Current location:	Ipoh, Malaysia
Current mood:	full
Entry tags:	food, hawker food

Short work trip to Gurun and the food encountered (Part 2)
At the end of the first day of work in Gurun, my colleagues and I left for a hotel in Sungai Petani (still in the northern Malaysian state of Kedah) to stay for the night. Sungai Petani is a significantly larger town about 25km from Gurun. It was about 9pm when we reached Sungai Petani and was famished. We just went to a fairly new commercial and housing area (which even has a Tesco hypermarket [not only groceries but also clothing, shoes, and others] - yes, Tesco, the all-marauding UK supermarket chain is in Malaysia too) looking for dinner. Made it quick and simple by eating out at hawker coffee-shop. In Malaysia, a "coffee-shop" in local parlance isn't something like Starbucks or Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. It's an old term for a local cafe-type restaurant that serves hot drinks, like local coffee, tea, hot chocolate drinks along with soft/carbonated drinks. It has space set aside in the premises for hawkers to rent the space and set up their stalls to sell food. The modern coffee-shop is just one with more modern amenities, i.e. plastic instead of wooden chairs, TVs instead of radios, etc.

We stopped over at one that was just directly opposite the Tesco hypermarket. They have even set up tables on the road (!) along the kerbside. That's quite common in Malaysia =P Not my seating preference but since my 2 colleagues left their notebook computers in the car, we had to sit fairly close by with full view of the car. Here's a picture of how it looks like:

Sitting on the kerbside looking down the kerb at the food stalls set up:

First order to arrive is my colleague's Char Kway Teow ("Fried Flat Rice Noodles with Prawns and Cockles):


Looked a bit light. The aroma of the dish, though, was faint. An early telling sign. Price: RM2.50 (approx. USD0.80)

Next was my order of Kway Teow Soup ("Flat Rice Noodles with minced pork and fishball, in a pork-base soup"):


The portion looked small and looked plain. Famished, I tucked in. Not great, just passable. Price: RM2.50 (approx. USD0.80)

Next up was the other colleague's Thai-style Fried Rice. I was too busy eating to take a snapshot =P Fortunately I didn't because it looked insipid. It would be a letdown.

I ordered a plate of Grilled Squid which is grilled with a sambal belacan-based sauce and vegetables to share. The vegetables thrown into the mix are okra and crunchy four-angled beans. Sambal belacan is a type of Malaysian chilli relish (i.e. "Sambal") that has toasted belacan (dry shrimp paste) pounded in. Sounds interesting? Well, have a look yourself:



Now, this is really more like it. The sauce was just a bit watery but overall, this was quite good. Succulent squid, semi-soft okra and crunchy four-angled beans. The fragrant spicy sauce made out of sambal belacan-base with garlic and onions made the difference. Mmmm... Price: RM7.00 (approx. USD2.20). Worth the price.

The main portions were quite small. So, another plate of Char Kway Teow was ordered. This time I got to sample it. The early telling signs came true. Again, only passable. Char Kway Teow aspiring to greatness must have a strong fragrant aroma of the lard and wok hei (high heat of the wok) - it's the first indicator of how well cooked it is and a harbinger of great taste.

I ordered Char Siew Wan-ton Meen (= Noodles with honey-roasted pork slices and wan-ton dumplings) to top up my stomach =P :


My expectations were low and it barely beat my expectations. It's decent and not too bad. The char siew slices were lean and thus, dry. Good char siew has to be what I call, half-fat-half-lean, for balance. Wan-ton was just dumped alongside and not served in a small separate bowl of soup, thus robbing the wan-ton of its chance to do its "thing" - being delicate with a light skin wallowing in clear soup. I suppose the thick skin of the wan-ton provided would not have improved even if you served them swimming in a separate bowl of soup :/ Price: RM2.50 (approx. USD0.80)

We were filling up and it was getting late - about 10pm. We called it a night and retired to the hotel for the night.

There's a part 3! Meanwhile, I'm happily digesting a good dinner. But that's another blog entry...