SINGAPORE – One semester shy of graduating from a culinary course in Taiwan, Mr Daniel Bong dropped out to chase a dream in the kitchen of Restaurant Andre in Singapore.
The impulsive move angered his parents, but his decision to do an unpaid internship eventually led him from fine dining to his own nasi lemak stall.
The 33-year-old Malaysia-born Singapore permanent resident opened 108 The Nasi Lemak Shop in August 2025 after a failed partnership forced him to shut his first outlet just months earlier. Today, he serves Malaysian-style nasi lemak with ayam berempah (spiced fried chicken), a business built on more than a decade of restaurant training.
“I wanted to do a simple meal, but make it the best version I can,” he says.
He grew up in Sarawak, the second of four children. His father worked as a car salesman and his mother was a kindergarten teacher, and both are now aged 61 and retired.
Growing up with both parents working, he and his brothers often had to sort out their own lunch. Once, when he was eight and his younger brother, six, they used up a tray of 30 eggs over two days, experimenting with omelettes and sunny-side-ups.
“My mother was livid when she came home to find out we had used up all the eggs in the house and she had none to cook for dinner,” he recalls with a chuckle.
But she noticed their interest and began teaching them to cook simple dishes such as fried rice and soup. By 17, he decided he wanted to be a chef.
He was ecstatic when his mother arranged for him to work under a Chinese executive chef at a hotel in Miri, a 20-minute drive from home. He started as a kitchen assistant, working 13-hour days, six days a week. From peeling shallots, he progressed to cooking staff meals and food for the buffet line.
Two years later, with his parents’ encouragement and financial support, he left for Taiwan and enrolled in a culinary course at Taichung’s Hungkuang University in 2011.
One night in 2013, after finishing Chu Xin, a Chinese book by chef Andre Chiang about his path in cooking, Mr Bong sent Chiang a Facebook message at 1.47am, asking for an opportunity to work at Restaurant Andre.
The reply came minutes later. Within days, he was on a flight to Singapore for an interview. He did not tell his parents about his plans.
On the day of the interview, he was asked to try out as a server. At the end of the day, he requested to see chef Chiang and asked for a kitchen role instead, and was given an internship on the spot. Despite having one semester left of school, he chose to stay in Singapore and forgo his studies.
The internship at Restaurant Andre, which opened in 2010 and closed in 2018, was unpaid.
He stayed with a friend at first and called home two months later asking for money for rent. By then, he had been offered a full-time paid position as a commis cook. His parents, though angry that he had given up his studies without consulting them, grudgingly accepted his decision.
Working at Restaurant Andre developed his philosophy towards food and cooking.
Working up to 17 hours a day was usual. “I was just trying to finish tasks and working like a robot.”
That changed when he was reprimanded for repeating the same staff meal for three weeks in a row.
“The chef was very angry. He said I was not putting my heart into it. He said the staff meal is a family meal and I should cook with more thought,” he says.
