EatingAsia

Cow-Towing to the Noodle God

All praise the Noodle God, who gifted us with the ability to turn flour, salt, and water (and, sometimes, eggs), into one of the world's most heavenly foods.

And all praise this couple of vendors, who have been quietly serving up a most heavenly version of beef noodles - a favorite Malaysian noodle specialty - at Restoran Argyle for over thirty years.

 

Lai Foong, an ages-old shop just outside the Chinatown (Petaling Street) gate, is Kuala Lumpur's generally-agreed upon standard-bearer for beef noodles. These are a different noodle altogether - a heartier, more fragrant, gutsier version of the standard. We prefer it. There's more going on here in a single bowl of broth than in twenty bowls of Lai Foong's.

But let's start with the noodle. We ordered ours 'dry' (with soup on the side, rather than sharing space in a bowl with the noodles), which usually comprises rice noodles or wheat noodles boiled and then tossed with dark soy and, perhaps, a vendor's special additional ingredients.

Here at Restoran Argyle, the vendor starts an order of dry noodles by ladeling a bit of beef gravy/soup into a small pan, and then adding the noodles.

Noodles and gravy/soup are slowly heated together, giving the noodles a chance to both cook (but not fry) in and absorb all that beefy goodness. While the noodles are cooking he starts the soup, transfering from big stew pot to smaller pan a serving of broth complete with thick chunks of beef and pieces of beef parts.

As the soup is bubbling away he adds more beef - slices from a pre-cooked hunk and extra-thin slices of raw meat - and finishes it with a flurry of Chinese celery leaves.

The result is a bowl of deep, dark, hearty deliciousness: anise-scented beef essence and beef meat and parts cooked three ways. In each bowl of soup bobs a springy beef ball that truly tastes of cow (so many beef balls taste of nothing at all). Noodles arrive flavored but not overly saucy, topped with chopped scallion greens and garnished with a mound of chopped beef (more meat! that makes beef four ways) that's been stir-fried with soy sauce and, perhaps, garlic - slowly and carefully reduced to a texture more reminiscent of a thick salsa than anything remotely meaty.

This is a beef noodle a rarely-eats-beef noodlehead (me) can love, and one that a diehard beef lover will swoon over. This is a beef noodle that announces its presence before it even arrives on your table, via the puffs of beefy steam that rise from the bowls on the server's tray. This is a beef noodle soup to hang your head over, a meal so substantial that it is a challenge, after you've put away the pasta and the meat and the ball (I'll order extra next time) and the parts, to finish every last drop. But you will.

This is a beef noodle that should be better known in KL.

Beef noodle at Restoran Argyle, Jalan Ipoh near the MAS building and the Kuantan/Tun Razak roundabout (look for the green sign). Early morning till 3p, but often sold out by 1:30p or so.

Beautiful Bing

Spend a bit of time eating Chinese food in Kuala Lumpur and you'll come to know how woefully inspecific the term 'Chinese food' is.

With a modicum of effort and a bit of time spent sitting in KL's legendary traffic one could eat her way around China without venturing beyond the city limits. To say that KL-resident Chinese food fans are blessed is an understatement; when we get the urge we have Hakka, Teochew, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Sichuanese, Hokkien, Hainanese, and - thanks to the most recent wave of immigrants from China - Dongbei, Xinjiang, and Guizhou cuisine to choose from. Taiwanese too.

Which means there's always foods unfamiliar to sniff out. Thanks to a friend's tip we recently found ourselves at a spot called Taste of Foochow (Foochow - or Fuzhou in Mandarin - is capital of China's southeastern Hokkien - or Fujian - province). Open since July, the shop is run by the family that owned Jalan Pudu's now-defunct Hup Yick Restaurant. 

We went for the Fuzhou bing (Fuzhou 'cakes' or 'dumplings') and stayed for the mee suah (rice vermicelli in chicken and rice wine soup).

First things first: the Fuzhou bing are worth a trip in and of themselves. A hand-lettered sign hanging over the shoulder of the shop's owner, who crafts his Fuzhou bing on a covered porch to one side of the dining area, can be roughly translated as 'Most beautiful flavor, leads you to think of it endlessly.' Not an exaggeration.

The bing's wrapper is not a dough but a thin, soupy batter. The shop owner starts spooning batter into a shallow ladle. He then adds a stuffing that includes chopped pork, seaweed, Chinese chives, chopped prawn, and - when he can get them at the market - oysters.

After spooning more batter on top of the filling, he lowers the cake into a wok of lightly bubbling oil and slides it gently off the ladle. Cooked for a few minutes on each side, the cake emerges mottled brown and gold, with a slightly nubby skin.

The cakes boast an exquisite texture. Their thin-walled, nearly grease-free wrappers are crispy without, soft and chewy within. Inside, the filling - having melded with the batter - is lightened light and fluffy, leavened by air pockets. While the chives are a major player in the flavor profile, they somehow avoid overwhelming the delicate flavors of seafood and seaweed. And amazingly, these bing stand the test of time; our fresh-from-fryer specimens were only marginally crispier than our parting bing duo, which had been draining and cooling for at least five minutes.

Equally worthy of a visit to Taste of Foochow is the mee suah. The rice vermicelli, imported from China, evinces a body and wholesome rice-y flavor not often found in a rice noodle. For the soup, meaty chunks of chicken are stewed in a broth made with ginger, glutinous rice wine, and a generous amount of fuzhou hong zao, the dregs from the wine's fermenation.

The word that comes to mind is 'restorative'. One just can't help but feel better after downing these hearty, comfortingly smooth noodles floating in a full-flavored, thickish, slightly sweet, chicken-y broth with a hint of liquor. Diners who aren't driving might wish to request that an extra spoonful or two of the family's homemade wine be added to their serving. Choose from 'new' or the more right-between-the-eyes aged (ate least one year) hooch.

Though it will be hard to get beyond the Fuzhou bing on our next visit, there's much more to sample at the Taste of Foochow: fishballs, 'Yanpi dumplings' with a wrapper made from pounded pork, tapioca flour, and glutinous rice, and ding bian hu, a special porridge which has to be ordered ahead, among other items.

Taste of Foochow, 14 Jalan Gajah (off Jalan Yew), Pudu, Kuala Lumpur. Tel. 03-9281-8788. 830a-5p.

Crab Island

Call it the Manhattan Syndrome. Symptoms: You live in a world-class metropolis that attracts thousands of tourists a year, but you've never seen the sights.

Perhaps you've resided in New York for eons without ever having visited the Statue of Liberty. Or you lived in Bangkok for a year but never toured the Grand Palace (guilty). On no occasion during your three years in Shanghai did you survey the cityscape from the city's garishly pink TV tower (yep,that's us - though we did ascend to the great orb when we returned to Shanghai years later, as tourists). Seven years in the San Francisco Bay without setting foot on the Golden Gate Bridge (finally accomplished, thanks to the ministrations of a couple of visitors from China).

The pattern holds in Kuala Lumpur. Twenty-six months and counting, and the list of tourist spots we've never 'done' is long. The following words will reveal us to be incredibly borish, but - if it doesn't involve food it will probably forever remain unexplored by us. Unless, that is, friend or family comes to town. 

Which is how, a few Sundays ago, we found ourselves on a Klang jetty preparing to board a fast boat to Pulau Ketam. Our old friend S had been occupying the guest room for a week, and the best we'd done is to pack her off, on her own, to the Islamic Arts Museum and accompany her on a bit of post-lunch Chinatown wandering. It was time to get touristy.

Pulau Ketam (Crab Island), so named for one of the major catches of the fisherman who live there, was originally settled by Hainanese in the latter half of the 1800s. Teochew and Hokkien arrived in subsequent decades, and these days some of the Indonesians who work on the islanders' fishing boats live there as well. It attracts the occasional off-the-beaten-path tourist to Malaysia and, on the weekend, crowds of local daytrippers.

Most of the island's houses are built on stilts, to accomodate the ebb and flow of the tides. The boardwalks and concrete pathways that criss-cross its length and breadth serve as both sidewalks and roads.

Pulau Ketam is refreshingly free of cars; motorbikes, and especially bicycles, are the primary means of transport.

What to do on Pulau Ketam?

The first place most visitors head is to one of its seafood restaurants. We chose Restoran Kim Hoe, about a ten-minute walk from the jetty, because it was doing a roaring business.

A glowing newspaper review hung on the restaurant's wall promised great food at a decent price, but it seems that Kim Hoe is resting on its laurels. None of our dishes were awful, but none sang, either.

Our crab beehoon was beautiful to behold,

but blah to taste, the beehoon curiously lacking in flavor, as if they hadn't been seasoned at all.

Assam (sour) prawns were overcooked to the point of dryness, and the sauce lacked tamarind's characteristically assertive sourness.

Bamboo clams were pleasantly chewy, but some spurted dark, muddy juices, as if they hadn't been adequately purged.

We must give Kim Hoe points for the deep-fried squid, which was lightly battered, clean of grease, and perfectly tender. Points detracted, though, for the noodle dish which arrived, unbidden, at the end of the meal. Penalty points on the proprietress for insisting it was ours because we had originally ordered koay teow instead of beehoon. The noodle dish which sat before us, however, was not koay teow but yellow mee. She insisted we had ordered koay teow and so here was our koay teow. We weren't in the mood to argue.

No matter. Kim Hoe didn't sour us on Pulau Ketam, not one little bit. The island's pace is pleasantly snail-like, making it the perfect spot to wander, stop for a bit of liquid refreshment, wander some more, and stop again to hang out with the locals. There's a lot of hanging out going on on Pulau Ketam. 

The island's brightly painted houses,

most of which feature entryways elaborately decorated with banners and talismans, are a photographer's dream.

Shrines stand on supports at the core of neighborhoods or outside the gates of individual homes (one wonders if these woks have been laid to rest with the memory of their former owner).

And then, because this is an island of fishermen, there's prawns and fish drying everywhere - just a few bits, suspended in a net over the boardwalk, or heftier specimen, laid out on a wooden table.

Fish that are to be dried perfectly evenly, however, should be strung up by their tails.

Who knew that a string of the runts of a catch could be so fascinating?

A daytripper, leading a small boy by the hand past the patch of sidewalk where Dave, tripod-assisted, was staking out said string of drying fish, summarized the situation for his charge:

'Waiguo ren hen chiguai.' (Foreigners are very strange.)

Calling All Asian Grandmothers (and Aunties)

Last April in Chicago I had the pleasure of meeting fellow writer and blogger Pat Tanumihardja. Over a tasty Yunnanese lunch, Pat told me about a book proposal she'd been working on. The idea was to gather, from Asian grandmothers and aunties and their families around the world, recipes and memories, and stories about recipes and food, and wrap all that literal and figurative goodness up between the covers of a book. What a wonderful idea! I thought. (I have to admit that I also thought, Now why didn't I think of that?)

Well, Pat finished up her proposal, got a book contract, and now she's collecting, writing, and testing recipes for The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook. If you're an Asian grandmother or Aunty, or if you have one or know one, and would like to contribute a family recipe, go here or drop Pat an email (contributors will be credited, of course). And if you're keen to try recipes that Pat's collected so far, hop on over here.

Good luck Pat! We look forward to publication in 2009.

Kerepek Crazy in West Sumatra

West Sumatra is home to the best crackers (or chips/crisps, if you like) in Southeast Asia. Kerepek are made all over Indonesia (and in Malaysia as well), but by our estimation Sumatra's Minangkabau take the craft of cracker making to giddy heights.

Some varieties, such as peyek ikan (square or round rice flour crackers studded bits of green onions and whole dried fish), are real works of art.

Most every west Sumatran market - big or small, daily or weekly, in town or villages - has numerous stalls dedicated to all foods crunchy and snack-able.

Crisps are displayed hanging in plastic bags

and heaped in gargantuan baskets.

They're sold ready to eat, like these kerepek made with buffalo skin (much tastier than you might imagine),

and dried, awaiting a bath in hot oil to bring out their crunch.

We love peyek ikan, both for its beauty and bracing, fish-forward saltiness that performs a lovely duet with ice-cold beer. But we're especially fond of kerepek sanjai, cassava crisps with a sweet and spicy coating.

About an hour from Bukittingi, on the road to the market town of Payakumboh, two rows of shops specializing in kerepek - kerepek sanjai, in particular - face off across the two-lane blacktop.

In an open room at the end of one row, two local lads are making kerepek. To start, a basket of wafer-thin, 2-inch wide semi sun-dried cassava strips are dumped into bubbling oil.

To insure the chips crisp evenly the kerepek cook repeatedly dips his strainer into the oil,

raises it from the frothing mass, and tosses the kerepek again and again,

creating lots of steam in the process.

After ten minutes the kerepek are removed from the oil and transferred to a smaller wok filled with a sticky sugar-chile sauce. The chip mixer uses his (plastic-protected) hands and a couple of shallow plastic saucers to toss the cassava about in the brick-red goo, working quickly to make sure it coats every nook and cranny of the kerepek while they're still hot.

Once the kerepek have cooled, he transfers them to buckets to await packaging.

Though every shop on the strip is selling kerepek sanjai, not all use this method to prepare their specialty. In one shop, we found a woman seated in front of a heap of cooked cassava chips, using a paint brush to painstakingly stripe both sides of each kerepek with a coating of spicy sweetness (8 photos up, background).

In Padang, kerepek shops cluster near the river, in the town's Chinese section.

 

The proprietress of Natal Jaya (where peyek ikan are called payet mako, after the dried fish that decorate them, and kerepek sanjai are named kripik balado, after a Minang sambal), one of the busier businesses on the street, tells us they sell about three hundred 500-gram bags of kripik balado a day (during Ramadan the number rises to 2000).

Natal Jaya makes its own kripik balado (some of the other shops source theirs elsewhere), in the back of the shop. Here, as at the shops outside Bukittingi, the cassava strips are given a dunk in chile goo after deep-frying, but at Natal Jaya they're not tossed, just lifted out of the stickiness

and allowed to drain. The result is a thickly-coated chip that dictates consumption be accompanied by a wetnap.

'Sticky' and 'saucy' may be words more often associated with buffalo wings than with crisps, but Natal Jaya's kerepek balado evince just the right balance of saltiness, sweetness, and lip tingling-spiciness and - in spite of their gooey-ness, have a hearty crunch that somehow stands the test of time, plastic bag packaging, and humidity.

Happily, Natal Jaya will pack a carry-on luggage sized box of bags to go. Sadly, our stash ran out several months back.