SINGAPORE – By 7am, six days a week, former actor Huang Yiliang is at MacPherson Market and Food Centre, scaling and cleaning fish at his wet market stall.
At 11am, he walks to Circuit Road Hawker Centre, about 400m away. There, he mans the stove at his new stall Old Fisherman, stir-frying crab dishes and steaming seafood for the lunch crowd up to 2pm.
That is followed by a short nap at home before he resumes food preparation for the dinner crowd from 5 to 8pm.
In a plot twist, the 64-year-old, who originally intended to import and distribute crabs, has become a fishmonger and hawker in his third act.
He was a popular face on local television. He joined Mediacorp (then known as Singapore Broadcasting Corporation) in 1985 as a 24-year-old, where he went on to win Best Supporting Actor at the annual Star Awards three times – in 2002, 2003 and 2006.
After 23 years with the broadcaster, he left in 2008 to run a plumbing business and start a movie production company. Wanting to try his hand at producing and directing, he released his first film, Autumn In March, in 2009. The movie, made on a $1 million budget, was rejected by three movie distributors and released on DVD.
His plumbing company once employed up to eight workers. The business is still active, but instead of full-timers, he hires local plumbers on an ad-hoc basis.
In recent years, Huang has been dogged by legal troubles. In 2021, he was sentenced to 10 months’ jail for assaulting a Bangladeshi worker he had hired. In 2024, he was fined $3,000 and banned from driving for five years after colliding with a cyclist, leaving the victim with a fractured elbow.
He does not flinch when asked about his time behind bars.
“Yes, I went to Changi University,” he says in Mandarin sheepishly, referring to his time in prison, adding that he was released after five months for good behaviour.
Asked if he feels awkward being a hawker after two decades on television, especially when so many customers recognise him, he waves it off.
“I don’t care how people view me. I can put my pride down,” he says. “Being a hawker is a retirement job for me. I want to do something I truly love. I am an active person. I cannot sit still.”
From screen to seafood
Even as an actor, he had a side hustle as an insurance agent, making cold calls at industrial estates and approaching strangers at MRT stations between filming. At his peak, he led a team of 19 agents and earned about $10,000 a month.
Before acting, he was a licensed plumber in his late father’s plumbing, landscaping and construction business. A year into acting, he joined friends to start a tropical fish farm in Lim Chu Kang, wading into knee-high mud to dig ponds. The venture incurred a loss, leaving him $20,000 out of pocket.
“It was a learning experience. I can take hardship,” says the former star, who married actress Lin Meijiao, 62, in 1991.
The couple divorced in 1997, when their daughter, actress Chantalle Ng, was only a few months old. He is estranged from Ng, now aged 30. He has since remarried and has a son, 21, an undergraduate.
Huang says the idea to venture into seafood came during his time in prison.
“I was in a cell with seven people,” he says. “We spent a lot of time chatting. Some of them had experience in the food business. They gave me the idea to sell crab.”
He has always liked the hard-shelled crustacean. “I wanted to sell durian or crab,” he says.
Intending to import and distribute crabs, he secured a wet market stall at MacPherson Market and Food Centre in May 2023.
He began by supplying Indonesian crabs to stalls at wet markets in places such as Ang Mo Kio and Toa Payoh, delivering orders in a van until he lost his driving licence.
When he ran into supplier issues, he began selling fish, learning to scale them properly. In the beginning, he often cut himself with the knife.
He also tried calling crab suppliers in Sri Lanka. When they did not respond, he travelled there himself. In 2024, he made four trips, going it alone and walking through wholesale markets to approach suppliers.
Eventually, he found a seller willing to work with him. But rising costs of late have led him to source from local suppliers here too.
Hawker venture
In February 2026, he opened Old Fisherman. His aim: to offer restaurant-quality dishes at affordable prices.
His bestseller is Crab Mee Hoon. Crabs cost $40 each (500g to 600g), with customers choosing how they are cooked. Options include Chilli Crab, Black Pepper Crab and Salted Egg Crab.
Other popular dishes include Steamed Flower Grouper ($12), featuring his housemade steamed fish sauce.
The self-taught home cook says he refined his Crab Mee Hoon over a decade.
“I learnt from over 20 chefs by asking them for tips. I would go to their restaurant kitchens or even their homes to watch how they cooked the dish,” he says. “I pieced together my recipe from what I learnt from them.”
He spent $20,000 to set up his stall within a month. His background in plumbing came in handy. He designed the stall himself, ordering the stainless steel counter, fridge, commercial steamer and gas stove from Chinese online platform Taobao.
“When starting a new business, it is better to be cost-conscious. I save where possible, including washing the dishes myself,” he says. But he maintains he does not skimp on quality ingredients, choosing to use naturally fermented premium Shaoxing wine for his dishes.
But running a hawker stall has been challenging.
“The commercial gas stove is a lot more powerful than what I am used to at home. On my first day, I burned a lot of dishes,” he says ruefully.
He also struggled to hear customers above the roar of the stove. Fellow hawkers stepped in to help, with one even frying a dish for him. By the third day, he had adjusted.
He continues to seek advice from them, including tips on cooking rice so it keeps longer. “It is a learning process. I am constantly seeing how I can improve,” he says.
He juggles his market and hawker stalls, waking at 6am and finishing past 9pm, reaching home only about 10pm.
At first, he worked alone. “I thought I could be an octopus,” he says. This led to workflow issues, with him turning away customers or making them wait up to 45 minutes.
The heat of the kitchen was also difficult to cope with. “I ate five bowls of ice kacang daily during my first week,” he recalls, chuckling.
He has since hired a part-time assistant, though training takes time.
He reckons it may take him another five months to break even.
“There is no harm in trying,” he says. “If I cannot make it, I can close the stall in two years. It is like movie-making. I want to test my limits and see how far I can go.”
He has no qualms interacting with people from all walks of life. Some former cellmates have visited his stall to support him. “I am an ordinary person,” he says. “I cannot be more ordinary.”
He also draws curious stares from passers-by who recognise him. Long-time fans sometimes show up with food and drinks.
He accepts them graciously with thanks.
“It is very easy to poison me,” he says with a laugh.
Old Fisherman is at 01-29 Circuit Road Hawker Centre, 79 Circuit Road. It is open from 11am to 2pm and 5 to 8pm (Tuesdays to Sundays), and closed on Mondays
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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
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