This oven is a custom built, brick-lined oven belonging to Toh Kee Roast Duck, a food stall at People’s Park Food Centre owned by Ms Ng Foong Teng and founded by her grandfather, 伍秋漢 (Ng Chow Hon).Ng Chow Hon was born in Panyu, Guangzhou, and moved to Singapore in the early 1900s to earn a living. Before the Toh Kee stall, he was a street hawker. He would carry roasted ducks on poles to sell in Chinatown. Eventually, Toh Kee Roast Duck was opened in 1926 in Old Market, before moving to its current premises in People's Park Complex Food centre. This oven has been in operation at least since the 1960s. It is a charcoal roaster, which gives Toh Kee’s roasted ducks a slightly darker shade compared to other roast duck stalls. It can fit twelve ducks each time.Roasted Duck is a unique dish, adopted from China, which has now become archetypal of Singaporean food. This style of roast meat is Cantonese roast meat, as the technique of cooking it originates in South China. The meat is first marinated for one and a half hours, blanched, hung and dried, brushed with malt syrup, and then roasted for about an hour in the oven. Chefs come to the stall in the early hours of the morning to prepare the ducks before the stall opens.
