EatingAsia

The Making of a Cendol Snob: It's About the Gula, Stupid!

Before last weekend I could count on one hand the number of times I'd eaten cendol. Here we are, coming up on two years in Malaysia, and I'd partaken of the beloved Malaysian shaved ice treat exactly twice. Yes - I'd downed cendol, and I suppose I'd enjoyed it, but I just didn't get it, so it floated to the outer orbit of my must-eat Malaysian food universe and just stayed there.

And then there was gula.

You see, over the last year or so I've become an unbearable palm sugar snoot. As Dave and I traipsed around Malaysia and Sumatra researching palm sugar for a presentation we gave in April I honed my sugar tasting skills. I watched, listened, and learned from small-batch producers. I collected - and sampled - many kilos of gula (gula=sugar). I'm able to distinguish between mass-produced and artisan sugars and I can taste the difference between gula made from the sap drawn from at least four palm varieties.

Utterly useless skills - except when it comes to determining the difference between a good cendol and a great one.

Cendol is simple, just five ingredients in its most stripped-down form: shaved ice mounded over chewy pandan-flavored 'pasta', santan (coconut milk), a splash of condensed milk, and gula Melaka (coconut palm sugar named for the southern Malaysian city of Melaka, but produced all over Malaysia) syrup. Add-ins like sago pearls and red beans are optional.

Any dish this uncomplicated requires top-notch ingredients. There's not much variation in ice and condensed milk (some cendol fans will argue the latter point), but the pasta better be smooth, sturdy, and fragrant with pandan leaf, the coconut milk fresh, creamy, and undiluted with water, and the gula sourced from a producer who knows his or her way around a coconut palm patch.

Malaysian and Indonesian palm sugar is unlike any other sweetener - rich and complex, with a whole host of notes that go well beyond the realm of 'sweet'. Brown, dark brown, and muscovado sugars can't touch it. Nor can Thai or any of the other 'upper' Southeast Asian palm sugars. It must be tasted to be believed (unfortunately the good stuff isn't exported). It's the perfect partner for coconut in any form - and cendol's shaved ice provides the ideal backdrop for a palm sugar-coconut pairing.

Many of Melaka's cendol vendors sell bags of gula. I take this to indicate a certain amount of pride in one's ingredients. Some purchase their gula from small shops or distributors, but others go right to the source, buying directly from a small producer somewhere in the vicinity.

My tastiest cendol in Melaka was had by chance, at Makko Nyonya restaurant. Dave and I had stopped by to chat with Maureen, the owner, about her 23-year-old establishment and the food she serves there. Dining wasn't on the agenda for this visit (we'd just had our second breakfast) but Maureen greeted us with bowls of exquisite cendol. Everything about it was right: the coconut milk was so rich that melting ice barely made a dent; the red beans were large and cooked through but not mushy; and the noodles were toothsome and identifiably pandan-flavored. The smoky, butterscotchy gula syrup sent me into a swoon. We purchased a bag of sugar on the way out. I've been nipping from it all week, shaving off bits of gula and eating them like candy.

Friends recommended the cendol at Donald and Lily's Nyonya Food (cendol is dish up from a stall on the street, dishes are served in the small room upstairs) in Melaka old town. A very good cendol indeed but, compared with Maureen's, just not stellar. Beyond too-small, mushy beans that don't maintain their integrity when mixed with the ice, this cendol simply lacks the gula 'wow' factor of Makko's version. If I wasn't such a gula snob I'd probably be raving over it. But with gula, as with so many other things in life, once you've tried the best it's hard to settle for less.

In a few hours I'll be flying to Penang to meet Dave. He plans to introduce me to what he claims is the best cendol in Malaysia.

Now, wait just a minute, Dave - I'll be the judge of that!

Makko Nyonya, 123 Taman Melaka Raya (off Jalan Parameswara), Melaka. Tel. 06-2840737. 1130a-245p and 6-930p. Closed Tuesdays.

Donald and Lily's Nonya Food, facing the parking lot behind Hereen Guest House, Melaka old town. 930a-4p. Closed Mondays.

Merdeka Day in Toronto

This year marks Malaysia's 50th birthday. Merdeka Day (Independence Day) celebrations on August 31 promise to be extravagant.

Toronto-based Kampong Ku, the largest predominantly Malay-language radio station outside of Malaysia/Singapore (and the only in North American) is organizing a Merdeka Day gala for August 24th. Homesick Malaysians and all other interested parties welcome!

In addition, Kampong Ku and the Singapore Malaysia Association are sponsoring a community picnic in Toronto on July 21st (10a-5p, Wilket Creek Park) , with potluck and BBQ - an excellent opportunity to sample some of the dishes we've raved about on EatingAsia! Kampong Ku's Encik Daud tells us that last year's attendees traveled from as far away as Buffalo, New York to attend.

Want more info? Give a jingle to the Singapore Malaysia Association at (647) 295-8678 or Kampong Ku Radio at (416) 497-5246. Or email info@kampongku.com.

   

Not Thai Tom Yam

Woe to the hapless tourist who orders Malaysian tom yam hoping for a taste of our neighbor to the north. All tom yam are not created equal.

Its name alone tells us that Malaysian tom yam is most certainly a local take on the Thai classic, a clearish soup scented with lemongrass and lime leaves, soured with lime juice, and spiked with fresh chilies (in fact, this is just one of a number of Thai regional variations on the tom yam theme).

After migrating south Thai tom yam took on the visual characteristics of a Malaysian assam (sour) curry, thickening a wee bit with the help of pounded chile paste and turning a vivid orange-red. Tamarind nudged out lime juice as its souring agent and dried chilies were thrown into the mix.

Both Malaysian and Thai tom yam can be described as 'hot' and 'sour'. And they have something else in common: there are as many permutations as there are tom yam cooks.

This Section 17 vendor serves a tom yam meal-in-a-bowl bulked up with noodles and crowded with vegetables. He makes each order on the spot, softening round cabbage, lady's fingers (okra), and mammoth tomato wedges in a long-simmered tom yam broth, and spooning the soup over a choice of kuey teow (wide rice noodles), beehoon (thin rice noodles), or round yellow mee.

Diners will also find, hidden amongst the crisp-tender veggies, pieces of pork and chunks of broth-absorbent fried tofu. Already lip-puckeringly sour and pleasingly spicy, the dish can be made more so with the help of that ubiquitous Malaysian noodle accompaniment, sambal and half a kalamansi. A bowlful brought tears to our eyes, a drip to our nose, and sweat to our brow - all good indicators of the worthiness of any bowl of hot and sour.

Then there's Malay Malaysian tom yam, a noodleless soup heavy on the seafood. But that's another post...

Tom yam stall, Kedai Kopi Wah Cheong, Jalan 17/29, Section 17, Petaling Jaya. Early morning -230 or 300pm. Closed Tuesday.

Tastes Like Home

KLue magazine  May 2007  vol 103

Text: Robyn Eckhardt     Photos: David Hagerman

When Malaysians head abroad, one of the things they miss most is the food they grew up with. So it is for the thousands of migrant workers who clean our homes, cook in our restaurants, tap our rubber trees, and labor in our factories.

Migrant workers make up some twenty percent of Malaysia's workforce. These men and women come in search not of citizenship, nor of adventure, but simply to earn a living. Many leave behind husbands, wives, and children and stay for years, even decades.

After the sound of the voice of a loved one, nothing quite relieves the pain of homesickness like flavors that conjure memories of one's birthplace. For migrant laborers, weekends offer the opportunity to buy phone cards, stock up on imported groceries, and lose oneself in the taste of home amid the company of compatriots.

On the first floor of a Jalan Silang shop house, Nepalese men and the odd woman indulge in cheap pitchers of beer, rice plates of sukuti ra bhat (grilled dried buffalo meat curry), and enormous bowls of thukpa (soup noodles). The insistent thump-thump of Bollywood hits from the shop below shakes Restoran Khukri's floor, but no one notices. Engrossed in coversation, customers compare notes on employers, share letters from family, and discuss political developments in Katmandu. The Khukri's owner wishes ever day was Sunday. 'We're struggling the rest of the week, but we can always count on a steady trade this day,' he says.

Just outside Chinatown's Madras Lane food court Yeecho, a hawker recently arrived from southern Burma, serves daily specials like ngar oo hin, fish eggs in dry curry, and khauk swe thohk, sesame and chile-dressed cool noodle 'salad', to a steady stream of countrymen. 'I cook for fellow Burmese. The want food that tastes as it does in Myanmar,' says the former primary school teacher.

As for life in Kuala Lumpur, Yeecho's sentiments reflect those of many foreign laborers: 'Malaysia is a good place, but it's not my home. The economy is so bad in Burma ... I am here because I have to be.'

On Sundays the approach to KL's St. John's cathedral is briefly transformed into Little Manila, as Filipino maids stake out squares of pavement from which to peddle home-cooked goodies. Savories like adobo, long-cooked pork stew, and sweets such as suman, leaf-wrapped logs of coconut-scented glutinous rice, quickly sell out. But comraderie keeps the ladies hanging around long after mass has ended.

Those in search of sit-down fare convene at Kota Raya, where Esther and her colleagues serve Philippine fare (and sell bottles of hard-to-find bagoong, a budu-like essential Philippine condiment) from a shop at the shopping center's top-floor food court. Lydia, a southerner on her fifth year as a maid in KL, says speaking Tagalog with other Filipinos over a plate of langunisa (pork sausages) is a comfort.

'After mass we Filipinos like to have a big meal with friends and family. I'm glad that I can do that here in KL, too.'

Indonesians craving home-style heat head to Restoran TAR near Chow Kit market. Kristina, a native of east Java working in KL for four months, reveals that she never eats Malaysian food. 'It's not nice,' she says, wrinkling her nose. 'We [Indonesians] need more chilies.'

She nods approvingly at a plate of pecel lele (crispy deep-fried catfish on a pool of fiery chile sauce, served with rice and vegetables), served from a stall advertising Solo specialties. 'That sambal will make you cry.'

On the first day of the week Thai expats crowd around a white catering truck parked in front of Pandan Indah's Thai Font Market. The array of home-cooked foodstuffs is enough to make a homesick Thai swoon: somtam (green papaya salad) pounded to order, kanom jeen (thin rice noodles topped with a variety of curries), laab khua (a highly spiced dish of chopped pork and parts), and more.

'I keep the prices lower than one usually finds in KL,'  says Tan, the market's owner, whose wife does most of the cooking, 'for the sake of the average Thai worker.'

The scene - families working their way through dish after dish and single laborers lingering over chitchat, bowls of noodles, and bottles of Singha beer - is reminiscent of any neighborhood eatery tucked away on a Bangkok soi (side street). Here, among folks enjoying authentic flavors on a hard-earned day off, those famous Thai smiles are much in evidence.

Gawn, a northern Thai with a ready handshake and a friendly smile, is a regular. 'I'm here every Sunday. Every Sunday! I never miss it!' And just what is it that draws him to this out-of-the-way corner of the Klang Valley?

'My friends .... and the eats!'

As anyone who has spent extended time overseas knows, the taste of home can be a comfort beyond compare.