‘COME TO MAMA’

Mama’s opens at 11:30.  I arrive at 11:15 and am seated.  I am the first person in the restaurant.  I guess Ang Lee got temporarily delayed by that Oscar thing.

I was waited on by one of Mama’s four daughters.  I think over the next 6 or 7 days I’ll probably get to meet the whole family.  First, a little about the menu. 

There is one appetizer and four desserts.  Between those items are 8 fish, 6 shrimp, 4 chicken, 5 pork, 1 wild boar, 13 veggie and 3 soups.  Several of the veggie dishes also have shrimp, etc.   So, the entree count is about 27.  Even if I eat two meals a day there for ten days I could only expect to get through 20 of them.  Time to be selective.

My first meal at Mama’s, lunch today, was Fish Head Curry.  Think fish gumbo without the filet powder.  The curry is very thin and had a soup like consistency.  It is a mixture of lemongrass, turmeric, chili paste, shallots, shrimp paste, tamarind pulp and laska leaves.  I don’t know if we can get the later in the US.  The curry actually resembles a light fragrant mixture you would find in a Thai soup (sans coconut milk)

As Bill Clinton once said, “It’s the economy stupid.”  For Fish Head Curry it’s the soup part.  If you get it right like Mama’s it is a sophisticated blend of flavors.  Think of it as being as smooth as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across the floor.

Before I headed to Mama’s I stopped at the Gee Hiang Bakery at 216 Macalister Rd.  They must be doing something right because they’ve been in business since 1855 (that’s right, a century and a half).  I told the lady who waited on me that it must be a very famous place.  She said yes, it was over 150 years old.  I replied that she didn’t look a day over thirty.  That got a giggle.

The boxes the biscuits and cookies come in are works of art themselves with many varieties to choose from.  I asked her to choose three different ones for me.  I now have breakfast plus snacks for the rest of the time I’ll be in Penang.

Mama’s at 6 pm for dinner.  I’m the first diner again.  But by 7 the place is packed.  I put in an ambitious order because I am only a party of one and if I eat only one dish a meal I’ll sample just a fraction of the menu.  This would be a good time to be travelling with three other people.  We could all order different dishes and an in only a few days we could work our way through the menu.

So I order the anchovy appetizer, followed by otai-otak, then curry Kapitan, and a dish of vegetables called acar awak.

Out comes the appetizer.  The anchovies used in the dish were the dried ones about an inch or so long.  You can buy a bag of them in an oriental market.   They last forever and maybe just get a little more fragrant as time passes.  I like to take a few out of the bag and sprinkle them over plain steamed rice.  They have a pungent flavor and crispy crunchy texture.

These had been deep fried.   There were a lot of them mixed in with a lot of finely sliced raw shallots and thinly sliced hot peppers.  The seeds had been removed so the dish was only spicy and not hot.  The dressing was on the sweetish side.  I asked if it were sugar and rice vinegar.  The daughter waiting on me said no, it was sugar and lemon juice.  You should try this combo some time.  Make it to your taste.

Otak-otak is a classic Nyonya dish (plus in a childish way, it’s fun to pronounce).  It is basically a custard surrounding a small fish filet.  You first make a paste out of shallots, garlic chilies, lemon grass galangal (oriental ginger), turmeric and shimp paste.  The old fashioned way is in a mortar and pestle.  I’d used a blender.

The custard base is a mixture of eggs, coconut milk, Kafir lime leaves, salt and sugar.  A little rice flour is used as a binder.  The juice of the Kafir lime by the way is a much more flavorful than the one we get in the US.  The leaves are very aromatic and play a role in many Thai, Lao and Malaysian dishes.

You mix the two together, put the fish in the middle, make a banana leaf packet, seal it, and steam it.  Out comes the fish custard surrounding the fish in the center.  It has both a delightful texture and flavor.  We can’t get fresh banana leaves in the US so let’s all put on our thinking caps and think of an alternative.

Chicken Curry Kapitan is another classic Nyonya dish. It is a very very thick curry using tamarind juice, candlenuts (a tree fruit which is available in the US), fresh turmeric root and shrimp past among other ingredients. The chicken is cut up like you get it in China.  A cleaver is taken to the chicken and it is whacked up onto small pieces, bones and all.  So you get these small pieces of irregularly cut chicken and eat the meat off the bone (I think Shira will skip this dish).

I failed Penang etiquette 101.  I ate it with my fingers.  Later I saw diners use their fork and a table spoon to remove the meat from the bones.  I’ll know better next time.

Dessert was cooked sago with sweet potato.  I had to look up sago.  It is the pith of palm stems, and resembles tapioca pearls.  I tasted the combination and found it to be rather bland.  Then I poured the fresh coconut milk that came in a small container over the mixture and tasted it.  What a transformation.  The coconut milk turned it into a luscious dessert.  I know how to make fresh coconut milk from my class at Tamarind in Laos and look forward to preparing this dessert at Chez Greenbrier.

‘THE WAY TO A MAN’S HEART IS THROUGH HIS STOMACH, BUT THE WAY TO MAMA’S DAUGHTER’S HEART IS THROUGH A FISH's STOMACH’

I have been waited on by the same daughter (there are four) at every meal thus far.  Today for lunch was no exception. I ordered an otak-otak and chopped meat which had been rolled in a spring roll wrapper and deep fried.  Those were my appetizers.

For the main course I ordered Perut Ikan.  It is a classic Nyonya dish made with pickled fish stomach.  What the hey?  I got past the head yesterday for lunch, why not this?  The daughter shook her head and said ‘foreigners don’t like’.  I replied ‘I’d like to try it’.  How many times have you gone into a restaurant to order and the wait staff said ‘hey, you really don’t want to eat that’?

When it was set before me it was with a bit of trepidation that I lifted the first spoonful of Perut Ikan to my lips.  Well, I actually sniffed it first before I took a taste.  To my pleasant surprise it turns out to taste like a weak kim chee.  Not as hot and not as spicey, but with that distinctive sour taste you get from the fermented cabbage. 

I proceeded to eat all the otak-otak, two sausage rolls.  And, there was nothing left of the Perut Ikan but the bottom of the bowl.  When I went to pay the bill the daughter was positively beaming.  She said ‘you are the first person (gringo implied) to eat a whole bowl.’ 

I think I’m scoring points with the family.

 iang