How one young chef is spotlighting Hakka food by combining it with Mexican and European elements

It was an uphill battle. Firstly, “Hakka cuisine is limited in Singapore… Not many people know about Hakka food and culture as we are a minority dialect.” The most famous Hakka dishes are the yam abacus seeds, Hakka yong tau foo and thunder tea rice, but few are aware, for instance, that dishes like stewed pork belly with preserved vegetables, pen cai and duck with salted vegetable soup have Hakka origins, Cheng said.

Secondly, Hakkas are purists when it comes to their food. Even Cheng’s mother, “a very traditional lady”, did not approve of his fusion dishes at first. “She said, ‘What is this? You are embarrassing the Hakkas’,” Cheng recalled.

In their culture, “Men don’t go into the kitchen – only ladies do. The ladies ask you to stand aside,” he said. Even fermenting rice wine was something he had to do in secret.