RIP, Spectacles

Yesterday, after a workout long and hard enough to cleanse the sins of Saturday night (homemade cheese enchiladas and beer in front of the TV) from our bodies, Dave and I headed to our favorite restaurant in KL, braced for a scolding. When we started eating at Sek Yuen last year the staff held us at arm's length, but over time they softened. Nowadays we're gently berated if we let more than two weeks go by without a visit. We hadn't been since July.

On our way in we paused, as usual, to admire the wood-fired kitchen and bask in the delicious smells wafting from its woks and steamers. After choosing a photo-optimal table we looked around for our usual waiter, the bespectacled of the three owner brothers Fang. One of the older female staff appeared with plates, forks and spoons, and saucers of soy sauce and pickled green chilies.

'What you want to eat?' she asked. Then added 'Spectacles passed away.'

'What?!' we gasped. Spectacles' brother, the tall, lanky one, ambled over. Heart attack and kidney trouble, he told us, it was very sudden. He said it matter-of-factly, but with tears in his eyes.

***

'Rice or noodles?'

That's how Spectacles, the first of Sek Yuen's staff to warm to our presence in the early days, greeted us. Like his brothers he wore a uniform of shorts, thin white t-shirt, and slip-on sandals. His gnarled legs were roped with varicose veins, his glasses Coke-bottle thick, his head halfway to hairless. Big ears framed a lopsided smile.

'Rice,' we usually answered, and then got down to ordering. Sek Yuen has no written menu, but experience had proven that in Spectacles' hands we were golden. Once we'd shown ourselves to be able eaters he delighted in introducing as-yet-untried-by-us specialties: star anise-fragrant red-cooked beef stomach and tendons, gelatinous stuffed pig trotters, old-fashioned chicken aspic doused with mustard-sesame sauce, an exquisite fish head soup made with four kinds of mushrooms, dried orange peel, and Chinese medicinal herbs.

'Pork?' he queried on our last visit. 'Fried pork, but different. Not like you have before.'  It was five-spiced, greaseless, impossibly piggy.

Afterwards, even though the all-but-licked-clean platters on our table said it all, he asked, 'How's your lunch?' '

'Delicious, as always,' we replied, as always. He nodded, smiling at the floor. As always.

We never called him by name. And for ten months he didn't know our names, not until we gave him a copy of the May issue of Time Out Kuala Lumpur which included our ode, in words and photos, to Sek Yuen. For almost a year Dave had been stalking the restaurant's dining room and kitchen. Spectacles and the others were incredulous, then increasingly bemused as he set up lights and tripod, stood on chairs, interrupted customers in the middle of a meal to ask to take photos, and requested that finished dishes be held back so he could get a shot.

'Why don't you show us some pictures,' they asked. Now, here they were. And Spectacles was, in his understated way, touched.

'Sanks,' he said, looking not-quite-directly at us. Before we left he shook Dave's hand and grabbed his shoulder. 'Sanks,' he said again. 'Sanks a lot.'

***

Our food arrived: fried rice, perfect in its wok-charred simplicity; big chunks of lightly battered fish in  piquant sweet and sour sauce; incredibly flavorful bone-in chicken cloaked with soy sauce and black beans; and crisp-tender baby gailan, the dish we never needed to speak because Spectacles knew it was a standing order.

We ate slowly, methodically, in near silence, the desk where Spectacles calculated accounts on an abacus monopolizing our side vision. Our appetites, raging on the ride over, had ebbed. But we finished everything.

Spectacles would have expected nothing less.

Comments

[Vicky]

Spectacles' name is Ah Hei. Will miss him dearly.

[Xander]

Beautifully written- more proof that there is good food writing, as food so often tangles with human life and relationships.

I'm liking the new look, by the way- it's looking as fresh as a Vietnamese herb salad. -X

[Robyn]

Thanks Vicky. We will too.

Xander - isn't that the truth. Our love of Sek Yuen has only partially to do with the food.

As for the new look ... it's far from decided on!

[retty]

hi... this has nothing to do about Spectacles demise... more rather i was curious about a yellow rambutan-like fruit in david's site... what's that, how does it taste like and where can we find them?

thanks!

[ELE]

Robyn and Dave,

Your posts have often made me want to drool at my desk. Now for the first time, I feel tears pricking my eyes while reading your last post.

Obviously, EatingAsia is potent stuff.

[Su-Lin]

I too am here wiping away tears. Beautiful and I'm sure he would be chuffed to see that wonderful photo.

[Robyn]

retty - I think this is the fruit/veg you're talking about?

http://eatingasia.typepad.com/eatingasia/2008/01/shave-before-se.html

If so I've only found them in Malaysia at mostly-Malay wet markets (like Temerloh), and they seem to be very seasonal.

Thanks ELE.

Su-lin, we'd like to think so. Dave tried to get a pic of the 3 brothers that day, to no avail. What a shame.

[Lizzie]

What a beautiful tribute. A tear to the eye here too.

[Gastronomer]

A well-penned and awesome piece.

[Hippo388]

Robyn & Dave

Thank you so much for your articles. It brings back fond memories to me. When I was in my early childhood (in the mid 60s), I stayed at one of the shoplot units along side Sek Yuen until my family moved to Jalan Brunei when I was older. My late grandma & late parents know them personally. Sek Yuen and the other restaurant (Pitt Yau Tin) used to be the ‘top choices’ for chinese wedding dinner those days. If I am correct, my late parents held their wedding dinner at Sek Yuen, so were my two great granduncles. Sek Yuen used to serve the best ‘pei pa duck’ in town and I still remember my late mum collected all the duck wings (which were not needed) from them to take home and cook stewed duck wings (yummy yummy).

Well, those were the days and now my grandma and parents had passed away. I am very sad to read from your articles that Uncle Ah Hei is gone too. I know this is cycle of life but is sad for me as all the memories of the time I spent at Sek Yuen (almost there everyday with my late father) came back like a slideshow. May he rest in peace.

[Hippo388]

I am sorry, Robyn and Dave, I meant to say circle of life in my last para.

[Robyn]

Lizzie and gastronomer-thanks.

Hippo, thanks for sharing those memories.You'll be happy to know that Sek Yuen still makes the best pei pa duck in town.
Yes, may Ah Hei rest well. He is remembered.

[Dova]

hi there,

I also went to sek yuen after reading my free copy of Timeout KL (KL vs PJ issue). and when i was reading that issue of timeout, i came across your name...Robyn Eckhardt...i keep thinking to myself, my, this name sounds so familiar. it's not until after my holiday and I came home, that i found out it was you!

the dishes at sek yuen is very chinese, you can certainly taste "the breath of the wok". probably because of the wood fired kitchen.

we had some yummy dry fried prawns. wanted to have kang kung (water spniach) stir fried with beef. because we overheard the waitress mentioning to some regular customers they do it really well. but they ran out of the spinach, so we opted for garlic chives, yummy!

the pei pa duck was ok, i mean its very flavoursome, sucking on the bones, but i find the meat a tad tough.

ps. i hate to be nosey, i am a graphic designer, i have a disease, i know...but the kerning of timeout KL is shocking, there isnt enough space between the letters, i understand they have to squeeze in as much words in a spread as possible, but a smaller image could compensate the problem. the article abt OUG was virtually illegible....
was going to take it up with Timeout, but sadly lost my copy of the mag...anyways, sorry enough complaints.

great blog!
thanks Robyn and dave.

cheers
Dova