Day 14 in Penang.
The day started out slow. I have no plans to do anything, except to go downtown with Loon around 11AM, and perhaps stay behind after lunch, and hitch a ride home with Sui Fun after work hours. I hung around with Mom, and read one of my books until I dozed off on the couch.
Loon came around 11AM, right on time, and we had a quick trip to Prangin Mall to check on a couple of computer items, then we headed straight back home. After a couple of beers, Loon left, and I went to bed.
When I awoke, Sui Fun had arrived with a box of crisps, and twenty Bah Chang (Meat, rice, and beans wrapped in bamboo leaves) and bags of Hor Fun. She tried to get me Hor Fun with pig livers "but the pig ran away." So far on the Island, I have not been able to find a Sar Hor Fun with pig livers. The vendors have just refused to handle pig livers anymore. You cannot get it with hor fun anywhere. End of story.
Mom likes hor fun, so she immediately tried some. The hor fun looked good, and contains a lot of 'liaus'. I declined her offer to try some, knowing that we are going to Tai Tung Restaurant tonight to try the famous Yee mee.
Mom did persuaded me to try on of the Bah Changs. This bah chang is slightly smaller than usual, and quite a bit (75% smaller) than the ones in Boston Chinatown, but it is full of mung beans. The meat is skimpy, consisting of an inch long piece of fat pork. The Boston bah changs are better, and the meat is twice as big, and is usually half fat meat, fat lean meat, and nicely marinated with herbs.
I used the sambal chili that came with the Hor Fun, and ate the bah chang by dipping the bean and rice in the sambal chili. The rice is very tasty, and the sambal brings out the sweetness of the rice.
Ann had brought out a bowl of Lotus root soup, cooked with peanuts and pork bones. It was very flavorful. Sui Fun told Ann that it tasted "almost as good as mine."
Even after eating all that food, our next destination is Tai Tong Restaurant.
My father owned Tai Tong many years ago with two other partners: Fat Man Sung, and Ah Say (snake). I know they sound like someone from the underworld, but they are really pretty nice people. The three partners put up some money, and with not so much as a handshake, went into business together to start a restaurant. My father worked the front as the cashier, order taker, manager. Ah Say worked the kitchen, and Fat Man Sung is the silent partner, and also the Hor Fun supplier (he owned a hor fun business on the side.) He rode a Vespa scooter, with two metal baskets bolted onto the sides of teh Vespa, and he would deliver hor fun to the area restaurants, including Tai Tong.
I would go to the restaurant every afternoon, after school. I liked going there and talking to my father. Sometimes he will order something for us to eat: hor fun, yee mee, Singapore noodles. I loved them all. I have never had Singapore noodles since. The cook would fry up a lot of shrimp, add Worcestershire sauce, then put rice noodles on top to absorb all the flovor. Nowadays, whenever I order Singapore noodles in the States, they will come with char siew (roast pork tenderloin) and shrimp fried with rice noodles and curry powder. Curry is so wrong for Singapore noodles. Just because it is from South East Asia, they think it has to have curry flavor.
In any case, when father passed away, the other two partners just took over the restaurant, and my poor Mom was left with nothing. No compensation, no buy out. Just plain take-over. Never mind when father was alive, the partners were so friendly to us. They just grabbed the business, and tossed us out. This is what happens when you don't have a signed contract in business. I was so sad, and so mad that I could not go back to that restaurant for years. Of course, in the course of the years, the two partners have since passed away, and the restaurant has changed hands many times over. I no longer feel bitter, well at least not at the restaurant.
Since then, Tai Tong has modified their business model. They now sell Dim Sum all day, as well as noodles. They no longer serve rice for dinner. They result is that they are more popular. When we reached Tai Tong tonight, the place was almost packed. I went there two years ago with Kong Chan and Tze Foong, and it was similarly packed.
We sat down, ordered tea, and the Dim Sum carts came by right away. The carts, in fact, circle around constantly. It make it very convenient to order Dim Sum throughout the night. We picked out a few dishes: Har Kow (shrimp dumpling), Siew Mai (pork dumpling), Woo Kok (yum cake) and egg custard, and we also ordered three noodles dishes: Sar Hor Fun (flat white noodles), Yee Mee (fried wheat noodles), and Hong Kong Chow noodles (deep fried noodles in a gravy sauce.) Then we waited in anticipation.
The shrimp dumpling consisted of three or four small shrimps wrapped in a delicate dumpling skin. Mom does not like shrimp dumpling. In the old days, the cooks used to grind up pork and shrimp, and stuff the mixture in the shrimp dumpling. That gave a tastier dumpling. Nowadays, it is just shrimp, and that is her objection. No flavor. I tend to agree.
The Siew Mai is quite good, but nothing out of the ordinary. Ground up pork in spices wrapped in a dumpling skin. The woo kok is good, but not as good as those in the old days. The filling is dry, and sparse. In the old days, there is gravy in the filling, and the yam skin is thinner, and they used to deep fry the woo kok until it is dark brown. I like that because you can feel the slightly crunchy skin when you bite into the woo kok, and right away you taste the fillings, as gravy oozes out of the woo kok. As you can see in the picture, the woo kok is just lightly fried, and the yam skin is too thick, leaving little room for the pork fillings.
The egg custard came, one only, on a small plate. This is the only time I have see it served alone, and so lonely, like that. Usually egg custards are sold two or three on a plate.
The Yee Mee came first. The dark noodles were buried under a sea of egg gravy, with vegetables, sliced fish balls, pork, shrimp, and what? slices of pig liver! This is the first time I have see pig liver this trip. I have all but given up hope to see pig liver in noodles again. I was very excited. I was just about to scoop up a helping into my dish,, when Seng said "Document!". Yes, I have forgotten to take a picture of the noodles. I am always so excited to see food, so eager to taste it, that I forget to take pictures.
The taste of the Yee Mee is good, but in my recollection, the one we had last night, the second vender we went to, was better. I better ask Seng to write down the name of the shop in case we forget. Seng just refer to it as "Number 2", being the second food stall we went to last night. Yes, Number 2 is better, but I give Tai Tong points for pig liver.
The hor fun came next. It is also swimming in gravy, and yes, it also has pig liver. Funny how I only see the pig liver now, completely blocking out the other ingredients. Yes, it had vegetables, pork, shrimps, I vaguely remember, but it had pig liver. An automatic passing grade. We ordered all hor fun. Sometimes, the cook will mix in rice noodles, but I find that distracting from the noodles. This dish must be eaten all hor fun, and no rice noodles. The smoothness of the hor fun must be savored. Having the rice noodles in it is just pesky. Anyway, this dish is good, although I would venture that Number 2 can make this better. We did not get to sample Number 2's hor fun last night because they ran out of hor fun.
Lastly, the Hong Kong chow. This was a disappointment. By itself, it is not a bad dish. The deep fried noodles piled high on a dish, with egg gravy pour over it. It gets a passing grade if I don't compare it with what Tai Tong used to make. For the sake of presentation, this one is all right. But for the sake of taste, Tai Tong used to deep fry the noodles more, until it is browned. Then the cook would make the gravy, and toss the noodles into the wok to soak up the gravy, then scoop out the noodles on a platter, then pour the remaining gravy onto the noodles. The noodles had a chance to soak up some gravy and would taste better. This requires more effort, but the result is worth it. I still would give this dish a passing mark, seeing that it has pig liver in the gravy. :-)
On the way home, we stopped to buy some leong char (cooling tea), and hum chien pang (fried cakes). Seng had also bagged some dim sum paus for the children to eat at school. I must document my very talented niece Theng2, who can eat a hum chien pang without touching the cake at all. She puts a cake on a plate, and holding the plate, she can slide the cake into her mouth, biting off a piece of it at a time. Such talent! Besides this, she is also an accomplished pianist and ballet dancer. We are all very proud of her.
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