76-Year-Old Doctorate Holder Suffers Stroke A Month After Starting Hawker Job
The sprightly Dr Vic holds a Doctor in Business Administration from the University of Western Australia. He developed an interest in cooking while studying in Perth, and went on to get a diploma from Shatec after he returned to Singapore.
While working at Japanese restaurant Peace Japanese Cuisine, he met his boss Simon Ng, 57, who gave Dr Vic the opportunity to run his own hawker stall. The elderly man was so enthusiastic about his job, he moved out of the Simei flat that he shares with his wife and eldest son and rented a bed in an eight-bed Chinatown hostel room near his workplace. 
“He took a bus to the hospital”
Almost two weeks ago, he had a minor stroke. His employer Simon (pictured above) was alarmed when he received a call from Dr Vic with the news. “I wanted to get him an ambulance, but he told me he took a bus to the hospital,” Simon tells 8days.sg.
Month-long MC
According to Simon, Dr Vic was given a 32-day MC and is now taking a temporary break from cooking at the stall. “He’s okay, he’s strong. He’s not physically affected by the stroke — he can walk fast in a straight line and his [facial muscles] are okay. He has recovered in such a short time that even his doctors were surprised.”
While Dr Vic recuperates, Simon is planning to assign light marketing-related tasks to him until he feels well enough to cook again. In the meantime, he has transferred a chef, Alvin Chiong, 51, from his Japanese restaurant to take over the stall in Dr Vic’s absence. 
Alvin (pictured), a trained chef who has hawker experience working as an assistant at a carrot cake stall, is introducing two new pad see ew (Thai stir-fried kway teow) dishes to Peace Thai Cuisine’s menu. 
But instead of kway teow, Alvin is using the silky rice sheets usually found in kway chap for the pad see ew, which is offered with either Chicken ($6) or Beef ($8). The kway teow reua (Thai boat noodles) that Dr Vic had been serving is temporarily unavailable, though you can still get stir-fried basil dishes like Pad Krapow Gai ($5) and Pad Krapow Neua ($7) that come with either chicken or beef and a fried egg over rice.
Peace Thai Cuisine is at #02-52 Hong Lim Market & Food Centre, 531A Upper Cross St, S051531. Tel: 8927-6683. Open daily except Sun, 10am-3pm. www.facebook.com/peacethaicuisine.
Photos: Aik Chen/ Simon Ng
