SINGAPORE – While his classmates spent weekends at play and enjoyed family outings during school holidays, Mr Eugene Tan’s boyhood memories are of cutting long beans and gutting fish at his parents’ nasi padang stall.

By age 13, he was dispatching live crabs. His brother, who is two years younger, began helping out too, at age seven. “Our school holidays were spent doing ‘child labour’ and ‘interning’ at our parents’ stall,” says Mr Tan, a 46-year-old former teacher.

At first, it felt novel. “When I was 12, it was fun learning how to clean seafood,” he says. His brother was eager to fry eggs and omelettes. But they quickly realised that once they mastered a task, it became part of their responsibilities.

The worst job was cutting 4kg of long beans at a time, Mr Tan recalls with a grimace. It was difficult slicing them so precisely that his parents would not scold him for wasting edible ends.

“They were frugal and very conscious about cost and minimising food wastage,” he says.

The work was demanding, but after initial resentment, Mr Tan appreciated the time spent with his parents, Mr Tan Tiam Bock, 74, and Madam Cheong Chiew Leng, 70. He also developed a deep respect for the dishes they cooked at Serangoon Nasi Padang, first opened at the now-defunct Somerset Eating House in 1983.

One of his happiest memories is his father taking the family to Commonwealth Crescent Market for fish head beehoon at 9pm after work, which both he and his mother loved. Mr Tan and his brother used to help out on weekends and during their school holidays.

By 15, he understood why his parents needed help. “They gave us whatever we needed without spoiling us. I learnt the value of hard work and how money is not easy to come by.”

That lesson stayed with him through a 14-year teaching career, a postgraduate scholarship and a switch to the corporate world. But in 2021, Mr Tan left his job as a trainer and business development manager at an aesthetics group, returning to the sambal-scented world of his childhood to preserve his parents’ nasi padang legacy.

The couple never expected either son to take over the business as they believed a food stall offered poor prospects. 

Mr Tan had pursued education, inspired by his teachers at Clementi Town Secondary School. With a social science degree and a post-graduate diploma in education from the National Institute of Education, he returned to teach English at his alma ...