Singapore (CNN)Douglas Ng, 24, is a rare fresh-faced “hawkerpreneur” at Golden Mile Food Centre, a hawker center in Singapore.

The owner/chef of Fishball Story, Ng arrives to work during the dark hours of the morning to prep for the day.
He kneads fishball dough, prepares sambal-spiked chili paste and fries condiments like lard and shallots.
    Ng’s fishballs are unique and legitimately old school.
    They’re prepped exclusively with yellowtail fish and seasonings, without the addition of flour, the way most fishballs are made nowadays.
    After one-and-a-half years working this space with many 12-hour days, Ng takes home just about S$1,000 ($712) each month.
    When he recently increased fishball prices from S$3 to S$3.50, he was met with a 40% plunge in business.
    Editor’s note: Since being interviewed for this story, Ng has temporarily closed his stall. He tells CNN he plans to reopen his business soon in a new location.

    Singapore’s hawker foods: Vanishing tradition?

    Singapore’s aging hawker trade is increasingly facing a dire future. Stalls are stymied by a host of issues that are endangering this once-prized commodity.
    “Our hawker heritage differentiates us from other countries,” says Willin Low, the chef-owner of Wild Rocket, Wild Oats and Relish local restaurants, and the man widely regarded as the godfather of modern Singaporean cuisine.
    “It unites Singaporeans from different ethnic backgrounds, but it looks like the heritage is thinning.”
    One reason is lack of ownership succession.
    “The hawker trade is not something that the young generation fancies,” says Ng. “It’s a tough and unglamorous job.
    “It does not pay well and there isn’t much work-life balance. Rentals are high, labor is hard to find and the cost of ingredients is increasing.”
    A growing local resistance to paying what hawkers say is a fair price for street food doesn’t help.
    “We’d better eat soon kueh now before it’s too late,” says Low, referring to the local handcrafted dumplings traditionally made with turnip and bamboo shoots.
    Making the beloved street snack, he says, is becoming a lost art.

    New crop of ‘hawkerpreneurs’

    Candlenut's

    The move to preserve Singapore street food has also moved into more traditional restaurants, whose chefs have giddily given the city’s classic plates an update.
    At the decade-old Wild Rocket, Low serves contemporary Singapore cuisine adapted from the city’s favorite cheap eats.
    Laksa, a popular Peranakan noodle dish with spicy broth flavored with coconut milk, is reinvented as a pesto sauce and paired with pasta.
    On Low’s newly introduced “omakase” menu, bak chor mee (minced pork noodles) steals the spotlight.
    Low’s version is made with glass noodles cooked in Iberico pork fat topped with torched mixed tuna and scallions.
    At three-year-old Candlenut, Malcolm Lee recreates Singapore’s ubiquitous ayam buah keluak (chicken with Indonesian black nut) as a rich paste blanketed on sous-vide wagyu beef short ribs.
    Lee introduced an “ahmakase” menu — the name is a play on “ah ma” (grandma) and omakase (a Japanese meal with dishes selected by the chef) — with creations like a thick broth of buak keluak with beef cheek, shallots and aromatics.
    At Restaurant Labyrinth, chef-owner Han Liguang does a new take on chili crab.
    The former banker has remade Singapore’s de facto national street dish with deep-fried soft shell crab flanked by a dollop of piquant chili crab ice cream with man tou (Chinese steamed bun).
    It’s another effort to save, or at least evolve, the country’s legacy dishes.
    “Neo-Singapore cuisine is an expression of myself growing up in the modern age whilst being exposed to traditional flavors, some of which are being lost through time,” says Han.
    “Singapore celebrated its 50th birthday this year (2015), I want my cuisine to celebrate modern Singapore while also remembering our roots.”
    Wild Rocket, 10A Upper Wilkie Road, Singapore, Singapore

    This story was originally published in December 2015.

    Read more: www.cnn.com