He won a $1 million lottery, then quit his insurance job to open a Cantonese barbequed pork stall. Trading an office for a kitchen was harder than he thought.

• Ivan Leong won a $1 million lottery when he was 23.
• After years of working in insurance, he quit to open a Cantonese roast pork eatery.
• Now, he's rethinking his choice of laboring behind a hot oven and working 11-hour days.

Ivan Leong, 37, used to work as an insurance agent — a job with crisp button-ups, perfume, coffee chats, and flexible schedules. Ten years later, as he slices up juicy pork in his own Cantonese roast pork stall, he said his life is a far cry from what it once was.

Leong started out as an administrative assistant at a recruitment firm, a job he described as "stagnant." One day in 2013, his colleagues persuaded him to join them in buying lottery tickets.

The lottery ticket he bought with 10 Singapore dollars won him SG$1 million. The windfall gave him the confidence to quit his job, and he gave his one-month notice shortly after.

His first order of business was buying a government-subsidized apartment with his fiancé. Even with the lottery money, buying a condominium or private property was out of the question, he said, as was retiring early.

"Honestly, one million is never enough, especially in Singapore," Leong said. The tiny Southeast Asian island is one of the world's most expensive cities.

After trying his hand at selling insurance products for a couple of years, Leong felt he wanted to be his own boss.

"In Singapore, if you start an F&B business, you can be a boss straight away. It's the fastest way," he said with a laugh.

He said he loved cooking as a kid, particularly during Lunar New Year. To get back into it, he cut his teeth at his friend's roast pork shop in Singapore's Ang Mo Kio neighborhood.

In 2018, he and his wife opened their own roast pork, or char siu, shop in Bukit Merah, a residential area in the south of Singapore. Over the next few years, he would close his original outlet and open two others — one in Woodlands and another in Ang Mo Kio, both of which are residential districts.

Now, he spends 11 to 12 hours behind the counter every day. Feeding a hungry lunch crowd means reaching his stall at 7 a.m., and he rarely leaves before 6 p.m.

The roast pork in question

Some key things set Leong's roast pork apart.

He said he had always found char siu in other restaurants laden with food coloring. He also did not like that customers could not choose the type of meat they wanted.

For him, good char siu means roasting the meat for up to two hours in a charcoal oven instead of the regular 45 minutes. He also lets patrons choose between three different types of pork: fatty, lean, or half-fat.

For Leong, an average day involves earning around SG$1,500 from each outlet. That means selling five slabs of roast pork, 60-80 strips of char siu, and about seven whole chickens.

When I visited his stall, I ordered the SG$8 "trio" dish to sample all three types of meat. The dish consisted of chicken and two types of pork over fragrant rice, with fresh cucumbers and a bowl of hot soup.

The crackling pork skin was super crispy, balanced out by the tender meat under it.

The char siu was tender and coated with a sticky glaze, which paired well with the fragrant rice. The third meat, the roasted chicken, was light. The quantity was generous — I ended up taking most of it away in a doggy bag.

The most surprising part of the dish was the clear soup. It was salty, warm, and comforting, with boiled slices of vegetables at the bottom.

Some of Leong's regulars told me his char siu is unlike those they've had before.

Eddie Soh, 36, said he's been eating at Leong's stall weekly since 2019. He said Leong "raised the bar" for char siu.

Soh, an IT product manager, added that Leong's roast pork has become a staple in his Lunar New Year reunion dinners. He said he sometimes buys "as much as 2kg of char siu and 2kg of roast pork" for his family.

Andrew Ong, a 49-year-old officer with the Singapore Armed Forces, said he found Leong's stall last year and has been having it about three times a week since.

Ong said the sides — the rice and jammy eggs, which deviate from the usual hard-boiled eggs served with char siu — are just as good as the meat.

It's not just regulars who rave about it — Sethlui.com, a prominent local food publication, said in a July review of Char Siu Lang that the pork was "caramelized to perfection."

The endgame is to get out of the kitchen

In Singapore, small hawker stalls like Leong's are known to serve world-class fare, including some that have been included in the Michelin Guide.

But many hawkers say the work is difficult, and the chance of failure in Singapore's competitive F&B business is high.

For Leong, trading corporate life for days sweating in front of a charcoal oven was tough. He had to adapt everything from his time-management skills to his physical appearance.

"When I was doing financial advisory, I dressed up, used perfume, and wore all the brands. But in the shop, I just wear whatever is comfortable, maybe a pair of shorts, my company T-shirt, and I need to wear safety boots," he said.

The insurance job also allowed for more flexibility, where he could just "push the appointment, change the timings" for client meetings. But reaching his stall at 7 a.m. daily is a schedule that requires discipline.

When I asked him about the future of the business, Leong immediately answered, "My endgame is to sell the business to big organizations."

He said he doesn't think he can sustain the long work hours in the long term.

But a return to a corporate job is off the table, he said. He wants to explore new business ventures and not have to answer to anyone.

"I would love to not only spend my time in the store," Leong said. "I really need to take a step back because I really feel like I spend too much time in this business."