Transparent Apron Underground Supper Club

In a wink of time, it has been more than a year,since I move back from Penang in January 2012, and together with my best friend (vomits) we started a 8 pax underground supper club.

And over the last 14 months, we hosted numerous monthly dinners, struggled with consistent pretty plating, serving an approximately 200 pax in a food bazaar, get to know many new friends, got featured in various form of press and all that jazz.

While we moonlight this ‘hobby’ of ours and still keep doing well in our day job (our bosses is reading) this has kept us productive, organized and systematic. In our own terms.

Scheduling shopping trips, battling evening traffic, researching, optimizing PUNY kitchen space and lack of equipment, spending on cutleries and utensils and constantly running on adrenaline has been part of the weekend routine. A fulfilling routine it is. Now a team of 4, or rather a 5 of us, Nicklaus, Stephanie, Joel, Pepper the dessert schnauzer and myself has come to this rhythm of constant love.

For the rest of the year, there’s a good line up of activities that will keep us occupied. Watch this space!

Facebook: transparent apron underground supper club                                                 email: trans.apron@gmail.com

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Blogs:

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/food/article/transparent-apron-a-supper-club-is-born

http://masak-masak.blogspot.com/2012/04/transparent-apron-supper-club-kuala.html

http://fatboyrecipes.blogspot.com/2012/05/transparent-apron-underground-world-of.html

http://alilfatmonkey.com/transparent-apron-kuala-lumpur-a-supper-club-is-born/

http://my.lifestyleasia.com/features/wine-and-dine/kl's-underground-supper-clubs-11052

http://ckiong.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/transparent-apron/

http://poskod.my/features/the-secret-world-of-supper-clubs/

Magazine:

Personal Money

Home & Décor

Time Out KL

Men’s UNO

Newspaper:

The Edge

Radio:

BFM

…and all friends and our diners.

Chaokar is still around

Now it is coming the the fourth quarter of the year. And my last post was sometime in January.

Been occupying myself with quite a handful of activities actually. Took a change in career, moved back to the city from Penang, started a underground supper club, participated in street food bazaar and Pepper came into my life. Or more like, I bought Pepper from the pet shop.

 

Despite all these, I still cook. It is still my avenue for stress relieve. Here’s what I made last Sunday, 3 simple dishes.

 

I start with making chicken and cuttlefish stock. About 1.5 litres of water boiled with chicken carcass, ginger, coriander roots and a whole garlic. Pretty simply stock, and let it simmer for about 60 minutes and so on. The plan is to add in enoki mushrooms, grey oyster mushrooms and this leafy-seaweedy like leaf known as ‘tian qi’. The roots are usually used for herbal soup, but the leaves are great too. I add in stripes of pork shoulder cuts, marinated in soy sauce, corn starch, sesame oil and shaoxing wine. Just a quick blanch and it’s ready to be served. Don’t forget to season with salt and pepper.

 

And for the vegetable dish, stir fry kangkung with dried shrimps and sambal belachan. I always in need for a spicy dish in my meal. So in a hot oiled wok, fry the chopped dried shrimps (I soak them earlier to get it soft and to wash away the saltiness.  Then add in a chopped garlic and chilli and a teaspoon of sambal belachan (I cheat a little, using pre-prepped sambal belachan). When your eyes gets teary and the dog barks in excitement, add in the vegetables. A quick stir fry for about 2 minutes and season with some salt and soy sauce, and it’s ready.

And my last dish would be salt baked crabs. I bought two fresh live crabs and I have them cleaned and spilt into half. On a baking dish, I add in slices of ginger and a handful of Chinese parsley. Sprinkle salt and wrapped them up in aluminium foil and baked at 200’c for about 15 minutes. At the final 3-5 minutes, remove the foil to ‘grill’ it up.

 

And with a simple chilli + soya sauce dip, it’s finger licking good.

 

And, introducing Transaparent Apron Supper Club. I’ve been working on this project with my friend Nicklaus Au since late last year. Google and facebook us up for more info.

Comforting porridge

And it bring back a lot of memories whenever I eat  porridge. Back then, porridge is one of the few things I hated, same goes for bitter gourd, durians, canned black beans fish and etc. I couldn’t remember how it all gradually became my favourite food as I grow older. Having porridge for lunch was like a regular affair, especially for my dad. Even though Cantonese, I think my dad grew up around the strong Teochew community in Kedah and Penang making Teowchew porridge a regular lunch for us. But be it Teochew or Cantonese porridge, I just simple don’t like it. Whenever mum cooks them, I thought someone at home is sick. And when she does cook it for lunch, I would cycle out from the house and head over the nearby Thai food stall for lunch. Of course I would get a good scolding when I got home later.

So, somehow somewhere between the times that I am ready to leave home for tertiary education, I mysteriously discovered a new appreciation for porridge (and also the rest of the food that I hated earlier).

It is comforting and it feels like home. Really.

And one reason that I like to cook them is, they are really easy. For Teochew porridge; just boil it with water and prepare some side dishes and for Cantonese porridge; just chuck everything in timely and let it cook.

Here’s my Monday comfort dinner:

CMCC porridge (kinda mouthful to name it, but it’s: Chicken + Mushroom + Clams + Century Egg porridge)

Using Asian agak agak techniques, boil some rice (washed) with a knob of ginger and some dried oyster. While waiting for it to simmer, soak some mushrooms and prepare the chicken. I use chicken thigh particularly. And once it come to boil, add in the chicken. Once the chicken is cook, debone it and shred the meat. The remaining of the bones can go into the porridge. Then wait for the porridge consistency to thicken up.  In between that, give it a good stir to avoid if from going lumpy and burnt. After a reasonable amount of time, add in the shredded chickens, coarsely chopped  century egg and diced mushroom. And of course the pacific clams, and the brine is optional. A dash of sesame oil and salt to taste.

Bring to boil and it’s ready to be served with a dash of pepper and a whip of soy sauce.

Easy?

.

meat+vege/fruit-combi

Interesting how a random lunch outings lead to series of discovery of similar taste buds and crave for good-ol’ hometown-ish cookings. I think this is also the ‘northern’ thingy, where most Penang’ites, Kedah’ans, Perlis’ian and Perak’ian share in common. They so love their food. Wait I think all Chinese do. Including the partial Chinese, and the dan lain-lain (pun intended and, and not being racist). <—these days say something discomfort even at your own blog you ‘may’ get RM6m legal suit.

So after a heavy lunch, the conversation goes on … and it’s mostly about food. Actually just about food. And without question, it sparked up my let’s-rush-to-cook thingy. Dashing off from office with the unusual amazingly smooth Thursday traffic, I got happier when I’m able to get all the ingredients I had in mind from my trusty lil-vege-shop. The plan for dinner is to make stuffed bitter gourd with salted fish + pork marinade and pineapple prawns.

So once I got home, I start to cut the bitter gourd into 2 inches length wise and cored the seeds. After washing them, soak them with same salt just to cut away excessive bitterness. Thaw minced pork, while waiting get into chopping garlic, slicing ginger, julienne half an onion, diced a handful of carrot, and chopped some 2 chilli padi away. While waiting for the frozen pork to unfroze itself, peel the prawns, slice the pineapple and pop some rice into the cooker of course. And do something decent with the coriander. 

Then, next 20 minutes while watching TVB drama on TV, knead the minced pork with a dash of sesame oil, two quick rounds of soy sauce, pinch of pepper, half a teaspoon of oyster sauce, half a teaspoon of molasses sugar, and a teaspoon of corn starch. Once it get all mushy, add in a pinch of chopped garlic and ginger. Add in the diced carrots too. Now at this time, scissors in sufficent mui heong salted fish into the meat loaf. Lastly sprinkle some wolfberries. See the whole idea is simpler than the name of the dish - ‘Stuffed bitter gourd with salted fish + pork marinade. So what’s next is merely assembling, by stuffing them into the earlier brine-soaking bitter gourds. Arrange them on a place and steam it. For about 20 minutes or just when the bitter gourd turn pale and soft. You don’t need any other sauce preparation as, the steam and the dish itself will work it’s magic to allow a sufficient shallow sauce. Seriously simple !

And the next dish, while waiting for the gourds to steam, coat the clean prawns lightly with corn starch that has been mixed with black pepper and salt. Coat them lightly, which is like, pick up the cleaned prawns with chopstick and front-back-dip-repeat onto the flour and sizzle them into the hot frying pan like. Do not overcoat. Nasty and rubbery they would be. And pan fry the till golden crisp, all curled up and set aside.

Then the simple sauce, sauté ginger and onion, adding in garlic and chilli when it get aromatic. Slide in the pineapple, and I use the canned pineapple rings here, as they spot a sweeter flavours from their sweetened marinade mix. Once it gets sizzling, add in like 4 table spoon of the earlier can leftover syrup. Add in a pinch of salt then the stems of coriander together with earlier crispy plump prawns. A quick stir fry and throw in the balance of the coriander leaves. Then serve-lah.

The dish today is inspired by meat+vege/fruit-combi. Both dishes have the right mix of both vegetables / fruits and protein. And just so you notice, there is no exact measurements mentioned this time. I just feel the best rule of thumb is cook by taste. Your own taste.

Here, try your version and drop me a feedback!

Cheerios.

On Blending

I’ve always wanted to get a blender but never seem to found the one I liked. Well, I do have a food processor, but I wouldn’t want to mix the usage as most of my cooking tend to use strong herbs and ingredients. And a random field work last Friday around Shah Alam, found me a blender. A blender with a bloody good deal.

Supposedly working, we then happen to be in the compounds of the renowned home appliances warehouse sales, where it’s up to 80% off the usual retail price. Instantly a colleague of mine got herself hooked to the ‘cult’ (apple-lah) accessories and I was browsing around aimlessly. And little did I know, I am standing at this special ‘Happy Hour’ section.

Out of no where, a pallet of mixed home appliances were park right in front of me. I reached out for the blender, and there was this tornado of people pushing me left, right, centre and out of the radius. Apparently the ‘Happy Hour’ section is where random selections is being sold at a even cheaper price. Discounts plus more discounts.

I hugged my blender. Tightly. And I should have hugged that bloody deep fryer too. Or that LED TV. Or that Micro Hi-Fi. But seriously RM39 for a blender that is retailing for RM129.90, I am happy!

Since then, I have been blending up concoctions I could think of, and be merry with it. Banana + milk on Saturday, Banana + orange juice + evaporated milk on Sunday and I have been reading about Aguas frescas too.

Wikipedia: Aguas frescas (Spanish for "fresh (cold) waters") are a combination of either fruits, cereals, or seeds with sugar and water, blended to make a beverage.

 

Aguas Frescas: Termerry = (watermelon + strawberry)

So for Tuesday’s blend I have a combination of any preferred amount of: orange juice + watermelon + strawberries + ice

Method: Blend everything and served chilled.

Perfect for the hot weather.

Curry crab + prawn

And over a wedding dinner, an ex colleague whom I’ve not seen for months said, so you don’t update anymore? It’s straight forward statement and yeah, I was being lazy and I blame the recent hot weather and the spoilt air conditioner which only I got it fixed yesterday. It’s just sweltering hot recently and I couldn’t blog. (I am attempting tactical excuses here! LOL.)

And so, I was at this sales conference recently, and seated among the seniors during lunch time. Now to have meals with senior management, one must hold back, somehow eat lesser and laugh gracefully. But the good curry I had keep appearing in my mind during the second half of the full day conference. The hotel serve this good blue crab curry!

I love crabs and knowingly I would mess up my white shirt, I had to take a small piece of it. Freaking small piece. So on the drive back, I decided to make dinner and it’s going to be the crab curry I had earlier.

Curry crab + prawns

2 blue crabs

200gm prawns

2 medium sized eggplants

2 onions

Pounded paste of 2cm ginger + 3 cloves of garlic + 1cm turmeric + 1 buah keras + a few white peppers

1 bruised lemon grass

Thick curry paste (5 tablespoon of Adabi crab/prawn curry powder + 2 tablespoon of cili boh + enough water for a thick paste)

100ml of evaporated milk

 

Heat up wok with oil and sauté the pounded paste till aromatic. Add in the lemon grass and a teaspoon of mix spices (cumin + mustard seeds + 2pc of cloves). Then add in the onions and the curry paste. There’s this change of colour you can easily spot when making curry, it turn darker and that is the time to add in the protein. Once it come to boil, lower the heat and add in some water and the evaporated milk. Then put in the eggplants and let it simmer. Salt and pepper to taste.

Blue crabs make great seafood stock and adding prawns make it even better. The curry spot this a sweet hint and creamy gravy from the evaporated milk. I didn’t bother making another dish to go with it so there is just white rice and curry.

Long Weekend

And so with the Hari Raya holidays making it a long weekend, my parents make their way to visit me, and went for their shopping spree as well. Coming over to the Klang Valley during Hari Raya holidays seems like a yearly affair since they always like the city without its usual bustling crowd and traffic. And when they are in town for visits, I get goodies. Kampung goodies.

So mum brought me two chickens and a basketful of dokong.

Knowing how I like things certain way, mum get the chicken cleaned, chopped up and froze in containers. All sealed in a polystyrene box all the way from Kelantan. And unlike the usual chicken you get from the supermarket, I know mum has definitely chose the best and the freshest of all.

Fresh ingredients make a huge difference even with the simplest way of cooking it. So I thaw the chicken, and prepared a simple sauce for steaming.

 

Steamed Chicken with dong quai

1 chicken (cut and cleaned)

3 slices of dong guai (adjust to your preference, more if you like it more ‘herby’)

Sauce mix (a tablespoon of soy sauce, a dash of black pepper, a dash of sesame oil, a tablespoon of Shaoxing wine and two to three tablespoon of water)

A few slices of ginger

A teeny bit of garlic (a clove, chopped up)

The garlic and ginger on the base of a heat proof place, then arrange the chicken on it. Pour the sauce mix over and slot in the dong guai slices evenly. Steamed for about 20 minutes or till the chicken is tender.

 

 

And like all meals, balanced it with vegetables.

I call this,

Cabbage crunchies

200gms of cabbage, sliced

100gms of carrots, sliced

A handful of wood ear fungus, sliced

A teaspoon of dried shrimps

A teaspoon of chopped garlic

A few slices of ginger

In a hot wok, fry the ginger, and the dried shrimps with a mix of sesame and cooking oil. Add in the garlic and fry ‘em till it's sweet smelling. Then add in carrots and the wood ear fungus. Add in teaspoon oyster sauce, then put in the cabbage. Stir fry till its soft, then add in a dash of soy sauce, nampla and pepper. Plate it.

A simple dinner with awesome kampung goodness. Yumz.

Nasi Goreng Kampung, with salted fish

And with some leftover rice in the fridge, and wanting some pedas stuff. I put together my version of nasi goreng kampung.

So the ingredients are for 2pax:

• Ginger 1.5cm + garlic 3 cloves + a pinch of cumin + a pinch of white peppercorns + 4 cili padi + belachan agak-agak portion – all pounded to paste

 

• White rice – about 3 bowls (leftovers are the best),
• Onion – 1pc, sliced into wedges,
• Eggs – 2pcs,
• Udang kering (dried shrimps) – about 2 tablespoon, soaked then pounded to flossy,
• ikan Bilis (anchovies) – about 3 tablespoonful, deep fried,
• Mui Heong salted fish – 2-3pcs, deep fried ,
• Spring onion – a handful, chopped

The cooking:

Heat about 2 tablespoon of oil and fry the udang kering till crispy then add the paste and wedged onions. Once you get the nice aroma and the onion is starting to get soft, crack in the eggs and stir fry for about 3 minutes. Chunk in the rice, and the Ikan Bilis. Give it a good stir fry over high heat, and add the seasoning of salt a dash of nampla and soy sauce. Give it a few rounds of stirring then add in the chopped Mui Heong salted fish and spring onion.

It’s a pretty busy texture you get from the crispy salted fish and anchovies. And the flavours are from the paste and do adjust the heat level from adding chillies or otherwise. Do improvise with other ingredients.

Are you cooking? Yes sir yes sir, 3 dishes full.

It’s lazy Sunday and having nothing much to do, I took an evening nap. And right before that, took out spare  ribs to make soup later.
640pm, Catherine called and asked, “Are you cooking?…. Are you cooking?”
“Yes, I am making soup“, I replied. OK I am coming over, then she hangs up.

Geez, initially I wanted to make just a soup for dinner, and since Cat is coming over, I decided to make more dishes. So while I have the spare ribs thawing for the soup stock, I found in the fridge that I have bitter gourd, persevered Szechuan vegetables (zha choi), carrots, tomato and pork belly cuts.

I have the the pork belly cut into thin slices and marinate them with sesame oil, a dash of salt, some dark soy sauce, a dash of light soy sauce, a teaspoon of sugar & chilly sauce and some pepper.

Then I prepared the stock for the soup using the spare ribs, dried oyster, a thumb size cut of ginger, a whole onion, and half a clove of garlic.

I sliced the bitter gourds and the carrots thinly.

Pao Far Yuk (Fried Sweet Pork)
With a hot skillet, drizzle some oil and just let the pork brown each sides about 3 minutes. Towards to end, I pour in the balance of the marinade and let it reduced.

 

Zha Choi Thong (Presevered Sezhuan Vegetables Soup)
With the stock simmering, wash off the chilly coatings and cut them to smaller pieces. Add into the soup, and since it is a salted persevere, just some pepper will do. Let it simmer for another 45 minutes in medium heat.

Now I have a sweet dish, and a soup, and I wanted to make a bitter gourd omellete, but like most of the time when I cook, I would love to have something spicy. With some improvisation, I have

Stir Fry Curried Bitter Gourd
In a hot wok, I fried some dried chillies, mustard seeds and cumin. Then I add in garlic. When everything is aromatic and getting caramelize, add in the bitter gourds and the carrots. Salt and pepper and two tablespoons of curry powder. Fry lightly, and let the curry powder coat the vegetables. Add in few slices of tomatoes for a balance. 

8pm, Catherine is here and dinner for two is served. She officially owes me a dinner now.

Udang Masak Lemak Cili Api

Haven’t been cooking for a while, and walking along the fresh food aisle, I think I over shopped again when I came back with pork, chicken, fish, prawns and some greens. So a quick clean up and repack before going into the freezer while I put together the ingredients for masak lemak cili api.

So I have:

2 stalks of lemongrass – bruised

5cm cube of ginger, 2cm cube of turmeric, 1 onion, 4 cloves of garlic, 6pcs of bird’s eye chilies – pounded into paste

300gms of medium sized prawns,

3pcs of kaffir line leaves, 1pc of assam keping

100gm of coconut milk

Tumis or saute the paste and the lemon grass for about 5 minutes with medium heat. The lovely gingerly scent is refreshing along with the golden ray from the turmeric. Add the coconut milk and stir it well and let it simmer. Depending on the consistency, and feel free to adjust it by adding some water. Add in the assam keping, kaffir lime leaves and the prawns. A few dashes of nampla sauce then salt and pepper to taste. Pop in more chilies if you love it hotter.

Pretty simple isn’t it.

Sambal Kerang

A long day at work, and reading that nasi lemak post by thenormadgourmand, I brave thru the traffic, did a quick shopping and attempt nasi lemak and sambal kerang.

Nasi Lemak

About 150ml of coconut cream/milk with a knot of screwpine leaves and a thumb size ginger with a pinch of salt. Cook as usual with your rice cooker.

Sambal Kerang

About a kilo of cockles boiled, and peeled off the shells. Pound some ginger, garlic, and add in chilly paste. Heat up wok and saute the ginger and garlic paste. Add in lemon grass and the chilly paste. Salt, sugar and onion rings with few slice of assam keping.  Add in the cockles and adjust the taste accordingly. Don’t cook too long as the cockles would get too rubbery. 

I decided to go old school and pack it with plastic and newspapers. It was pure fun !

At the same time, making the sambal is not difficult but tedious. Peeling the cockles, pounding the paste, making hard boiled eggs and etc.

 

The gatecrasher MayYee got lucky to be fed and the returning from Ghana, Annette got the royal supper. Bless the nasi lemak.

Chai Boey

Just got back from a week-long business trip from China and gosh, it was pretty difficult without facebook and blogspot. In case you don’t know, China blocks these sites. Sigh.

After a week long of bland tasting Chinese food, I’m craving for something strong and exciting tasting.

Chai Boey

I make stock using chicken + dried squids + dried oysters + onion + ginger + garlic. Chai Boey is great with leftovers of roast pork/chicken/duck/etc but since I don’t have any, I brown some pork ribs and shoulder cuts that simply marinated with soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper. After that it in the stock I prepared earlier and add in the mustard greens, mushrooms, tamarind and dried chillies. Salt and pepper to taste. And adjust the acidity and the spiciness to your preference.

 

Stir Fry Siew Pak Choy

A simple stir fry siew pak choy with oyster sauce and crispy dried prawns.

 

Ginger, spring onions prawns

Saute ginger then garlic, then add in the prawns. Add in soy sauce, salt and pepper and some water, then spring onions. When the prawns are fresh, the sauce would taste good by itself. It’s really a simple dish.

So, here’s my Sunday dinner.

BURP !

Salted Fish Curry

Something you don’t find it everywhere, is this salted fish curry. It’s pretty simple and it’s full of great flavours. So I had flabby Nick to join the dinner and I have; salted fish curry, stir fry spinach with lentils, acar and some leftover hamchoy soup.

 

 Salted fish curry

3 portion of salted fish bones (ikan kurau)

1 portion of  salted fish (meat chunks)

4 onions

2 tablespoonful of garlic and ginger pounded to paste

A dash of mustard seeds

Fish curry mix

Egg plant & ladies finger

 

Saute the garlic & ginger paste with the mustard seeds, then add onions. Once it brown a little, add in the curry paste. Let it simmer then add in the salted fish. Add two bowls of water and let it simmer on low heat for the next 45 mins. Add in the egg plants and the ladies fingers.

 

 

Simple acar

Half a pineapple

1 Carrots

2 Cucumber

4 Chillies

1 Onion

Vinegar, salt, pepper & sugar.

A handful of mint leaves

 

Julienne everything and toss it with the sauce. Keep it in the fridge.

 

Stir fry spinach with lentils

A bunch of spinach

A handful of lentlils (soak in water for about an hour)

2 Dry chillies

1 tablespoon of garlic & ginger paste

Fry the dry chillies then add in the garlic & ginger paste. Then add in the lentils and keep frying on low heat till everything is soft. Then add in the greens and salt and pepper to taste.

Leftover charchoy soup

A simple leftover soup using charchoy and old chicken.

I must be mad for cooking so much for a Wednesday dinner.

 

p/s: dear Sandy (my colleague), Yes I am saving some curry for you and will bring it to the office tomorrow. Don’t worry I didn’t put lizards in it.

Garlic Chilly Prawn Spaghetti

I know I’ve been missing. But it’s always with the usual things, work and all. This is my late lunch after I got home from Saturday meetings. Yes, I’m workaholic.

The ingredients:

A handful of prawns, shell them and deveined it.

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 Chilly (of cili padi variety), diced

1 Onion, diced

A handful of  sweet basil leaves, chopped

A handful of brown Mushrooms, sliced

Spaghetti (of course)

 

The Process:

Suffice olive oil, in a medium-heat skillet (you don’t want to burn them) and fry the garlic and onions. Add in the chillies then the prawns. Once the prawns turn orangey, pour in enough (it means to your own preference) of white wine. Depending of the whites you have, you have to taste and adjust the acidity of the sauce.

Once reduced, add in the cooked spaghetti and give it a good swirl and add in the basil. I prefer my basil to be raw-ish.

Dish onto a plate.

Now the mushrooms, simply fry it on the same skillet with butter, pepper and salt.

Same recipe goes well for clams & mussels.

Easy? So what did you had for a late Saturday lunch?

Fried Noodles

With the newly opened supermarket nearby it gives more reason to shop for fresh ingredients and cook on my own.

Here are the ingredients:

Stir fry ginger, dried prawns then garlic,  and in onions. Add in pork and sliced mushrooms. Crack two eggs and continue frying.

A dash of pepper and salt.

Add in the noodles, and a combination of dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and oyster sauce.

Chao ar chao ar chao ar (fry fry fry!)

Add in the spring onions and beans prout. Tadaa, my TV-dinner is ready.

spicy & tangy

One of my all time favorite Penang food is Assam Laksa and Hockkien Mee.

Especially Assam Laksa, I need to have it once a week. Back in Penang, this tangy fish stock noodle is a common late afternoon meal. Sometime around 3pm, you get peddlers selling at your doorstep and others including shop owners and hawkers gearing up for the crowd.

There’s some variation when this food travel down to Kuala Lumpur, despite using the same ingredients. But I’ve found a few good ones in Klang Valley.

Aik Laksa – Sea Park

Smacked between the junction of Jalan 21/17 , Sea Park, it is hard to miss the truck selling Assam Laksa and Hockkien Mee.

The tangy spicy fish stock paired with rice noodles and good vege mix of crunchies-  onions, mint leaves, cucumber, pineapple. And drizzle the rich prawn paste and a touch of bird’s eye chilies. A meal that makes you sweaty, I tend to finish up the soup to it’s very last drop or help myself a second servings.

Heavenly.

When I am not in the mood of sour food, I opt for the rich prawn flavours. Penang Hockkien mee.

Back in Penang it' is commonly known as Hockkien Mee. But in Klang Valley, it’s prawn mee or mee yoke. Hockkien mee here refers to the fat udon-like noodles fried with thick slab of dark soy sauce.

So, the soup is rich and sweet, and adding the spoonful of chilly paste blends the flavors all together. Kangkung and beansprouts pairs up as a good crunch for the meal.

Talk to the friendly owners order ice kacang from the nearby stall.

Rm 4.00 for a small bowl of noodles or RM 4.50 for a big one, you get some sun, piping hot soup, loud owners talking, buzzing traffic and a happy stomach.

Oh yeah, bear a lil with the drain stench.