SINGAPORE – When Chinese daily Lianhe Wanbao featured him in 2020, zi char chef Devid Retanasamy found himself in the spotlight. Readers were intrigued by a fresh-faced Indian cook fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese who could fire up a wok with chilli crab and curry fish head.
He wanted more. Publicity, the Malaysian believed, would boost his career and help him find success in Singapore.
Instead, the years that followed were “like a roller coaster with extreme ups and downs”.
Investors and partners approached him. A series of ventures ended in disagreement. In August 2023, he fell for a scam that left him $27,000 out of pocket. A man posing as a school teacher ordered banquet dinners and sent him a fake PayNow receipt.
Mr Retanasamy paid for seafood and wine in advance, but no one turned up. The money went down the drain.
“I was so down, I cried. I didn’t dare tell my wife. Until now, she does not know that I had to cover the loss myself,” says the 42-year-old. His wife is a Shandong native who used to work as a stall assistant, and they have three children aged 17, 13 and 10.
He borrowed money and used his savings to cover the loss. “After meeting all these setbacks, I have to face them myself. Nobody can help me. I had to help myself,” he recounts in fluent Mandarin.
After that blow, Mr Retanasamy, who first came to Singapore in 2002, wanted to leave. But he stayed. “I didn’t want to give up. I felt it was a waste to give up on the amount of time and effort I had put in. I wanted to make my mark here,” he says.
Now, he is starting over with Xiao Hei Tze Char, which opened its first franchised outlet in Hougang Avenue 8 on Feb 1. The name borrows from a nickname, which some customers called him over the years as a reference to his dark complexion.
Mr Devid Retanasamy at the Hougang franchised outlet under his new Xiao Hei Tze Char brand.
ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
“People call me Xiao Hei. I don’t mind. I find it affectionate,” he says, adding that he chose the stall name himself. “It is how they know me and remember my food.”
Born in Tanah Hitam in Chemor, Perak, a 30-minute drive from Ipoh town, he was given up for adoption at age four by his biological parents who faced financial difficulties. A Chinese couple took him in, and he grew up conversing in Mandarin and Cantonese, which is why he speaks neither Tamil nor English.
He dropped out of school after Primary 6. At 12, he became a dishwasher at a neighbourhood coffee shop, earning $200 a month, with two days off.
