He’d moved to Melbourne to work at Southeast Asian restaurant Sunda, one year before the pandemic hit. During that time, he visited the popular Hector’s Deli, and the tuna melt changed his life. “I left the shop and walked home with my head down, just thinking… ‘This is exactly what I want to do with my life’.”
So, back in Singapore, he set out to recreate that tuna melt and, along the way, put out many other sandwiches by way of Between Buns, like a fried oyster po’ boy with gribiche and salsa macha; curried lamb ribs on Turkish bread; and a chicken tikka banh mi.
It’s still his dream to immerse himself in the world of sandwiches – someplace by the beach in Bali, perhaps – but for now, at Wildcard, where he holds his first head chef position, exploration, creativity, learning and fun are the order of the day. He changes the menu up whenever he feels like it, and makes sure his kitchen team doesn’t “go to work every day worrying about having to be perfect”.