Hong Lim Food Centre, Chinatown, Singapore
The Chef & His Story
Before the food even reaches the table, Eddy’s is a story worth telling. Chef Eddy Wan is an Ipoh-born Malaysian who arrived in Singapore at 19 with a single ambition: to cook. His trajectory reads more like a novel than a CV — hotel kitchens, a private chef posting aboard a luxury superyacht traversing France and the Mediterranean for three years, followed by restaurant training and a brief earlier stint running a Western bistro at China Street (Rustic Bistro) that eventually closed. Prior to setting up Eddy’s during the COVID-19 era, Eddy had a Western stall at China Square’s food court and a Western Fusion bistro, both of which closed down about seven years prior. Sagye Korean Pot Eddy’s at Hong Lim is his third — and most celebrated — enterprise.
The self-taught chef ventured into the culinary world after drawing inspiration from his mother’s cooking, who also worked as a hawker. Sagye Korean Pot There is something poetic, then, about the full circle of his return to the hawker format. His driving philosophy: “bring restaurant-quality food to a hawker centre.” Sagye Korean Pot “Cooked fresh, fast, and tastes tokong” is the stall’s motto — tokong being Hokkien slang for supremely good.
Ambience & Setting
Hong Lim Market and Food Centre is one of Singapore’s most storied hawker complexes, anchoring the edge of Chinatown near Clarke Quay. The building itself is a utilitarian two-storey structure — yellowed fluorescent lighting, tightly packed communal tables, ceiling fans doing their weary best against the equatorial heat. The air carries the composite aromas of roasted meats, fried garlic, and decades of culinary memory.
The little stall is tucked away on the second floor of the sprawling two-storey complex, with a neon sign bearing a cheeky little cartoon resembling the chef himself. Miss Tam Chiak That neon cartoon is the first visual cue that something atypical is happening here — a stall with personality, not just produce. The open-front counter reveals Eddy working a grill with quiet intensity, a blowtorch at the ready, while his wife Serene manages the counter. The queue tends to stretch considerably by midday. There are no reservations, no mood lighting, no playlists. What you get instead is the peculiarly Singaporean pleasure of atas food — refined, restaurant-worthy cooking — consumed at a plastic stool, surrounded by aunties sharing prawn noodle soup. It is a genuinely democratic dining experience.
The Signature Dish: Duck Confit ($12)
Culinary Technique & Process
Duck confit (confit de canard) is a preparation of French origin in which the duck leg is cured then slow-cooked submerged in its own rendered fat, a method that dates to Gascony in southwest France. It is a technique associated almost exclusively with professional restaurant kitchens, demanding both time and precision. That it appears on a hawker stall menu at all is the central curiosity of Eddy’s.
The chef insists on using fresh ducks and marinates them for an entire day before sous-viding for 16 hours. Timeout Marinated with bay leaves, thyme, rosemary and his “secret weapon” — five spice powder — the fresh duck leg is sous vide for 14 to 16 hours at 78 degrees Celsius. Sagye Korean Pot The five spice powder is where the East-West convergence becomes technical rather than merely cosmetic: star anise, cloves, cassia bark, Sichuan peppercorn, and fennel seeds lend the flesh a warm, faintly anise-tinged undercurrent entirely absent from a classical French preparation.
Upon order, he expertly grills each duck leg with flair while simultaneously charring the edges with a flame-spitting blowtorch. Timeout This finishing step is critical — it re-crisps the skin that the sous vide process necessarily softens, producing the textural contrast that defines a properly executed confit.
Colour, Hue & Visual Analysis
His darker duck confit is a result of an undisclosed spice, which adds an extra bit of flavour to the meat. One of his philosophies is that colours create flavour. Eatbook.sg This is a culinary principle with genuine scientific grounding: the Maillard reaction and caramelisation both produce browning compounds (melanoidins and caramel polymers) that are simultaneously chromatic and flavour-active. The deep mahogany-to-chestnut surface of Eddy’s duck leg is therefore not merely decorative — it signals the depth of spice cure and the intensity of the blowtorch finish. Compared to the pale gold of a classically prepared French confit, Eddy’s version is noticeably darker, more dramatic, more assertive in its visual promise.
The accompaniments complete the plate’s colour palette: the ivory-cream of the mashed potato or the glistening sheen of aglio olio spaghetti; the pale green and purple of the coleslaw; the yellow of a grilled corn cob, its kernels slightly charred at their edges. It is a composed plate that works chromatically — dark-warm tones from the duck anchored by cooler, lighter sides.
Texture Profile
The textural achievement at Eddy’s is the element most consistently praised across all reviews. What he accomplished with the duck meat is a knife-through-butter cutting experience, while still retaining a firm bite. Eatbook.sg This balance — tenderness without collapse — is the technical hallmark of a well-executed sous vide confit. Too short a cook produces chewiness; too long produces a fibrous mushiness. At 14–16 hours at 78°C, Eddy achieves what food scientists call the ideal myosin denaturation threshold: muscle fibres loosened, collagen gelatinised, yet structural integrity maintained.
The duck leg was so wonderfully tender and flavourful you probably won’t need knife or teeth to do any work. There is a thin layer of crispy skin as well that adds to the texture. Burpple That thin crisp skin layer is perhaps the dish’s greatest textural accomplishment — a delicate, brittle caramelised shell over yielding, unctuous flesh. Cutting through the duck was almost as easy as pie, with the meat tender and seasoned well on the inside. Miss Tam Chiak
The mashed potato, when chosen as the accompaniment, is rich and creamy, exactly how it should be. Burpple The aglio olio registers as al dente with considerable garlic intensity.
Flavour Architecture
The flavour profile is complex and layered. The base is the intrinsic richness of duck fat — deep, savoury, slightly gamey in the way that speaks of a real animal rather than a commodity protein. Layered above this is the herb cure: thyme and rosemary providing a Mediterranean aromatic register, bay leaf lending a faint eucalyptus note. Then comes the five spice, which introduces warmth and a faintly liquorice-adjacent sweetness. Sprinkled with togarashi powder, the fork-tender duck carries a pinch of spice. Sagye Korean Pot Togarashi — a Japanese seven-spice blend — adds a final, bright top-note of citrus peel and chilli that cuts through the fat. The finishing sauce pooling beneath the leg is brown and savoury, functioning as both moisture source and flavour amplifier. From skin to bone, the duck bore notes of a mild salty spice that is unforgivingly mouth-watering. Eatbook.sg
The Mala Shrimp Spaghetti ($10.50)
Where the duck confit operates through restraint and precision, the Mala Shrimp Spaghetti is its provocateur sibling. Mala (麻辣) is a Sichuan flavour principle built on two axes: là (辣, chilli heat) and má (麻, the numbing tingle of Sichuan peppercorn, or huājiāo). The numbing sensation arises from hydroxy-alpha-sanshool compounds in the peppercorn acting on TRPV1 and TRPA1 receptor channels — a physiological phenomenon that produces what Sichuanese describe as a buzzing, electric sensation on the lips and tongue.
The Mala Shrimp Spaghetti offers a spicy and savoury mix of flavours served with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli for a well-balanced and filling meal. Sagye Korean Pot The vegetables are more than aesthetic — their mild, slightly sweet profiles serve as palate resets between mala-forward bites, preventing flavour fatigue. It was a delicious surprise, for those who have eaten a number of mala dishes. Miss Tam Chiak
The Chicken Chop Laksa Spaghetti ($9.50)
This is arguably the dish that most fully embodies Eddy’s fusion philosophy. Laksa — specifically curry laksa — is a Peranakan-Malay coconut milk and spice soup native to Singapore and Malaysia. Eddy translates its essence into a pasta sauce. The chicken had a char and remained juicy, while the laksa sauce was creamy and carried the familiar coconut and spice aroma. The sauce was more lemak, and tasted like it had its own character rather than pre-made versions. DanielFoodDiary Lemak denotes the characteristic richness of coconut milk fat. Topped with his homemade hae bee hiam, the chicken chop had been butterflied before being cooked and cut into strips to make it easy to eat with the pasta. The sauce is slightly thicker than your average laksa broth but works well when slurped up with the al dente pasta. Miss Tam Chiak
The hae bee hiam — dried shrimp sambal — is a condiment of considerable complexity: fermented, funky, savoury-sweet and fiery all at once. It is Eddy’s signature hae bee hiam that gastronomes should not sleep on. Timeout All condiments are handmade in-house.
Dish Analysis: What Makes This Exceptional at the Price Point?
The value proposition at Eddy’s is genuine rather than performative. Duck confit in a mid-range Singapore restaurant typically commands $28–$45. At $12, Eddy’s achieves comparable technical quality through vertical integration: he performs every step of the process himself, from day-long cure through 16-hour sous vide to blowtorch finish, with no outsourcing and no shortcuts. All condiments, side dishes, and spices are handmade by Eddy, who runs the stall with his wife. Miss Tam Chiak The trade-off, economically, is volume — the signature Duck Confit gets sold out almost every day, or as Eddy likes to say, “my ducks always run very fast.” Miss Tam Chiak
Delivery Options
Eddy’s operates as a traditional hawker stall and does not currently offer delivery through platforms such as GrabFood or foodpanda. The stall’s operating hours — weekday lunchtimes only, from 10:30am to 2pm — and the highly perishable, labour-intensive nature of the duck confit make delivery logistically challenging. The dish is best consumed immediately after the blowtorch finish, as the crisp skin softens relatively quickly once packaged. The most reliable option is a direct visit; given that items regularly sell out before closing time, arriving by 11am is advisable.
Verdict
Eddy’s is one of those rare dining experiences where context and content reinforce each other. The hawker setting does not diminish the food — if anything, it heightens the pleasure of encountering restaurant-calibre technique in a democratic space. The quality of the duck confit is pretty much comparable to that found at French bistros. Miss Tam Chiak For a city as food-obsessed as Singapore, Eddy’s represents something close to a philosophical statement: that culinary excellence need not be gated behind white tablecloths and sommelier trolleys.
Address: 531A Upper Cross Street, #02-13, Hong Lim Market & Food Centre, Singapore 051531 Hours: Monday to Friday, 10:30am – 2pm (closed weekends) Note: Not halal-certified. Arrive early — the duck sells out.