Earlier in October, food critic, author and connoisseur of local food culture KF Seetoh of Makansutra penned an open letter addressed to the Senior Minister of State Amy Khor.

In the letter, he called for something to be done to save hawkers in Social Enterprise Hawker Centres (SEHC), dealing with high fees.

Talent to be found in social enterprise hawker centres

Following some encouraging developments to the ongoing debate:

Seetoh thanked Khor for "digging deeper" and in a post on Sunday, reiterated the greatness that is hawker food.

"I wanna thank SMS Dr Amy Khor for digging deeper into the details and I look forward to them formulating a more clear and cogent idea to deliver this great heritage hawker food culture to the people..cos' is it's so UNESCO worthy."

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To emphasise his point on how, and why, hawker food is "so UNESCO worthy", he highlighted talent in one of the hawker centres — namely, Darren Teo, who runs Seafood Pirate, a stall at Yishun Park Hawker Centre.

Modern hawker talent

According to a review on Makansutra, Teo left a cushy job as a landscape designer, to set up Seafood Pirates, a hawker stall with a fresh, modern take on seafood soup.

Inspired by a stall in Taiwan, the 28-year-old figured out his dishes through trial and error, though he admits to Makansutra that it is still a "work in progress, and focuses on dishing out generous servings of the best the sea has to offer".

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1875"] Photo via Kf Seetoh's Facebook post[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1875"] Photo via Kf Seetoh's Facebook post[/caption]

Teo's Pirate's Ultimate Soup has a hearty serving of crayfish, prawns, fish, clams, oysters, pirate's fish roe ball and costs S$12.

Seetoh lauds the effort Teo puts into the soup, which is made with miso and roasted sun-dried sole fish bones.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2048"] Photo via Seafood Pirate's Facebook page[/caption]

Pirate's Treasure (S$9) and Pirate's Signature (S$7) are the more affordable iterations of the dish. Treasure comes without the prawns, while Signature comes without the crayfish.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1631"] Photo via Seafood Pirate's Facebook page[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1080"] Photo via Yishun Park Hawker Center's Facebook page[/caption]

You can also choose to combine your purchase with an affordable add-on of a plain omelette set, rice, Teochew-style porridge or their highly-recommended Japanese ramen.

On a budget? Get their oyster omelette with rice, which will set you back just $3.

You can find Seafood Pirates and other awesome hawkers here:

Address

Seafood Pirates

#01-35, Yishun Park Hawker Centre,

51 Yishun Avenue 11

Opening hours: 11am to 9pm daily

Top photos via KF Seetoh's Facebook page and Seafood Pirates' Facebook page