Memories of RRF: Lingering culinary thoughts!

Most nice memories in life are usually laced with food - be it at a wedding or family reunion or smoking the peace pipe between nations! Anyway, which soul can be at peace on a empty stomach. Even, a funeral ceremony to rest the soul of the dead involves eating. Proponents of penance will not agree with this as they feel that in order to appreciate God's greatness, a little bit of suffering will definitely help. Hence, the practice of self inflicted pain during Thaipusam and suffering hunger panks in the holy month of Ramadan. If you ask me (which you would probably not), kavadi bearers like the short lived attention that they get (which they normally do not get on an average day in their life) and the binge and spirit of festivities that the fasting individuals look forward to afterwards.
In response to an ardent follower (self praise, sic) who wanted me to write on foods available around RRF and Penang during my earlier days, I squeezed my grey matter and this is what that churned out.....(Grey, crimson and oily...)
How ironic life can be - when you have the stomach for the food as a child, you do not have the means for it; as an adult if you have the means for it, you do not have the stomach for it (i.e. health wise, if you bother)!
RRF (outside the home) had much to offer to us as growing children in developing our culinary tongues even though it had been grilled upon us from young that we only eat to live and not vice versa.
Let us look at all the mouth-watering hawker's food available outside the home while we were being cooped up and trying to be a book worm to turn our fate around. To be fair, we had our occasional indulgences every now and then, especially around the time Appa draws his salary packet.
RRF was a big source of potential customers due to its obvious number of inhabitants that reside there. Hence, it drew many food vendors.
Some not-so-well-to-do kids (otherwise known as enterprising) used to sell traditional cakes (probably made by their mothers, just like in the old Malay movies) in their baskets yelling out their products during school holidays.

Masala Vadai

• One Indian boy went on screaming.... Masala Vadai kueh!!! He sold uluttam vadai (a deep fried  spicy black lentil paste south Indian doughnut) and masala vadai (a savoury deep fried gram dhall flat fritters). Talking about doughnuts, did you know that vadai is the original doughnut glazed with loads of sugar. That is, if you believe what The Comedy Court duo of Allan Pereira and Indy Nadarajah said in one of their gigs. They said all foods are Indian in origin: crusted masala thosai is pizza; spring hoppers are spaghetti; rasam is soup; fried chicken - where did the spice come from? India, of course! And the list goes on....   
• An old Chinese with his trademark Pagoda brand white T-shirt used to walk with a flat large aluminum tray balanced on his head and a fold-able wooden frame over his shoulder whilst knocking on a metal gizmo producing an irritatingly loud decibel noise of 'tok tok'. Hence, we used to call him 'tok tok man' and his merchandise 'tok tok' . What he was selling in his aluminum tray was hard sweet candy and his loud gizmo is nothing more than a small hammer and a curved metal which he would use to chisel out his hard candy into shreds before filling it up in a tracing paper paper to serve it to his customers.



Tok Tok Hard Candy




• Occasionally we had young boys selling 'Malay traditional cakes' (kueh) in their baskets during school holidays.
• A Chinese lady (Ah Soh) used to do the same almost everyday but she sold only kueh kosui. I think kueh kosui is a Nyonya delicacy enjoyed by all.



Bengkang (my fave)



Uluttam Vadai

• Then there was a boy who used to sell Chinese crispy deep fried phallic shaped fritters and its complimentary round counterpart yelling 'Ham Chim Peng'-'Eu Char Koay'.

If you are sitting at home and you are exposed all of the above glutton's galore, it is not at all mind boggling to imagine the varieties available out there outside the confines of my flats. Only affordability is the limiting factor! All around RRF food stalls could be found. The noteworthy ones include...

• Again worth mentioning is the Block A Char Kway Teow, the ever delightful tasty lard filled succulent fresh prawn and cockled filled, Chinese chives sprinkled individually prepared by Ah Long. (mentioned in previous post).
• The simple bee-hoon (thin rice noodles) or mee (plain noodles) sold by a push cart hawker between Blocks D and E, sold in the mornings and late night after 8pm. Even though it was plain with no addition ingredients (besides soy sauce, chilly paste and small  lard-fried small cracker strips, it did taste heavenly! I realised that some people called them 'mee bodoh' (stupid noodles in Malay) as it contained nothing to talk about except for its taste - something like a dumb blonde!
• The morning market was a fertile playground for food lovers. Cheap noodles were sold at unbelievably dirt cheap prices (25 to 50 sen, believe it or not?). I remember they used to sell curry mee with a brownish curdy stuff covering the noodles.Only much later did I realise that the brownish shiny stuff was actually cooked pork blood! The curry mee sold in Penang is actually different from what is sold as curry mee in the Peninsular Malaysia, which is actually named Hockkein Mee in Penang!
• The Penang Laksa is also is in a different league altogether. One can smell the pungent smell of Penang Laksa miles away. Steamed round rice noodles are mixed with shredded pineapple, cucumber and fish pulp and immersed in a special gravy and a twist of prawn/fish paste (otak-otak) and lime. Even though it may churn the inside of a vegetarian upside, it is sure to clear your sinuses.



Laksa Penang




• Even though Mamak Mee is freely available  in bistros and hotels these days, nothing beats the ones found at the simple no-frills hawkers, probably ran by a single operator whose hygiene is much to be desired. You should probably not look at his mutli-tasking rag that he used for cleaning the chopping board and customers' table! He would probably wrap his cooking in old banana leave and newspaper. It still beats the most hygienically prepared Mamak Mee any day.

If you venture further out into town, you would probably not come back home...

• Penang has a few varieties of food which are only found there. Pasembor, is a Indian Muslim spicy snack, made with combination of a spread of cut tofu, fried batter, fried prawns, turnip, cuttlefish, cucumber and others with a liberal spread of ground nut gravy over it. Taukwa rendang is another variety of the same, using mostly cut flat Chinese tofu. (See how national integration had fell into place)
• In the 1960s all the way to the mid 80s, the corner shop at the Penang Rd-Magazine Rd-Brick Kiln Rd-Macalister Rd- Datuk Keramat Rd- Gladstone Rd (Simpang Enam) was held in high esteem by Penangites for its one of a kind tasty Mamak food. Nobody actually remembers it original name. Based on the 'Craven A' cigarettes that was advertised on the signboard, over time, the restaurant was called 'Craven A Restaurant'. It was famous for its Mee Singapura (probably even Singaporeans would not have tasted such an indulging mee) and its Nasi Kandar. The Mee Singapura was usually prepared at night after 9pm and people used to hang around the place to wait for the cook to start cooking to place their orders! Their nasi kandar used to be such a hit that customer just could not have enough of their food! The urban legend has it that their original cook used to spike the gravy with ganja (hashish) to make customers to make return purchases. The cook was apparently caught for his misdeeds by the Health authorities! Of course the 'kas kas' used its gravy is a kind of poppy seed of low potency! Craven A was also a hit with us USM medical students. Convoys of motorcycles used to frequent this joint past midnight to make mass purchases to feed the souls of the midnight-oil burning future doctors!



Mee Singapura



Pasembor






Kuih Talam. 

Interestingly, the best of this

Nyonya delicacy in Penang are 

prepared by Indian Muslim peddlars!

• After the cooks in Craven changed hands as the Indian cooks became richer, the quality of the food suffered. Apparently now, a stall in Tamil Street hold the crown for the best nasi kandar in town! (According to our local expert that we appointed, Appa)

During hungry ghost festival, besides the noise that one had to endure to scare the ghost away, there was also food, not to feed the hungry visitors of the underworld but those walking of the walking kind from earth! One particular dish which I found extremely satisfying is the cuttlefish-kangkung preparation with spicy gravy...Mmm... 

Nasi kandar

Somehow everyone thinks that foods of yesteryears fare much better in terms of taste and richness. We can put all the blame in the loads of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and the genetic modifications that we have done over the years. The real reason for its superiority is not caused by he above but rather because of its lingering after-tastes that are laced with loads of memorable heart wrenching cooling zephyr-like thoughts of fond childhood memories spiced up and seasoned with its carefree attitude to life. It is nothing to do with wealth and money!

Kuih Kosui



Kuih Lapis

Mee Rebus Mamak Penang

Hum Chin Peng

Eu Char Koay