The Food Canon

Have you sipped coffee and chewed pork to accompany it? Probably not. We wouldn't have thought that pork and coffee could go together.

Yet Coffee Pork Ribs is a very common dish on both sides of the causeway. I may be wrong, but I believe this dish evolves from the world of restaurants and Cantonese Cze Char stalls rather than home kitchens.

There are many restaurants techniques which are not just centered on making good food but the need to do so efficiently. Recipes have been created or evolved from the world of the countless Cantonese Cze Char eateries dotting Malaysia and Singapore.

For example, in the last few years, salted egg yolk is the latest craze. You can have salted yolk this and salted yolk that, often used to flavour seafood though not limited to it. Did it originate in Malaysia or Singapore? Who knows? Some cook eats in another restaurant and likes a dish. And he begins to experiment and make it in his own kitchen. It must taste good and just as important, the recipe needs to be practical for consistent and efficient production in a restaurant.

I hope you did not try to locate Jalan April Satu. (Read precious post)

I know I am suppose to cook up dishes, not stories. But once a year, we have an excuse to pull each others' legs. If it has whetted your appetite, you might as well try to make it yourself. Check the HYTF recipe here.

In this post, I will show you some simple dishes which you can create as an appetising side dish to a main meat dish.

Sambal "Kacang Botol" (Winged beans or 4 Corners Bean) is a popular dish in Malay cuisine.

Editor's note: This post is an April Fool's satire. Do have a laugh. 

The Hakka Yong Tau Foo Inception

"Aut HYTF. Din tonite?"

A fellow Malaysian whom I knew since my NUS days sent me this cryptic SMS a week ago.

Authentic Hakka Yong Tau Fu in Singapore?

There have been many claims to HYTF here but I have been disappointed again and again. 

I thought my friend had been working in Singapore for so long that he has forgotten what HYTF is really like.

So, my reply was: "Really?"

"Really really. Recently opened. Try. "

Have you seen the movie, Inception?

I added Mee to my home version

So why in the world do you want to make Char Kuay Teow at home?

It is readily available in almost every food court. Even the Penang ones are appearing all over Singapore these days.

Some still prefer to fry them at home. I venture to explain some of the possible reasons:

• They like to turn their homes into smokehouses.
• They want a romantic evening, gazing hazily at each other, with the song "Smoke gets in your eyes" in the background
• They want to try out different ingredients. Such as foie gras, truffle oil or lobster meat. Oyster in place of cockles. Instead of lard, they prefer the apparently healthier la graisse de canard (duck fat!)
• They dislike queues (and the better CKT stalls always have queues - I call these the Char Queue Teow stalls - CQT).
• They dislike the CQT man who always scowl with a 'take it or leave it' attitude. 
• They dislike the made-to-feel-guilty stares as they queue and bump into a friend. Sheepishly, "Er..I only queue for CQT once a month!
• They are dying to try their new wok and burner.

I really don't know.

(This is a 3-part series on my recent trip to Ipoh. You can read the first two posts here and here)

A stall outside  house

We skipped lunch on our second day in Ipoh as we needed a break after the curry mee meal.

Not for long though and by tea time, we were primed and ready for the famous Hong Kee Mah's Fa Sang Wu. It is a fantastic Chinese Peanut Cream dessert eaten piping hot.

This in my opinion must be one of the best Fa Sang Wu around but it has the usual Ipoh treatment. Humble and non-descript. If you drive too fast you may miss it. It is a plain looking stall outside a house in a resident area. And it is only opened from noon till about 4 pm.

This is an old-fashioned drivethru.

This is how it looks if you order the garnishes and meat separately

The "Don't Hurry Me Curry Mee"

Wait and take your turn...

We started our second day in Ipoh with curry mee.

Will you wait 45 minutes or more for a bowl of this?

Judging by the wait and queue at Xin Guan Fang Curry Mee, it seems like many won't mind. It is located near the new police station at Jalan Sultan Iskandar. It is known by locals a "ma ta liu min" and reputed as one of the best curry mee here.

One reasons for the wait is the limited no of tables. This tells you that the owner has been at this for a long time and not about to introduce any changes. He is only cooking a certain amount each day and it will all be finished by late morning.

He is not in a rush. "Take your time" and this seems to be the way of life in this city.