EatingAsia

A Walk in Chiang Mai, A Bowl of Assam Laksa

 
In today's Wall Street Journal Asia 'Weekend Journal' we take you for a stroll along the soi (alleys) of Chiang Mai's moat-encircled Old Town and to Penang, in search of the story behind one of the Malaysian state's iconic dishes: assam laksa.

For us, the highlight of the former is lunch at Huen Phen, a restaurant specializing in northern Thai dishes. (Go during the day when lunch is served in the casual front of the restaurant, flavors are authentic, and the place is packed with locals. Come evening meals are served in the restaurant's rear; though the decor is lovely, dishes are decidedly toned down to cater to farang palates.)

 
Needless to say, the best part of the Penang food story was the research: downing bowl after bowl after bowl of what is probably our favorite Malaysian dish.

First, You Kerak an Egg...

It's a beautifully crisp blue-sky morning here in the Berkshires, but I'm about to tell you about a street treat we ate in Jakarta last April. I've no choice; the Photographer hasn't been on food photography duty since we landed in the States a week ago.

No matter -- kerak telur is nothing to turn your nose up at.

 

Kerak telur used to be thick on the ground in Jakarta, or so we've been told. Though we'd previously encountered this egg and rice 'omelet' it in an indoor food court or two this was our first time to find it sold on the street.

Holding court in a corner of Kota Tua's (Jakarta 'Old Town') Fatahillah Square around sunset, as skateboarders practiced their moves nearby, this ambulant vendor was doing a steady busines, turning out the Betawi specialty one at a time.

 

There are a couple things to note about kerak telur. One, it's traditionally (and most deliciously) cooked over charcoal. And two, it involves a pretty cool technique that somewhat mimics that used for an Italian frittata.

It goes like this:

 

The vendor spreads a thinnish layer of cooked rice in the bottom of a small single-handled wok and places it over the coals. He then sprinkles over some browned crisped shallots, breaks a couple of eggs over the top,

 

whisks eggs and yolks with his fork, and smears it all over the rice.

After leaving the eggs to set for a minute,

he flips the pan over to expose the eggs directly to the heat of the coals. Amazingly, though it will later slide (seemingly) effortlessly from the pan, when it's suspended over the coals the omelet clings tenously to the metal.

 

Turned upright again, the kerak telur gets a final browning over the newly stoked and fanned coals,

Crackly brown on the bottom now, the kerak telur is loosened from the pan with that ever-useful fork,

and transferred to a paper-lined plate, where it's topped with heaps more crispy shallots and sprinkled with coconut dry-toasted with - I'm guessing here - turmeric.

Puffed and golden, sweet and savory, substantial but light enough to go down well as a pre-dinner snack -- and quite unlikely to find its way to a corner near you anytime soon.

Kerak telur vendor, Fatahillah Square, Kota Tua, Jakarta. Evenings.

Stateside Time-Out

We're in the States, where we'll be for the next four weeks or so.

We'll be criss-crossing the country (started in San Fran and we're in NYC now -- Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, and a few spots in northern California to come) and, once I get back into the blogging groove, we will no doubt have some tales to share. In the meantime, if you're interested in what we're eating you can follow my (infrequent) updates on Twitter.

Now...on to pizza!

George Town's Great Disappearing (And Reappearing) Chapati

This place we would have posted long ago, had it not pulled a 'now you see it, now you don't'. It's a hoppin' chapati shack just up the street from our favorite lor mee stall in George Town, Penang. We stumbled upon it back in June while doing some street food research for an article (not out yet).

Nasi kandar, rice and dishes served on banana leaf, and tandoor chicken served with naan are easily found just a block away, in the city's Little India. Stalls specializing in hand-patted chapati are not as plentiful. In addition to this place, called Maj, there's one up the street. But it's Maj that consistently packs in the crowds.

 

After that initial visit we returned to Maj a week later, only to find its metal doors rolled down and adjacent corrugated metal roof-protected 'dining area' devoid of tables. This scenario repeated itself on our next eight or so visits. By mid-September - Ramadan already - we'd pretty given up hope.

 

Then yesterday, after two breakfasts (one being hands-down George Town's best nasi kandar - details to come) we rounded the corner and Maj was open and humming, as if it had never ceased operations at all. After rubbing our eyes to make sure it wasn't a mirage, we hurried over and grabbed a table.

The atmosphere in the dining lean-to was festive. Apparently we weren't the only ones who'd been missing those chapati.

 

Like many eateries in George Town Maj has been in the same family for over fifty years. Its thin, supple chapati - patted, rolled out, and griddled at the rate of one every fifty seconds - are huge in wheaty flavor and fragrance. They wear a few black blisters and a heavenly toastiness from just enough time on a hot tava.

We could eat them by the dozen with no accompaniment at all. But it would be a shame to miss out on Maj's chicken curry, which is just spicy enough and the teeniest bit sweet, with heavy cinnamon overtones. The bird is perfectly cooked; even white meat pieces are tender and very moist.

Maj's owner continues to insist, as he did on our first visit three months ago, that the place is open every day except Sunday -- though he does acknowledge that 'sometimes we close'. So I'm afraid you'll have to take your chances. But if you find Maj's open, you've hit the jackpot.

Gerai Makanan dan Minuman Maj, Lebuh Ah Quee at the corner of Lorong Pitt, 7am-6pm. Closed Sunday.

Jealous

A word that succinctly describes what I feel when I look at these photos, taken by Dave in northern India last July.

This afternoon we stopped by Brickfields (a 'Little India' in Kuala Lumpur) to check out the Deepvali market. Aiyo! (That's a Chinese term but I don't know the equivalent in Hindi or Tamil. Readers?) The market is a sad shadow of what it was during first Deepvali season we passed in KL, four years ago.

It's so much smaller. In 2005 the market sprawled over the walkway between KL Sentral Station and the Brickfields Monorail Station; there were sweets sellers and a biryani vendor all the way from India and fresh roti being flipped and chapati being patted and laid atop griddles.

At the other end of the market, further up Jalan Tun Sambanthan in the direction opposite to Chinatown, you could buy five or six different varieties of wonderful handmade pappadum and delicious kulfi in flavors like saffron and pistachio, both shipped in for the occasion from India.

In 2005 the Deepvali Market was packed from afternoon to evening with happy shoppers and eaters. It really felt like a festive season was upon us.

The next year the biryani and other interesting eats vendors behind KL Sentral were gone. The next year, nothing at all food-ish was sold in the KL Sentra-Monorail walkway.

By last year the Tun Sambanthan stretch of the market had lost much of its character. Many small vendors had been replaced by stalls selling same-same cookies and savories packed in big plastic jars ridiculously labelled 'homemade'.  At least we still had our opulent Punjabi sweets, made by a talented cook from Pakistan.

Alas, this year he's gone too. There is one stall run by a couple of youngish guys selling what look to be homemade sweets. A few are excellent, especially the 'milk cake', a moist, crumbly milk sweet that tastes a lot like caramel, and a chocolate-y sweet that, in a weirdly palatable way, tastes alot like Carnation Breakfast Bars.

But all in all the Brickfields Deepvali Market just ain't what it used to be.

We've no idea if this is down to the sluggish economy, or if City Hall's determined to 'clean up' (read: homogenize and dullify) markets in general. But it is sad to see the lead-up to what is such an important holiday for Malaysian Indians become so toned down.

While some concern themselves with staking a claim on nasi lemak and Hainan chicken rice in the name of national pride real, live Malaysian culinary traditions are disappearing right in front of us.

All I can do is look at these photos and envy Dave for his opportunity to enjoy Indian sweets, in India, on a daily basis. And I think it's time to consider an India excursion to coincide with Deepvali 2010.