Fish Head Noodles Second To None

FOOD TRAIL
By SAM CHEONG


JUST when I thought I had seen them all, my colleague James Lam, an avid foodie, invited me to have lunch with him.

“Eh Sam ah, you free or not? We go to Jalan Kuchai Lama for makan?” he said. I needed no coaxing, it is always an honour to makan with Lam because he goes to great lengths for a decent meal.

Lam and I had earlier met over breakfast and our topic of conversation was ... what else, but food, glorious food!

After making the necessary arrangements, the man said he knew of a secret spot that served yee thau mai (fish head noodles). I had been alerted to many such makan places but, according to Lam, this was one of the “unspoilt” places that I must visit.


Yummy: The Udang Galah beehoon is a notch better than the fish head noodles.

“It’s not commercialised yet and very few food critics know of it. So, we must check it out before its prices go up — especially after a review is posted in the newspaper.”

So, we met up for lunch on a Friday. The place is about a 15-minute drive from Section 16 in Petaling Jaya. Lam manouvred his vehicle through a series of housing estates before we ended up at Jalan Lazat, which is located near Happy Garden in Old Klang Road.

To the uninitiated, this is one place at the fringe of the city centre where there are plenty of good makan places. I can go on and on about the food here, but this week’s pick is a yee thau mai stall at the Choy Kei coffee shop in Jalan Lazat.

If you are not familiar with the housing estates in Old Klang Road, finding this coffee shop can be a real adventure. The landmark here is a row of hawker stalls; Choy Kei is the last corner coffee shop if you are coming from the direction of Happy Garden.

This housing estate brought back plenty of memories of the time when I was a secondary school kid. This was the neighbourhood my friends and I visited when they first acquired their driving licences.

High school romance was blooming and if you were a schoolboy with wheels, your social circle expanded tremendously. And, during the Chinese New Year, there was no shortage of red packets when we went visiting around the area.

My first encounter with the good food here was some 18 years ago. I was introduced to a steamed fish head stall in Jalan Lazat and well, that was the first and last time I visited the place. So, Lam’s invitation held sort of a “Happy Garden revisited” nostalgia for me.

At Choy Kei, he wasted no time in ordering the yee thau mai.


Creamy and tasty: A small portion of Choy Kei’s fish head noodles.

Now, prices here are at a premium. For RM6.80, you get a bowl of fish head noodles with extras like the yee wat (fish paste) thrown in.

To my surprise, the noodle dishes can cost up to RM13.50. I asked the food handler what the extras were and he said: “Ah, for the highest price, you get halved udang galah and yee wat along with the fish head.”

I found his description satisfactory and when the noodles arrived, I found it to be one of the best fish head noodles I had tasted so far.

The gravy was creamy as expected, and the portion of noodles and fish head were generous, so there was hardly anything that I could complain about.

Lam also ordered the sang har mai (prawn beehoon), which was a notch better than the fish head beehoon.

I had fresh sauteed udang galah halves and the the prawn’s aromatic flavour blended with the evaporated milk gravy to give it oomph! At RM11.50 a helping, this is the second most expensive noodle dish in the house.

Now, the “secret” ingredient that made my yee thau mai experience at Choy Kei complete was the chee yau char (pork cracklings).

No other fish head beehoon stall can come close to what this coffee shop offers and so far, it is the top contender for the best yee thau mai in the Klang Valley.

I was also told by Lam that there is a dancing cook in this coffee shop. Ah, well, that will be my excuse for a follow-up visit to Choy Kei.

If you plan to head to Jalan Lazat, be sure to get there early as the coffee shop is usually packed during lunch hour.

The GPS coordinates for Choy Kei coffee shop are 3 4’ 35” N, 101 40’ 43” E. This time round, I will be a bit generous by including the map from my Nokia maps screenshot that cost me a bomb for your reference.

And lastly, the fish head beehoon is a lunchtime treat, so be advised on the timing, and to all you foodies out there — happy hunting!

Piping Hot Bowl Of Noodles

FOOD TRAIL
By SAM CHEONG


OF ALL the Chinese noodle dishes, the yee thau mai (fish-head beehoon) is one of the most extraordinary.

It stands out because of its ingredients — salted vegetables, deep fried fish head, tomatoes and condensed milk.

I was first introduced to the yee thau mai by one of my ex-bosses Albert Lee (I used to work in a production house in SS19, Subang Jaya), who took me to a stall in Taman OUG, Old Klang Road.


Prompt service: Wah Cheong coffee shop is a popular eating place.

There, he treated me to a bowl of noodles at a corner coffeeshop and I was told that this was the best yee thau mai around the neighbourhood.

That was of course was nearly two decades ago.

Today, the fish head beehoon is a thriving food business. Even K.Y. Lau, my father in-law told me of some outlets specialising in the dish in Jalan Kuchai Lama.

I have yet to verify his findings and recently, Majorie Chiew, a colleague of mine tipped me off about a stall serving this particular dish in Section 17, Petaling Jaya.

“Eh Sam ah! Have you tried this place? I had a bowl of fish head noodles there and the portions are generous. You should check it out,” said Chiew.


Generous portion: Wah Cheong coffee shop’s yee thau mai.

So, on one Sunday afternoon, I went to the place in question and ordered a bowl of noodles. It’s not hard to find it because the stall is located at a corner coffeeshop called Wah Cheong.

Now, what I saw at the entrance of this makan place was a bit of a concern to me. Foreign workers hired by the stall owners were seen washing eating utensils, bowls and plates on top of a drain cover.

This is course, is the biggest letdown. Reservations aside, I proceeded with the order and waited patiently for my yee thau mai to be served.

While there, I could see a steady stream of people savouring their food during the lunch break. The variety of food worth mentioninig here are the yuk yeen fun (meatball noodles), chicken rice, and hakka noodles.

Chiew, who is a fellow food critic in The Star also mentioned about the yong tau foo, which is priced at 90sen a piece.

This, she added, is the cheapest stall around Petaling Jaya. Okay, back to the yee thau mai, I ordered a small bowl of noodles and delivery was prompt. In about 10 minutes, I was served with a piping hot bowl of noodles.

Now, in order not to attract too much attention, I took out my Nokia N-82 cellphone and started snapping some close-up shots with its built-in camera.

Now, on a scale from 1 -10, I would rate Wah Cheong’s yee thau mai a 6.

I found the fare to be pretty decent. Compared with the same dishes I had in Old Klang Road and Subang Jaya, this yee thau mai lacked a few things: coriander, spring onion leaves and soft tofu.

But then, there are different styles in serving the fish-head beehoon.

And at RM5 a treat, I’d say that the portion was generous.

Most fish head noodle stalls use freshwater fish like the Chinese carp and Giant snakehead as its main ingredients.

If you hate the “earthy” taste of freshwater fish, then this may be an acquired taste. All you need to do, is to dab it with some fiery cili api and soya sauce.

After leaving Wah Cheong’s coffeeshop for my office, I bumped into my colleague Peter Hoe, who is an old friend and was an intrepid traveller in his younger days.

Hoe, who was having lunch in a coffeeshop opposite Wah Cheong, actually saw me taking photos with my cellphone’s camera.

I told him my purpose and his reaction was: “Haiyaaa! If you love fish head noodles, I take you to Taman Desa lah bradder! The quality is second to none and nobody has disputed it.”

So, I took note of that because my next food trail would be with Hoe on the hunt for the best yee thau mai in the Klang Valley.

Now, to get to Wah Cheong coffeeshop, the best way is to car pool because parking is scarce. To locate this coffeeshop, head to Jalan 17/29. Lat, Long coordinates for this makan place are: 3°7’44”N 101°38’3”E.

So, have a great time finding this place and happy eating!

Fish Head Beehoon Worth The Search

Food Trail
By SAM CHEONG


BEFORE I kick off this week’s find, I would like to apologise for a small error in my story on the Wah Cheong coffee shop in Section 17 Petaling Jaya.

In the story, I mentioned ‘condensed’ milk as a main ingredient in the gravy of the yee thau mai (fish-head beehoon). The correct item for this should be ‘evaporated milk’.


Unique: Fish head noodles with evaporated milk.

Soo Ewe Jin, one of my bosses, pointed this out. “Eh Sam ah! I follow your trail lah and when I read about the yee thau mai, you mentioned condensed milk, my wife and I had a good laugh,” he said.

All right, I hope that clarified things a little bit, and while we are on the subject of yee thau mai, Peter Hoe, my colleague had got back to me on the much talked about makan place in Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur.

But before I proceed, I would like to give a shout out to blogger pegasus (http://pegasuskl.wordpress.com) who emailed me about the same makan place.

After checking out this blogger’s awesome site, I would say that the bual bual kosong blog is one of the most interesting food blogs I’ve ever come across.

Okay, back to Peter Hoe - my buddy came up to me and told me that he couldn’t handle the 15 seconds of fame and that he had received plenty of phone calls to get directions to the said place in Taman Desa.

“Aiyah Sam! My phone didn’t stop ringing lah. What have you done?”, he said. Well, Hoe had certainly felt the pressure and invited me to join him for a quick fix at the yee thau mai joint.

“Meet me at the lobby and we go for a fast one!,” he said with a slap on my shoulder. Hoe and I go back a long way since The Star was based at Section 13 in Petaling Jaya.

After hearing his stories on travel and adventure back in the early 90s, I jumped at the chance to grab a fast lunch with this living legend.

Our drive from Menara Star in Section 16 took about 15 minutes. We ended up at one corner in Taman Desa and to me, this is an entirely obscure landscape.


The search ends here: Woo Pin fish head noodles in Taman Desa, Kuala Lumpur, deserves a repeat visit.

The place in question was Woo Pin fish head noodles. But if you are a first-timer here, you will never find the place because their name was not printed on a signboard.

Instead, the outlet is situated in a steamboat restaurant at a corner lot in the first row of shoplots at Jalan 2 109F. A surefire tell-tale sign here is the crowd. The shop opens from 7.20am to 2.30pm and that’s all they need to bring in the day’s earnings.

Well, believe it or not, we thought we got there early but by noon, the place was already crowded and people just kept coming.

“Ah, here, you can order the clear soup without evaporated milk. I like it even better with some fresh fish slices.

“If you want to get the most out of it, you can add the yee wat (fish paste) and yee peen (fish slice). I like my yee thau mai in its clear broth,” explained Hoe.

Well, for starters, a bowl of fish head beehoon costs RM6.50. I was quick on the draw when a Myanmar worker handed out the bill.

It was an honour for me to eat with sifu Hoe and indeed a pleasure to savour Taman Desa’s most electrifying yee thau mai.

So, how did this place fare? On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate it at 6.5. Pricing wise, this makan place charges slightly higher than most of the stalls I had visited.

On taste, I would say that the gravy (mine came with evaporated milk) was not as creamy as I had anticipated, nevertheless, its smooth flavour made up for the shortcoming.

For ingredients, you can choose to have fresh fish head and slices (order before 11am) or the usual deep fried morsels.

As far as the portion was concerned, Woo Pin is generous enough to pack my bowl of noodles but, too bad the waiter got my order wrong. Well, I guess I’ll have to make a repeat visit to taste other variants of the yee thau mai.

While we were eating, Hoe pointed out that the outlet’s owner, a middle aged Chinese guy, looked rather harassed and was frowning all the time.

Maybe it was the pressure to get orders delivered on time. “Ha, lou sai, hou mah!” (Boss, how are you), Hoe gestured. All I saw, was a frown on the owner’s face. How strange.

His good looks aside, I would say that searching for this yee thau mai place is an adventure by itself. If you have a vehicle-mounted GPS receiver, Woo Pin fish head noodles is located at: Lat 03 05 49, Long 101 41 10.

Before I clock off, I would also like to thank reader Adrian Chong who emailed me and gave me the lowdown on the best yee thau mai in Kuala Lumpur and perhaps in the Klang Valley. Where is this place? Well, tune in to find out in the next: “Samo’s great yee thau mai discovery”.