Makansutra: Set sail on a soup adventure with Seafood Pirates
Entrepreneur, inspired by seafood soup stall in Taiwan, starts his own Yishun stall
Many hawkers may be struggling in a social enterprise hawker centre due to high rents and operation costs, which came under scrutiny recently, but there are makan gems hidden at these places.
I recommended a young prawn and char siew noodle chef at Pasir Ris Central Hawker Centre recently, and I came across this other Gen Y cook at Yishun Park Hawker Centre.
These up-and-comers have to be bold to stand out from the crowded hawker food space and noise in Singapore.
Despite all the media and online shout-outs, which many chefs rely on, the best form of publicity is still word of mouth.
Darren Teo left his landscape designer job over a year ago and, against his parents' wishes, followed his calling and settled himself into a small hawker kitchen and stall, which he named Seafood Pirates, with nary any experience to boot.
He said: "I always wanted to cook for people and just felt it would be satisfying."
The 28-year-old enterpreneur went on about how he was inspired by a seafood soup stall in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and began imagining just what went into the soup.
It took him almost a year of trial and error to get to where he is at now, and it is still a work in progress.
He removed pork from his ingredients despite knowing a keen competitor thrives by adding minced pork balls into the soup.
He keeps it to only seafood and now has a little following of his own.
His impish smile could be one other ingredient too, and his parents are now happy for him.
The mojo in his signature Pirate's Ultimate (from $12) soup is the controlled use of miso, both red and white versions.
That, coupled with the use of dried seafood, bones and the all-important teepo (roasted sundried sole fish bones), is something you can just imagine drooling over.
The hints of the lightly salted miso infused with the teepo and other ingredients in the soup all but scream "now you know why this cannot be compared to that other competitor in the West".
It is truly different. The use of fresh prawns, Spanish mackerel slices, clams, oysters, fishballs stuffed with tobiko and crayfish sharpened with tomatoes is a sensation to behold.
He has a downscaled version, Pirates Treasures (sans crayfish, from $9), and yet another simpler rendition, Pirate's Signature (minus crayfish and oysters, $7).
Since Teo is at a social enterprise hawker centre, he has to offer a cheap or budget meal on his menu.
So earnestly, he fries up oyster omelette with a seafood sauce and plonks it over rice ($3), something you won't get elsewhere for that price.
If you seek something to peck at while souping up, go for the fried black beans and miso clams.
The flavours are not overly intense as to steal you away from the soup but provide a nice distraction, and the clams are fresh, with no pong.
So please support these hawkers as they not just here to offer good meals at reasonable prices for you and your family - they are also the future of our hawker centre culture.
Seafood Pirates
#01-35, Yishun Park Hawker Centre,
51 Yishun Avenue 11
11am to 9pm daily
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