Singapore-born and bred, Emily fell in love with California and moved to San Francisco in 2014 to build her professional experience in fine dining and casual dining establishments. With her undying love for the hustle, a long-term commitment to heritage foods and food culture, and a deep desire to build cultural bridges and to give back, she grasped the opportunity to create something that was missing in San Francisco - authentic Singaporean hawker foods. Birthed during the pandemic, and in hopes to provide jobs for her peers, Dabao Singapore comes from the heart as an homage to her female ancestors who used to peddle foods for a living in developing Singapore.
The numerous jolts of laughter throughout this conversation is testament to how much fun it was connecting with Emily; not like it was going to be possible any other way being around this vivacious, big hearted, down to earth soul and human. What shone through for me though, was that passion you hear in her voice and see in her eyes when she take us through her world of her entire career being a chef, her desire to bridge culture and gaps in humanity through the love for Asian food. What started out as a necessity to maintain life sustenance for herself and her close community during a difficult COVID year quickly became the Asian community’s go-to whenever they crave for a flavor from home and a global movement to introduce and include the flavors from Asia here in the US and one day, globally. A story of hustle, of passion, of resilience, of trusting the process, and of coming home to yourself.
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