Safe and sound

When Chinese New Year comes around, Brother usually makes this calligrapher in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown one of his stops. He gets The Master to write a couple of auspicious words for us to paste on our front doors. You can get the pre-written ones, or get a kick out of requesting something done on the spot – be prepared to wait a while, though, since the ink needs to dry. The Master recognised brother, asking him why he didn’t come by last year. Well, The Master keeps moving around, that’s why!!!


The coming year will be the Year of the Rat, and so our man with the brush has the character for rat displayed prominently. Note the tail!! Note too the many newspaper articles about his work on the corner of his table.

Anyway, this year we went with the traditional phrase 平安, which means safe and sound.

It's a red, red world

Chinese New Year is just two days away, and Kuala Lumpur is gripped in a frenzy of activity.


The shops selling lanterns and all manner of festive decorations are crammed with all things red.


Folks are flocking to Petaling Street to stock up on essentials, from flowers …



… to dried seafood stuff for reunion dinner on the eve. Back home, there was some cleaning up to do…


… but at least we had done our annual spring cleaning before Christmas, so we did not have to turn the house upside down to get it ready for the New Year.


Second Sis had finally completed making, over a period of weeks, the many snacks that now sit invitingly on our living room table (more on the snacks later), and she now turned her attention on making those origami birds that dangle from the most unexpected places in our home.


For the birds to be infused with the full dose of prosperity and good fortune, they have to be made from ang pows. Cut the red (or in this case, red and yellow) packets into the desired shape, twist, turn and fold them, and, viola, lil’ birdies all ready to take flight. How’s that for step-by-step instructions?

Raw cockles and char koay teow

Penang Post #7. It is Day 2 of our Penang adventure, and we had just ingested the Ayer Itam assam laksa and gone for a drive around the island. It was not durian season, so there weren’t any roadside vendors along the winding backcountry roads, hawking the King of Fruits harvested from the jungles and plantations of Penang. J was hugely disappointed, as brother-in-law had held out hope for the stray fruit to fall on her lap.

No matter. There was the business of finding the perfect char koay teow after all. We already had two plates the previous night, one of them an absolute disaster. This time, we headed for the famous Lorong Selamat char koay teow, fried by a lady in a red hat who parks herself just outside the Loh Eng Hoo coffeeshop (the signboard doesn’t actually carry the name in English, but has the words “Kedai kopi dan ice kacang”).

However, as we walked into the coffeeshop, we passed a sweaty guy furiously woking up plate after plate of char koay teow. No woman to be seen, much less the Red Hat. Undaunted, we ordered a plate…


… which came with four HUGE prawns (the fourth one is peeking out under the bean sprouts). J was circumspect at first – Where’s the Red Hat Lady? Where’s the Red Hat Lady? – but all reservations melted away when we dug in.

The danger of overcooking large prawns tossed into a superheated wok is real, but this one turned out to be juicy and fresh. The noodles were of the usual silky and smooth standard, the bean sprouts crisp, and the lup cheong tasty and meaty. The whole combo was nicely dry-fried, with little hint of oil sticking to the bottom of the plate. J had remarked that the Song River char koay teow we had the night before was a touch undersalted, but this one had just the right amount of soy sauce to bring out all the flavours.

We asked the coffeeshop’s lady boss, who was taking our ice kacang order, what happened to the Red-Hat char koay teow vendor. Lady Boss’ face turned a little dark, and she flicked her hand dismissively while snapping: “She’s moved.”

Later that night, we decided to check out the char koay teow stall on Lebuh Kimberley, stationed just outside Sin Guat Keong coffeeshop. Its distinguishing feature, according to the Star guide, that the vendor uses seafood-infused oil to fry the dish.


By this time, I had noticed that the cockles in our plates of char koay teow so far were a tad overdone. Cockles cook in an instant, and are best eaten raw, like oysters. A good compromise for the squeamish is for the cook to throw the cockles into the wok when the noodles are done, and plate the dish immediately. The heat from the dish would take away some of the rawness, but leave the shellfish deliciously plump. However, the Penang char koay teow sellers seem to be leaving the cockles in the wok for much too long (anything more than a second is too long, actually). The prawns were getting the star treatment while the cockles were definitely the stepsisters.

So, beginning with the Lebuh Kimberley stall, I took to ordering char koay teow with “raw” cockles. It worked a treat as both the prawns and the cockles were perfectly done (or not done, in the latter’s case). All the flavours were there – and very enjoyable flavours they were too – but what the guide promised to be a “slightly sticky” version of the dish was its Achilles heel. Slightly sticky simply meant that we were having a slightly wetter char koay teow – not damp like the Singapore version, but certainly not the wok-dry, almost roasted versions Penang is famous for. We realised that this was entirely a personal preference texture-wise, since all flavours were all there, and we left it at that.


Earlier that afternoon, when the Lady Boss turned snappish, she inadvertently flicked her hands in the direction that pointed us to where the Red-Hat char koay teow lady had moved – the same street, no more that 50 metres away. And so, the next day, we returned to Lorong Selamat to Heng Huat coffeeshop, to taste her expertise.

Unfortunately, the woman wearing a red cap wasn’t the one manning the wok, but the helper to a male cook. Obviously, the famed Red-Hatter was taking a day (or three) off, and we had to make do with The Apprentice. There wasn’t anything wrong with his char koay teow – great koay teow; a hint of charcoal in the flavours; crunchy bean sprouts; luscious prawns; and more importantly, note the juicy and raw cockles peeking out – but it didn’t feel quite as “together” as, surprisingly, the low-profile Substitute who had taken over the Red-Hatter’s original spot.

Perhaps it had something to do with the elusive wok hey – frying the dish at the correct high temperature so that the dish still retains the heat some time after it leaves the cast iron wok, melding the flavours together. Maybe The Substitute just had the perfect balance of good components. Or perhaps we were having char koay teow overload (me more than J), and were ready to declare a winner!

And so we did, and it was The Substitute on Lorong Selamat that came in first in our totally arbitrary, small sample contest; with Song River and Red-Hatter’s Apprentice tied for second; followed by slightly sticky Lebuh Kimberley. Don’t even mention the other one.

P.S. Some of us in the informal eating group we call The Family and Friends fancy ourselves as half-decent char koay teow chefs, and have been running a stall the past few years at the Nasam Charity Fun Fair. Watch this space for the 2008 edition. Meanwhile, read ‘em and salivate!

Loh Eng Hoo Kedai Kopi dan Ice Kacang
84 Lorong Selamat; 11.30 am - 6.30 pm

Kedai Kopi Sin Guat Keong
On the corner of Lebuh Kimberley and Cintra Street; stall open from 6.30 pm till midnight.

Heng Huat Kafe
A stone's throw from Loh Eng Hoo, especially if you're the disgruntled Lady Boss throwing the stone.

Blanket coverage

Earlier this week, Mum spent a whole day mending this blanket…


… a handmade quilt, that I had been using since I don’t know how long ago. As you can tell, it is made up of scraps of cloth cut into triangles. Two triangles each from two pieces of cloth make up a square. Mum would use the leftovers after making clothes for her four children, or would get odds and ends from cloth shops. She also had to find large enough pieces to make the borders (see pix below) as well as the base. All of us used these blankets, and I seem to have inherited most of them – there are four in my room.


Mum had to repair this blanket because quite a number of the triangles were torn or had disappeared, from some 30 years or more of usage. If you look at the first picture, you can spot a few obviously new-ish looking pieces – in terms of design and age – that seem a bit out of place, post-restoration.

These blankets bring me back to an earlier time when our family got by on Dad’s meagre salary. We ate simply at home; we had nothing beyond the bare necessities; there was no pocket money for me in my first years of schooling, and all of my clothes were made by Mum. She was and is an intelligent woman, who if born today, would have excelled in school and made a name for herself in whatever profession she chose. But she lived during a time when women were given little or no education, and were expected to master the role of wife and mother – the highest achievement they could attain. Thus, Mum spent her day running the household – sewing clothes, cooking, cleaning, managing the finances and so on.

Sis recently revealed that she was very sad when termites ate her stash of Mum’s quilted blankets. These quilts are our own little family heirloom and very treasured because we have few objects left from those days. My practical and unsentimental parents have discarded many of the old stuff because we no longer use them and they have become teen ter, Hokkien for “in the way”.


So, I have packed away that old blanket of mine, and am using another of Mum’s creations – smaller and of newer vintage (above).

Thanks, Mum, for everything.

In search of perfection

Penang Post #6. After pigging out at Pulau Tikus market for breakfast (previous post), we decide to head off to Ayer Itam for lunch. This gave us a chance to see the Kek Lok Si temple, a sprawling hillside complex of prayer halls, outdoor statues and pagodas before checking out the well-known assam laksa stall in the market there.

We were a little apprehensive though, since I had heard one or two mutterings about it – too touristy, not as good as before – and even Robyn had blogged about her taxi driver’s sneer at the mention of this stall. But J was on a quest for assam laksa heaven and could not be stopped.


After working off our breakfast walking through the Kek Lok Si temple, we settled on a table by the side of the market. The stall had been in existence, according to Rasa Rasa (which recommends it), since the 1950s and is now run by a father and son team. They operate not out of a coffeeshop, but just on the five-foot way alongside the market.


While the assam laksa did not blow our minds away, it had many things going for it. The fish-based soup was thick and flavourful, although it was sweeter than we expected. The balance of the ingredients was just about right – tart and spicy, without either overwhelming the other. The mix of fresh ingredients – onions, ginger bud, lettuce, cucumber, mint – is added to provide a welcome contrast to the strong soup and the dollop of hae kor (prawn paste) that is usually mixed into the broth. The fish, however, pieces were too small, and I wouldn’t have minded more fresh ingredients. But we were ultimately bothered by the sweetness of the broth. Was this a concession to its hordes of Singaporean customers mentioned in the guidebooks?


I asked the father if I could take a picture or two. He broke into a wide grin and said it was sure, sure. He then very obligingly proceeded to model for me, going through the motions of preparing a bowl (even though there weren’t any orders waiting to be filled at that moment), and making sure to look up in my general directions now and again. The man has great PR! Customer service: A+; food: B+.

In our drive around the island that afternoon, we passed through Balik Pulau, and remembered that this quiet neighbourhood on the other side of the island is well known for two assam laksa stalls. Alas, it was a Wednesday, when both normally close.

It would be the next day when we ate our second (and last) bowl of assam laksa for the trip. This was at the stall run by an old lady and recommended by Robyn’s taxi driver. She operates out of G Town coffeeshop on the junction of Jalan Burma and Lorong Kinta.


You can tell visually that this was somewhat different from the Ayer Itam version. The soup was lighter, there were more of the chopped fresh ingredients, and the fish pieces were chunkier. Although the lighter broth was flavourful, it lacked that extra depth and heft that is needed to carry the dish. The fish pieces were delicious while the onions, cucumbers, mint and other fresh ingredients provided a pleasing burst of lightness that moderated the sourness and spiciness of the dish. A– would be a fair grade.

As we hopped from one cluster of street stalls to another during our four days in Penang, we noticed that almost all clusters had a few standards – char kuay teow, prawn mee, koay teow thng. But in smaller clusters of stalls, there was often no assam laksa stall, probably because dish is so damn difficult to cook, as I found out one day when trying to learn how my brother-in-law does it. Shadowing him in his kitchen from morning to evening, I took copious notes, then swore, much to J’s disappointment, that I would never, ever try to replicate it (especially in lands far away) – it just takes too much work to do it the right way.

Alas, disappointed at not finding assam laksa heaven, I called my sister to find some sympathy. She ventured that perfection was to be found not in Penang, assam laksa's spiritual home, but in her kitchen! And so, some days after we returned from the island, we drove to a quiet suburb in Petaling Jaya, and had the perfect bowl of brother-in-law assam laksa.