SINGAPORE — Malaysian Ili Sulaiman and Debbie Wong from Hong Kong were picked as this year’s winners in the Asian Food Channel (AFC) and Food Network’s Food Hero, it was announced today (Sept 4).

After a four-month talent search across the Asia-Pacific region, the two winners were chosen from five finalists who were judged on their performance in a series of food-based challenges, interviews and screen tests.

Ili owns and runs a food delivery business called Dish By Ili; while Wong is one of the hosts of the YouTube series Wok And Gong. The two of them follow in the footsteps of last year’s Food Hero winners, Singapore’s Sarah Benjamin and Malaysia’s Michele Lean.

Both have both gone on to host their own television shows: Benjamin has starred in the original series Must Try! Asia while Lean hosted Food Wars Asia on Food Network. This month, Benjamin will join celebrity cook Nik Michael Imran in AFC’s latest original series Cooking For Love, which premieres next Tuesday.

Unfortunately, Singapore’s finalist Darren Wee did not make the cut. But the radio DJ-turned restaurateur felt he had done his best.

“Overall, the Food Hero journey has been great and we have done our best for all the videos we have submitted so far, so we are really happy about how far we have come,” said Wee, who currently owns and operates two restaurants: Chillax Cafe in Serangoon Gardens and the French-Japanese inspired Babette at Jalan Besar.

“One of my passions is to tell stories ... Be it on radio or on television, I love telling stories and being able to communicate an idea or even tell a back story about a dish to either my customers or to the audience/listeners,” said Wee, who added that the experience had been more fun than competitive.