TWO HAWKER DINNERS

My first meal in Penang was a week ago.  I arrived on a Sunday afternoon and when I went for a stroll from my hotel I found I was only one block away from the New Lane Hawker area where more than 40 carts were set up.  I picked out three things to eat.  At the time, besides the sliced duck breast I didn’t have a clue what the other two were.  

One turned out to be Curry Mee (a spicy coconut curry soup with yellow egg noodles, rice vermicelli, and bits of chicken tofu, congealed pork blood and shrimp)

The other was Char Kway Teow (long, flat rice noodles stir-fried in a hot wok with soy sauce, fresh prawns, cockles, scrambled egg, bean sprouts and green onions.)

My second foray to the New Lane Hawkers was two nights ago.  Dinner started with Loh Bak, pictured above.  The signature part of the dish is a ground sausage wrapped in a spring roll and deep fried.  After that it’s up to the you and the chef.  There are lots of ingredients displayed on the cart and you choose what you want put in yours.  Being a neophyte I asked her to assemble it.  Mine came, In addition to the sausage, fish balls, chunks of tofu and banana fritter, and a small spring roll. 

Everything was deep fried and delicious, served with the sides of chili sauce and a thickened tapioca flour, egg, five spice powder, soy sauce and water.

Her spicy chili sauce is homemade and I only wish I could come close to duplicating her smoky savory dip.

Next, I treated myself to Penang style fried oysters with egg.   Perhaps you can make out an oyster or two in the above photo.  You take a very thin batter which has cut up chives, toss it a half ladle full on the griddle, then break a a couple of eggs over the batter and stir like crazy.  When the eggs are just about set throw in a hand full of shucked oysters and give it a stir and a flip.  Wait till the oysters are done through and serve it up.  Like the Loh Bak, I watched my meal being prepared on the spot.  That’s one of the great things about the hawker’s cart.  Fresh ingredients prepared to order. 

Seafood Char Koay Kark, above, rounded out the dinner.  I ate it all and I was mystified about what those chunks were.  I thought they were fried potatoes.  It turns out that they are made from shredded daikon raddish mixed with rice flour and steamed.  You get a firm tofu-like which is cut into chunks , toss that with fried egg, bean sprouts and Chinese chives and you have a scrumptious dish of Char Koay Kark.  

My leftovers, half of the Penang oysters and Loh Bak rested happily in the fridge in my room.  It made a tasty breakfast the next morning with a hot cup of tea.

DINNER NUMBER TWO:

I started with an appetizer of Poh Pea, or sometimes called Pho Piah.  It is a small spring roll containing shredded shrimp, bean sprouts and bamboo shoots.   The wrapper used for the spring roll, which has a sweet and savory flavor is very thin, almost translucent.   

One appetizer down I chose another one called Chee Cheong Fon.  It is a very soft wide rice noodle which is rolled and sliced about ¾ inch wide.  The very light noodle is served with three sauces, fish, chili and one made with peanuts.  I liked the latter sauce.

My main dish was a bowl of Hokkien Mee.  He shrimp broth is filled with noodles. A combination of crunchy bean sprouts, sliced egg, shrimp and pork top the dish. 

I enjoyed all of the above, but I think dessert was the favorite part of my meal.  I carried my treasures, Apom Manis and Apong Telur back to my room to enjoy with a cup of tea.

Apom Manis  is or are small sweet pancakes about three inches across.  They are fried on a griddle and then a filling is put in the center and they are folded in half.  I bought four of them.  One filling seemed to be better than the one before and the first one was a hit.  One held banana. Another a mixture of crushed peanuts and jam.  Another third had a coconut mixture.   

My second dessert was Apong Telur.  It is a small thin crepe.  The batter is sugar, egg, coconut milk and flour. Originally the batter was poured into small clay pots and cooked over a brazier.  Now small tin bowls are used that fit into a frame over a gas fire.  The sides turn out very crispy sides and the center is a bit thicker with a slightly chewy texture. who wouldn't like a coconut flavored crepe?

Someday I’ll have to tell you about my lunch of salted fish fried rice.  This is going to be one of the staples at Chez Greenbrier.

WEATHER UNDERGROUND:  ‘91 DEGREES, FEELS LIKE 107’

Igor not make same mistake twice.  I waited in my lovely air conditioned room until almost 1 pm, walked slowly to Prosperus Dim Sum, and took a seat under the large marquee near a fan.  One advantage of going late is the availability of several tables, notably near fans mounted high on the wall.    Mother Nature’s breeze augmented by the fan made it very comfortable.

I am catching on to ordering at Prosperous.  It is basically a noodle restaurant offering about 3 dozen noodle dishes.  You can get them with chicken, pork, fish, or plain.  There is also a long steam table which has about a dozen or so dim sum items.  You first sit and order your noodle dish from the menu.  The waiter/waitress ticks off what you ordered on a ticket and tucks it in a container on the table. You have the option to wait for your dish, or, you can also order additional items from the dim sum steam table.

There, you select an item or items and hand your ticket to the person behind the steam table.  They tick off what additional items you have ordered, and pass the ticket back to you along with your treasures on a cafeteria tray.  I suppose you could just eat a selection of dim sum, but hey it’s a noodle shop and there are other places you can order a la carte dim sum till you’re heart’s content.

My favorite pot of tea, a highly scented Jasmine, came scalding hot along with my hot tea cup.  I delved into my two dim sum selections. I knew what one was when I selected it because I could see the pork filling nestled in the wrappers which were open at the top.  There were three of those little piggies which I dipped into soy sauce.  Two I managed to eat with my chopsticks like a pro.  The third, well let’s just say that if anyone were watching I provided them with an entertaining minute and a half.

The other dim sum was also pork.  Two small rolls of minced pork were wrapped in a thick soy bean sheet and had been steamed half submerged in a tomato like sauce.

Dim sum dispatched, I turned to my noodle dish – pork cooked so long it fell apart served with thick Cantonese style wheat noodles in a heavy, for the lack of a better term, reduction sauce.  These noodles were much lighter in color than the ones I ate yesterday.  They were very chewy but tasty.  The surprise of the otherwise lightly flavored dish (a characteristic of Cantonese food) was small pork cracklings throughout the dish.

For a moment I’ll lapse into one of my favorite childhood memories.  A six year old getting up on a chilly early November morning at my grandparent’s farm near Richmond, Kentucky .  There are five large porkers, smooth and ivory white in color, hanging from a beam suspended about six feet off the ground.  Steam is rolling off their bodies because they were previously dipped in scalding water to loosen the hair so they can be scraped smooth.  They are on display in an area up near the milk house.  I can see the steam rolling off their bodies now just as clearly as I did over six decades ago.

Later in the day after hams and bacon had been buried in salt, chops and other pieces cut up, there was one chore left.  That was to render lard.  A huge black cauldron about 4 feet across and 3 feet deep sat over a fire.  Chunks of fat were tossed in with a little water to start so the fat wouldn't burn.  A couple hours later the fat had liquefied and small pieces of skin that had clung to some pieces of the fat were now cooked to a golden crisp and floating on top of the cauldron of grease (lard).  They would be skimmed off, drained of grease, put on a plate, and sprinkled with salt.  To me, the taste of a hot salted crackling was one of the true joys of being on a farm.  Who knows, maybe that contributed to me becoming a ‘foodie’.     

So, if you didn't before, now you know what a cracking is.  And, while we are on the subject, there is a different style you get along with your eggs for breakfast if you take the Bluenose ferry from Maine over to the bottom of Nova Scotia.  I don’t recall the name of the breakfast but it has a cutesy name, something like the ‘Fisherman’s  Breakfast’.  They call them pork scrunchions.  Whereas the crackling on the farm had a bit of skin attached to it and could be quite chewy, the ones on the Blue Nose were simply small cubes of fat deep fried to a crispy goodness so when you bit into them you got an unbelievably rich flavor of juicy fried pork fat  YUM.   That’s how the cracklings were in my noodle dish at Prosperus, a rich and delicious recollection of those on the Blue Nose.   Once again, just like the ubiquitous pork belly, we have another form of the pig showing up at different places on the planet.  Versatile animal that pig.

I got so carried away with pork fat I almost forgot to tell you about dinner last night.  I ate at an area that is a common configuration here.  Carts where people cook their specialty, usually one or just a few items per cart, are chockablock, jammed up against another.  Behind them is a sit down restaurant that serves only drinks.  The idea is that you wend your way among the carts and decide on what to order.  Once you buy the food you go sit in the restaurant area where you order a drink and wait for the food to be bought to you. 

I had intended to eat fresh fish last night at ‘Tokyo Seafood’.  However, somehow I missed the place and wound up at a spot that had about twenty separate carts offering well over thirty dishes.  One was wood fired pizza! 

There was everything from duck to you name it (some you wouldn't want to hear).  I cruised the place twice before settling on a plate of crispy fried duck with rice.  You would have picked it too, solely from eye appeal.  Just wait till you see the photo of those crisp rich mahogany colored ducks hanging in the window area of the cart.

Tonight for sure I’m going to eat fish.  On the other hand, you never know.  Last night I said the same thing and got waylaid by a duck.

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‘CHEWING THE FAT WITH MAMA (PORK FAT THAT IS)’

I have been faithful to Mama.  Five lunches and dinners in a row there. (I’m beginning to feel a little like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day).  And it isn’t cheap by Penang standards.  A meal at Mama’s costs anywhere between 15 and 20+ bucks.  To put this in perspective, with $20 in your pocket you could eat like a king every night for a week at hawker stalls and have a little money left over.  I go to Mama’s tonight for meal number six.

Yesterday I ate Tau Yu Bak, chunks of pork belly slow cooked in a dark soy sauce mixture.  It is interesting that Mario Batalli several years ago came back from one of his cooking stints in Italy and announced that a discovery –pork bellies would be a staple be on his Babbo menu.  It was immensely popular.  I wonder if he really thought it was a ‘new dish’? 

It is interesting to note that the pork belly is an international dish.  We in America of course slice it up and fry it as bacon.  It has been around for a century, probably much longer, in China and Korea, and likely here too as a Nonya classic.  It also shows up in Alsation, Swiss and German dishes.  The pork belly sure gets around.

When I was seated at Mama’s at lunch today one of the sisters asked me if I would like to try something that was not on the menu.  Hey, she was asking the guy who ate Fish Head Curry and pickled fish stomach soup.   What do you think my answer was?

Out came what she called a traditional Malay breakfast.  There were three rectangular plates.  One contained chicken in a thick sauce.  Another held a small barbecued fish covered in a red sauce (I’ll come back to the sauce later).  The third held two large shrimp that had been cooked in a heavy soy sauce, and two small sardine sized barbecued fish.  When she set the plate of rice before me she said it had been bathed in coconut milk and was high in cholesterol.  I said good, I needed more cholesterol.  Another chuckle earned.

Now for the sauce on the barbecued fish.  It is complex and absolutely delicious. The complexity comes from the mix of red chilis, shallots, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, lemongrass, shrimp paste, sugar, and tamarind paste.  Spooned thickly on top of the roast fish, this was the definite star of the whole meal.

I think my Chez Greenbrier Nyonya dinner will be chopped meat in spring roll wrappers deep fried and otak-otak (that steamed fish custard) for appetizers.   Soup will be roasted pork and salted mustard greens.   I’ll choose an entrée from a number of favorites.  For dessert it will be the Sago and yam mixture with fresh coconut milk poured over it.  You’ve got experience how that coconut milk brings the dish alive.

I have experienced a number classic Nyonya dishes at Mama’s – Fish Head Stew, Otak-Otak, Kiam Chai Buey, Perut Ikan, Loh Bak, and on and on.  After this sampling I have come to the conclusion the cooking style is unique in many ways.  One simple example is that the sauce in which the meat or chicken is cooked is reduced down to thick quasi paste-like consistency.

In some ways I think of it as a classical style of a bygone era.  The flavors are lovely and well balanced.  They are truly well prepared and very tasty.  Another thing to say for Nyonya cuisine is that no matter how spicy or sour the food, (it is never overpoweringly spicy)  it is very satisfying and ‘sits well on your stomach.’  Some dishes are surprisingly sour, which I like.  For example the Kiam Chai Buey which is a soup made with roasted pork and salted mustard greens sour flavor comes from sour plum.  

That having been said, after dinner tonight it will be time to move on to other Penang culinary experiences.  However, before I depart the topic of Nyonya Cuisine, I am confident that I can make many of the dishes back at Chez Greenbrier. Recipes are already tucked away in a folder on my netbook.

Now, perhaps one of the reasons I'm setting my sights on exploring other foods here in Penang is due to the website Malaysianfood.net.  I highly recommend taking a look at it.  In a few short pages it sums up the influence other cultures have had on the region’s cuisine.  

There is not only the Chinese (Peranakan) influence resulting in Nyonya (the origin of the word - Chinese immigrants in Melaka Malaysia referred to the woman as nyonya and the man baba) , but also Indian, Eurasian, Malay, and even indigenous people of Borneo.  I suspect the sum total of foods in the hawkers’ carts and those prepared in the open air restaurants represent an amalgam of these other cultures’ influences on what is eaten here.

I’ll take just a moment to say that Malaysians in Penang love to eat.  It is a festive occasion, be it at a hawker stall or in an open air restaurant.  The air is filled with the mingling sound of happy voices just as much as it is with the mingling aroma of the food being prepared.

Aside from the ubiquitous hawker stalls, there are countless restaurants that are open to the sidewalk (what I referred to above as ‘open air restaurants’).  They serve an impressive number of varied dishes.  When you walk by, you see not only individual dishes being cooked but an array of fresh ingredients lined up, be they meat, seafood, duck or vegetable, etc. 

You experience the cooking aromas wafting in the air as you walk by and are enticed by the eye appeal of fresh fish or vegetables resting over crushed ice.  It is the lure of these places that has proved to be irresistible during all my trips to and from Mama’s.   

Add to that, each day when I walk to Mama’s for lunch I pass the Prosperus Dim Sum Restaurant with fifty or so patrons sitting at outdoor tables under a large marquee.  I can’t help but notice the small delightful morsels being consumed.  Tomorrow I’ll start sampling foods influenced by some of the other cultures I mentioned above.  Maybe a dim sum lunch would be a good way to start.