Evil on a plate
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
The delectable plate of hokkien mee
By Alexandra Wong
OCT 31 — I haven’t eaten a whole lot of Hokkien mee. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago that I realised Hokkien mee in KL and Hokkien mee in Penang are two very different animals.
Up north, you get a bowl of egg and rice noodles steeped in a fragrant briny stock made from both fresh shrimp and dried prawns. Wikipedia goes on to add, “it is garnished with prawns, fish cake, leafy greens, pork ribs, squid, crisp deep-fried shallots, spring onions and fresh lime served with sliced red chilli, light soy sauce and sambal.”
Order the same thing in Kuala Lumpur and you get “a dish of thick yellow noodles braised in thick dark soy sauce with pork, squid, fish cake and cabbage as the main ingredients and cubes of pork fat fried until crispy.”
Then the other day, while driving to my aunt’s place, I saw this sign out of the corner of my eye. Charcoal stove hokkien mee.
