EatingAsia

Appropriately Lardy

That's how an Eating Asia tipper (the same reader who led us to herbal loh see fun heaven) described the Hakka pork noodles dished up at a corner stall in Pudu.

We've sampled - and swooned over - this calorific dish at a newish place on Jalan Klang Lama and, while we especially loved that version's wide, almost paper-thin egg noodles, it must be said that this bowlful is beyond fantastic.

Lard, of course, is the key, but it's more than fat that draws the crowds to this spot (we drove by at 8am on a Sunday - packed. We returned to eat three hours later - packed). The springy, al dente noodles are topped with chopped pork done two ways - stewed and fried - so every chopstickful delivers meaty bits both tender and crackly.

The teeniest bit of soy, a splash of lard (just a splash!), a scattering of scallions, a few thick slices of juicy barbequed pork scattered around the edge of the bowl, and these mee are ready to serve.

Dry (soup and dumplings served on the side) is the way to go here. Too much soup would dilute the noodles' lardy-ness, though a spoonful or two of the not-too-rich, not-too-thin broth assists mixing. Between mouthfuls of noodle we assess the merits of the dumplings - assertively porky filling encased in thin wrappers that nonetheless that hold their own in the hot stock. Still, in the end, at this place it's all about the well-lubricated mee.

 

We suspect the stall's other greasy-lipped customers, many of whom have probably been patronizing this eatery since it opened years and years ago, couldn't agree more.

Hakka pork mee stall, at the mouth of small lane just before Jalan Pasar (if you're coming from the direction of the old jail), off Jalan Pudu. 630am-200pm, though sometimes they run out early. Closed Mondays and the 1st and 15th of every month.

Crossing the Bridge Noodles

Come evening, what seems like most of Padang's youth (teens and post-teens-but-unmarrieds) head for the water. Scruffy pantai Padang (Padang beach), with its collection of warung (open-air food stalls) and mobile drink 'n snack carts, is a popular meeting place; at it's northern end groups of giggling girls gather to watch shirtless boys lurch and tumble around a football pitch etched in the sand.

We prefer to take in the sunset from the two-lane bridge spanning the Sungai Arau, where vendors line up chairs and stools on the narrow sidewalks and sell noodles, drinks, and bananas and corn grilled over coconut husks. It's here that we dine, our first night on Sumatra, on a memorable version of mie ayam (chicken noodles).

Mie ayam is found just about anywhere - on almost any block in any city or town, and in any village - in Sumatra (and probably Indonesia, for that matter). Its simple name, short on descriptives, allows for a range of interpretations among the hawkers who specialize in it, but in two weeks of sampling we find none that can compare to the heavenly concoction dished up from this cart on the Padang bridge.

We reckon it's the super-stewed chicken, spooned up from a plastic tub that resides in the cupboad of his cart, that makes this vendor's noodles so special. Cooked so long (8 hours? maybe even several days) that it's fallen completely off the bone to form a tender almost-mush, it's so imbued with flavor and fragrance that we can't tell where the bird ends and the spices begin. Nutmeg, cloves, cinammon, coriander and cumin seeds, galangal, ginger, garlic ... all these ingredients are fleetingly identifiable in the final product, but the complexity of the contents of this tub hints at more, much more.

The chicken is spooned on top of yellow egg noodles and strips of a sturdy green vegetable that are boiled together a la minute in the cauldron of bubbling yellowish (turmeric?) broth that nests in the vendor's cart. It's joined by a couple of savory, pleasantly chewy balls of something resembling gluten (sago flour?) and a generous blob of tart and tangy homemade sambal hijau (a cooked sambal of green chilies, garlic, onions, sometimes bitter pea eggplant, and a souring agent such as tamarind, belimbing, lime, or kalamansi).

Before they're served the noodles are dribbled with kecap manis and two kinds of red chili sauce, and then topped with sliced shallots fried a deep golden brown.

Rice flour crackers, served on the side or piled right on top of the noodles, add crunch and (very important) another means by which to sop up the nectareous sweet, sour, fragrant, and spicy (in a subtle, slow-burn bass note kind of way that I've come to think of as 'Sumatran hot') gravy that results when noodles, chicken, sambal, condiments, and broth are mixed.

 

Through the next couple of weeks we find ourselves reminiscing - over plates or bowls of a tasty something or other, somewhere else on Sumatra - about this humble dish. By the time we get back to Padang, late in the afternoon the day before our early morning flight back to Kuala Lumpur, we've only a single meal left. Come evening we head back to the bridge, for sunset and a bowl of noodles.

Mie ayam, a whopping 5000 rupiah (65 or so US cents) per bowl. Sungai Arau bridge (the cart is about at the bridge's halfway point; if you're heading from downtown to the hills, it's on your right), Padang. He's there from about 5pm on.

Smitten

We didn't expect to fall for Padang.

Taken together, the words 'Indonesian' and 'city' don't exactly inspire visions of anyplace you'd want to hang your hat for very long. But as our plane approached Sumatra's administrative capital from the west, over ocean, we looked down and took in a not-intimidating collection of low-rise buildings spread on either side of a river winding in from the coast. Mostly white, many roofed with red tiles, they shimmered in the early morning heat, a picturesque contrast to the turquoise blue water and smoke-hazed, jungle-clad hills jutting up on three sides of the town. From above, Padang looks more like an overgrown village than a city. Slow-moving, accessible ... welcoming, even. Not like the sort of the city that you'd have to fight to like.

If you're a traveler who prefers order, if Singapore's your thing - Padang won't be. But if it's controlled chaos, color and a bit of noise, jump and jive, and a fair amount of decay with a touch of crumbling colonial grandeur mixed in that floats your boat, I know just the place.

Padang has a lot going for it. Size, for one - a manageable downtown that can be walked end-to-end in about 45 minutes.

And a huge, exhausting, fascinating central market that seems to stretch on and on, with no discernible pattern, forever, over the scorching hot streets and on various levels (and up and down the stairs) of cool, dimly lit concrete buildings.

Padang is blessed with a surprising - by Asian city standards - amount of green, in the hills that rise, almost perpendicular, from one bank of the Sungai Arau river, and in the aged trees that canopy many of its streets. As long as you're not out mid-day, when the near-equatorial sun is high in the sky, it's a city that invites exploration by foot (horse-drawn carts are also an option).

And it's on the water (a leg up for any urban area, in my book), right on the coast, a (none too clean) beach drawing its western edge. Dividing downtown Padang from one of its 'suburbs' (which consists of the wooden kampung houses - painted pale shades of yellow, green, and orange - that dot the hills), the Sungai Arau river hosts a flotilla of turquoise, red, and white-painted fishing and cargo boats. At low tide the waters recede to reveal mud flats and a few rotting wooden schooners. On the bank opposite the hills (the river is spanned by a two-lane bridge for cars and a rickety suspension bridge for pedestrians and outlaw motorbikes) a half-heartedly landscaped promenade fronts a row of exquisite, disintegrating Dutch colonial-era warehouses.

Most of all, it's a relaxed city full of amazingly friendly people who always seem to have time to joke and chat. In the market, on the street, in shops, in restaurants and in the shadow of hawker stalls, we were approached by folks who wanted nothing more than to ask our names and find out where we're from, what we thought of Padang and Sumatra in general, how we liked the local fare, where we'd been and where we were headed. In our many years of travel we've rarely encountered such genuine warmth in the majority of a population, anywhere.

 

By the end of our too few days in Padang, we found ourselves wondering what it might be like stay for a while, two months or twelve, or more. To get to know that market end to end and top to bottom, to develop relationships with vendors and get recipe tips from some of the gentle but sharp-elbowed ladies that are its regular customers. To stake a claim to 'our' table at our favorite spot for nasi Padang, where the proprietors would know that we can never get enough fiery sambal but very rarely have a craving for brains. To devote a dinner or two a week to grazing the mobile stalls that cluster at various points around town, dishing up sate, gado-gado (blanched vegetables and tofu with peanut 'dressing'), pecel lele (deep-fried catfish served with chili sauce and vegetables), and a cornuccopia of noodle dishes till the wee hours. And to devote every breakfast to bubur ayam, which must be Asia's most spectacular version of chicken-and-rice porridge. To drive out of town on weekends (or weekdays, since in this fantasy neither of us are tethered to office jobs), two hours north to while away a couple of days hunting down local specialties in a village on the shores of a crater lake, or two hours south to catch a speedboat to a sweetly simply little Gilligan's Isle-esque resort.

Padang inspires these sorts of daydreams. At least it did for us. Luckily, it's just a short flight away.

Note: See this site for some lovely images of west Sumatra, taken mostly by Indonesian photographers.

Primo Puffs

The curry puff: in theory, a great out-of-hand, meal-in-one concept. In reality, one that rarely lives up to its potential.

You know what I mean - sodden with grease when it should be crispy, a miserly bit of insipid, where's-the-curry filling encased in heavy, too-thick dough. The curry puff is a southeast Asian staple that Dave and I had all but given up on until we stumbled across these golden pillows a couple of weeks ago on our way to the Jalan Pasar market in Pudu.

Freshness is key; this vendor fries up his puffs on site. On our way out of the market we were lucky enough to meet a batch fresh out of the well-worn, oil-filled wok that serves as deep-fryer. We scooped up a bagful and, a bit too eager to tuck in, nearly burned the skin off our tongues. A half hour later the puffs had cooled enough to allow a taste test.

Simply put, Tuck Kee's exceptional product has re-ignited my love of the puff. Note the uber-thin pastry, which results in sufficient crisping and limited oil retention. My first bite, in fact, sent a few pastry shards flying. And then there's the heaps of filling (mutton, in this case): sizeable and identifiable chunks of tender meat, sweetly caramelized carrot, and floury potato enrobed in assertive multi-layered curry-ness with a bit of chile zip. This is one aromatically, deliciously stuffed puff - the curry puff of my dreams.

Tuck Kee offers a variety of sweet and savory fillings, and will fill bulk orders for special occasions. Next year, forget the cake - just stick a candle in a pile of Tuck Kee's puffs and I'll be one happy Birthday Girl.

Tuck Kee Curry Puffs, just off Jalan Pasar, kitty-corner to the entrance to the market (right about where the thieves' market starts to peter out), Pudu. 8am-530p. Tel. 016-273-9389.

Shooting My Mouth Off

Strongly held and forcefully argued opinions are characteristic to the Eckhardt clan, best demonstrated by the rolicking good shouting matches that my long-haired, American flag pants-wearing college student brother and arch conservative, Republican-till-death mother used to engage in over dinner during the Nixon era. (I don't remember the details ... I just kept my head down and focused on the food.)

So, when KLue magazine asked me to dither on about the Malaysian food-related topic of my choice for their July 2006 food issue, I welcomed the chance to grumble publicly about the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board's entirely insufficient attempts to sell Malaysia as a food destination. Herewith, the result, typos <sigh> and all. Added bonus: twenty-one of Dave's most yumlicious photos, all pulled from previous posts. (The identity-revealing picture was not my idea.)

MTPB, are you listening?