The 86-year-old roast meat master behind shuttered Chinatown stall now working at People’s Park Food Centre

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Remember the senior shifu behind Old Master Roasted Grill, whose charcoal-roasted meats drew queues at Chinatown Complex Food Centre? Cho Siew Wan is still manning the roasting pit – and at 86, he has no plans to call it a day.

When Old Master Roasted Grill closed in July 2022, its business partner Sham Hei told 8days that the veteran roast master had been advised to retire because the physical demands of roasting meat alone had become too much.

Turns out, Master Cho had other plans. Rather than hang up his apron, he went on to work at Peach Garden before eventually moving to another roast meat stall, 116 Shao La in People's Park Food Centre.

8days recently caught up with the 86-year-old, who has been working at 116 Shao La for about two years. In a recent 8days video, stall owner Liu Li, 50, introduces him as a roast meat specialist with 60 years of experience. The video shows Master Cho lifting glistening slabs of char siew out of an oven and chopping roast pork.

DID NOT RETIRE AFTER OLD MASTER ROASTED GRILL CLOSED

When 8days reported on Old Master Roasted Grill’s closure in August 2022, Master Cho was 82. The stall had shut in July, around 18 months after opening.

Sham Hei told 8days then that roasting large quantities of meat alone from 5am daily had become too physically demanding for Master Cho. Unable to find an assistant, Sham Hei advised his friend to retire. Attempts to hire a replacement roast master also failed, and the space was converted into a herbal soup stall.

However, Master Cho, who did not hold a stake in the stall, was not ready to stop working.

In a separate interview with 8days, he explained that he went on to work at the OCBC Centre outlet of local Chinese restaurant chain Peach Garden, where a larger team helped ease the physical demands of the job. He stayed there for about two years, before moving on to hawker stall 116 Shao La.

HOW HE STARTED AT 116 SHAO LA

Master Cho and 116 Shao La owner Liu Li go back a long way. Over the past 20 years, he had been hired intermittently as a consultant roast master for her business.

So when her previous roast master left, Liu Li immediately thought of Master Cho, who belongs to her late father's generation of roast meat cooks.

She trusts him to make the cooking and operational decisions, including developing the recipes. “He's the best, we just need to listen to him!” she told 8days.

The arrangement also means Master Cho no longer has to do everything himself. Liu Li employs two other assistants at the stall to handle more physically demanding jobs, such as lifting heavy pieces of meat, leaving him to focus on roasting.

That is why when Liu Li called to offer him a job, Master Cho accepted. He told us that the pay (around mid four-figures) is comparable to what he earned at Peach Garden, while the hours are shorter. He now works from 6.30am to 4pm, with roughly one rest day a week.

For someone who enjoys working, this is a welcome change.

Master Cho had previously run a roast meat stall in Upper Thomson, near Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home. He told us then that it closed around 2014 amid works on the Thomson-East Coast MRT line. He subsequently cooked for other stall owners, finding that less demanding than running a business himself.

STILL ROASTING MEAT DESPITE SMOKE AND HAZE

Asked how he gets his roast pork skin so crispy, Cho gave a matter-of-fact answer: “There’s no secret to it.”

“You just need to watch the fire. You have to roast it slowly, it cannot be rushed,” he added.

At 116 Shao La, the meats are roasted using a combination of charcoal and gas. Unlike the fully charcoal-roasted meats at Old Master Roasted Grill, the stall starts the roasting process with a gas cooker before finishing the meat over charcoal. The hawker centre does not permit full charcoal roasting because of the smoke it produces.

When we visited, Master Cho was in good spirits, appearing sprightly and energetic as he went about his work. We expressed concern about him spending hours at the roasting pit amid the recent haze, but he was unfazed, saying it didn't bother him.

WHY KEEP WORKING AT 86?

Master Cho’s civil servant daughter had asked him to retire, too. But the prospect of staying home all day did not appeal to him.

“I'm already 86,” he said when asked when he plans to stop working. “But I'll carry on until I cannot work anymore.”

When we teased him about whether he would still be working at 90, he replied without hesitation: “If I can, sure!”

With more help at 116 Shao La, Master Cho enjoys greater freedom to delegate tasks and concentrate on the work he knows best. Rather than commit to a retirement date, he prefers to take things day by day and keep working for as long as he can.

Finding someone to eventually take over, however, may be another challenge.

Master Cho told us that apprentices he had trained tend to leave and start their own stalls after six to eight months of learning from him. The work is tough, and he believes few young people are keen to take it up.

FROM MORE THAN 11 STALLS TO ONE

116 Shao La is a family business established by Liu's late father, who came from Guangzhou and settled in Singapore with his family.

The business was originally based in a coffee shop at Block 116, Lorong 2 Toa Payoh – hence its name. Liu couldn't recall exactly when the stall first opened, but said it had already been operating for a long time when she officially took over the family business in 2006. The original Toa Payoh stall has since been sold.

At its peak, Liu Li said the business had more than 11 stalls in Singapore. Today, its sole remaining outlet is at People's Park Food Centre, where it has operated for more than two decades.

“We were continually making losses for over a year during the pandemic, so we decided to close all of them except the People's Park branch, which was the most popular and our HQ,” she explained.

Would she like to open more outlets in the future? “Sure, if I can find a capable team. But with rents, food and labour costs rising, expansion is unlikely for now,” she said.

Liu Li works at the People’s Park stall daily, handling orders and keeping the business running. Sales have their ups and downs, she said, declining to share details of the stall's earnings.

THE MENU

The traditional roast duck is priced from S$13 a quarter portion to S$46 whole, while a plate of roast duck rice is S$4. The stall also serves herbal duck, marinated with Chinese angelica root. Liu Li said both versions come with crispy skin.

There are two char siew options for customers who prefer fatter or leaner meat. The fatter version uses bu jian tian, described in the video as a cut from the pig’s underarm area. Though the cut costs more, she said both char siew options sell for the same price.

Mixed roast pork and char siew rice is S$5.50, while the noodle version costs S$6. Combo platters featuring two types of meat start at S$8 for one person.

ROAST DUCK STILL AS GOOD

We sampled the roast meats on a separate visit, and the duck remains a strong choice, with crispy skin, well-seasoned meat and a moist texture.

Our colleague who regularly buys the roast duck noodles for takeaway agrees, describing the skin as crackly and caramelised, with juicy meat and a subtle smokiness, though she finds the eggy wonton noodles average.

PORK SKIN ROLLS AND HOMEMADE CHINESE SAUSAGE

Beyond the roast meats, the stall sells a la carte braised pork skin rolls for S$6. Liu Li said in the 8days video that some older regulars travel from Tampines and Jurong specifically for the dish.

The pork skin is rolled, tied and braised slowly. She said rolling it gives the skin a bouncier texture without making it feel too oily.

Another offering is Chinese sausage, priced at S$6. Made in-house with ground pork and Hua Tiao wine, the sausage has fragrant notes of Chinese wine, a satisfying chew and a sweetness that doesn't overwhelm.

Each morning, the stall’s display is packed so densely with meat that Liu Li joked in the video that they can only see the “outside world” once everything has sold out. For her, the regulars who keep coming back are the best endorsement of the food.

This story was originally published in 8Days.

For more 8Days stories, visit https://www.8days.sg/.