed Potato ($12). Duck legs are seasoned overnight with salt, pepper, thyme and bay leaf, given an Asian lift with five spice, then cooked sous vide for up to 16 hours. Each order is pan-fried and finished with a blowtorch for crisp skin, and served with herbed mash and brown sauce made from his own stock.
Another popular dish is Chicken Chop With Laksa Spaghetti ($9.50). He butterflies and scores the chicken, marinates it in Cajun spices, then lays it over spaghetti tossed in a laksa rempah made from dried chilli, galangal, lemongrass, dried prawns and laksa leaves. No coconut milk is used, so the noodles keep better for takeaway orders.
The early months were punishing. His wife worked alongside him. "I was sleeping five hours a night," he says. Tempers flared. "I turned into a demon behind the stove."
He felt intense pressure. "I had no leeway for errors and had only such a compact space to do everything."
After three months, they cut operating hours and focused on lunch service. They broke even after six months and started making profits after a year.
Mr Wan now works only on weekdays, closing by 4pm. He keeps costs down by preparing sauces and duck confit from scratch rather than buying ready-made items. "I earn more than I did when I was an executive chef," he says. "I'm happier."
"Early on in my career, I was hungry for power and fame. Now, I just want to maintain the quality of food and service at my stall and earn enough money for my family," he adds.
"I am happy being who I am and doing what I like. I enjoy having freedom and control over my business."
On weekends, he works out. He is at the gym on Saturdays and runs at Labrador Park on Sundays.
He has turned down offers to expand, saying: "This is a hawker business. I'm satisfied with what I have."
After a sluggish November and December, Mr Wan began Jan 2 in high spirits, hoping the returning office crowd would lift lunch earnings. Then the fire broke out.
After pulling his neighbour to safety, he tried to smother the flames with a wet cloth, but retreated as the heat intensified and the fire spread to the exhaust. Smoke filled the area. Another hawker managed to get hold of a fire extinguisher. Mr Wan followed the hawker inside the burning stall, but the extinguisher could not contain the spreading fire.
Another attempt by Mr Wan and several hawkers to put out the fire using a fire hose failed too.
Firefighters later contained the blaze.
In the chaos, he spotted Mr Teo who had returned to the stall, unwilling to leave. The ducting above the stall was still on fire. By then, the sprinklers had activated along the row of affected stalls.
Already grimy with soot, Mr Wan got drenched when he rushed towards Mr Teo to drag him away again. Mr Teo's stall and four others along the same row were the only ones affected by the fire and are still closed and undergoing repairs.
Mr Wan inhaled smoke and suffered a headache that night. He estimates he lost about $1,000 that day from food wastage and lost earnings, but adds that "money can be earned again". He opened on the following Monday as he does not work on weekends. But there was a 40 per cent drop in business as many assumed the food centre was closed following the fire.
He brushes off the "hero" label, noting that other hawkers also tried to put out the fire. "It was teamwork."
