Doughnuts Worth The Wait

By TAN KARR WEI

DO not be surprised if you see a long line of people outside a store in Pavillion Kuala Lumpur as they are just trying to get their fix of doughnuts from J.Co Donuts and Coffee.

Senior public relations officer Fazil Tahir said the queue was a norm, even on weekdays.


For the love of doughnuts: Customers queuing up outside the outlet.

“There’s roughly 10,000 transactions a day and each customer buys an average of half a dozen doughnuts,” he said, adding that the top three flavours were Glazzy (honey glazed), Alcappone (white Belgian chocolate and almonds), and a tie between Coco Loco (dark Belgian chocolate topping and filling) and Cheese Me Up (savoury New Zealand cheese topping).

He said some customers initially did not like the idea of having to wait in line for so long but when they tried the doughnuts, they understood why.

Saw Hooi Yee, 18, and her friend Lee Shin Lui, 16, saw the line of people when they walked past the outlet and were curious so they decided to try some.

“They had so many varieties and it all looked so nice that we ended up buying a dozen each,” said Saw.

Inside the seating area, Madeline Yap, 37, was seen sipping coffee at the outlet with her daughter Andree Lee, five .

“I bring my daughter here at least once a week because she loves the doughnuts. Her favourite is the Glazzy doughnut. The coffee here is very good too,” said Yap, who is from Kuala Lumpur.


Busy: J.Co Donuts and Coffee employees serving the many customers.

It was a first for Jess Tan, 31, who liked the doughnuts so much after she tried it that she willingly jumped into the queue again to buy more for her family.

Her daughter Joey Tan, five, happily munched on a Coco Loco doughnut while still holding on to her Game Boy with the other hand.

Journalist Radin Sri frequents J. Co about three times a week and her favourite flavours are Cheese Me Up, Tiramisu and Alcapone.

“The doughnuts are just so good. I always buy half a dozen for myself and I would also get orders from my colleagues if they know I’m coming here,” she said with a laugh.

If you see people in the shopping mall with light brown boxes in transparent plastic bags bearing the round J.Co logo, these are the customers who had successfully braved the line to get their favourite doughnuts.

Hock Chew Specialities

By CLARA CHOOI
Photos by LEW YONG KAN and SAIFUL BAHRI

When in Sitiawan, do not miss out on the opportunity to feast on Hock Chew food and biscuits.

WHEN the Hock Chew migrants from China settled in Sitiawan in the early 1900s, they brought with them a host of interesting specialities.

Today, this bustling coastal town of Perak is known for its signature “sweet and sour” Hock Chew or Fuzhou cuisine that tastes delightfully different from most other kinds of Chinese cooking.

Some of the best Hock Chew food can be found in the Bei King restaurant on Jalan Raja Omar, right smack in the middle of Sitiawan.

Restaurant proprietor Ching Kin Eng has more than 20 years of experience behind the wok, whipping up the very dishes her ancestors used to prepare.


Signature dishes: Ching with some of the Hock Chew specialities she serves at her restaurant in Sitiawan.

However, even the skilful Ching has to admit the Hock Chew cuisine may not suit the palate of every Malaysian, whose taste buds have already been sullied by the spice-packed foods of the country’s various cultures.

As such, the shrewd businesswoman has successfully concocted her very own “special brew” of the Hock Chew food.

“What I’ve done is modify the dishes according to taste. This is to make sure every dish is special on its own; people who eat it will know immediately that I was the one who cooked it,” she jokes during an interview at the air-conditioned restaurant recently.

One of Ching’s bestsellers is an all-time Hock Chew favourite – red wine thread noodles cooked with tender chicken.

Served steaming hot in a huge bowl, this dish can be found in most restaurants that serve Hock Chew food.

Ching’s version, however, is probably one of the popular ones among the locals.

Why?

“It’s obvious, really. I make my own wine here. And as popular belief suggests, homemade food tastes better than commercialised food,” she says.

For the dish, Ching uses “long-life” noodles, which are white in colour and has a slippery softness and a milky flavour when boiled.

“The noodles, too, are handmade. That’s why they taste better,” she says.

To make the tangy-tasting red wine, Ching, declining to elaborate further on her secret recipe, says: “Plenty of materials are used.”

“I use only quality products to make the wine. The pulut and yeast used are the expensive ones.”

As a result, the dish has a myriad of tastes – sour and tangy, a dash of saltiness and a sweet aftertaste.

Another of Ching’s delights is the fried oyster egg.

The oysters used for the dish come from the day’s morning catch and are always fresh and fragrant.

The eggs are beaten to a fluff then fried with onions and chillies before the oysters are added in.

The result is a golden brown omelette, stuffed with loads of juicy, slightly salted oysters, still glistening with the taste of the ocean.

“This is always a favourite amongst our customers. After all, everyone loves their omelette,” says Ching.

One must-have dish is the sweet and sour sea cucumber thick soup cooked with fish maw.

This dish is partly spicy and is addictive to say the least.

“Hock Chew food is known to be mostly sweet and sour. For this particular dish, we make it slightly spicy to suit Malaysians,” says Ching.

The sea cucumbers are cooked until tender with a blended concoction of fish maw, chillies and ginger.

If one is not already satisfied with the first three dishes, do not forget to try another Hock Chew favourite – the homemade fish balls.

These fish balls are different from most as they are stuffed with salted minced pork and prawns.

“We make them here ourselves and customers just love them.”

Besides that, customers could also order other specialities of the outlet such as fried soft shell crabs, sliced sweet and sour fish, and chicken with salted egg.

Another mouth-watering Hock Chew creation found in Sitiawan is the “Gong Pian” biscuits.

Hard and crispy on the outside, these savoury biscuits are one of the oldest favourites brought by the Hock Chew settlers from China.

Where can you find them?

A hop, skip and jump away from Bei King will lead you to the Sitiawan Cheong Cia Gong Pian shop, located behind Wisma Ganda, on Jalan Tok Perdana.

The age-old family business is just booming. Come rain or shine, the rather unsuspecting looking shoplot is in a constant flurry of activity.


Special ingredients: Cheong Hiong Koh preparing Gong Pian biscuits for the clay oven.

In the midst of this, one will find proprietors Cheong Hiong Koh, 41, and his brother Heong Poh, 33, who took over the business from their granduncle over 10 years back.

The two successfully tweaked the original “Gong Pian” recipe to create what you will find sold at their shop today – biscuits stuffed with sweet “char siew” or slightly salted fried onions.

They may not look like much to the naked eye but take a bite into one the moment it is taken out of the clay oven and your taste buds will convince you otherwise.

“The original recipe is very plain and the biscuits have no fillings.

“People love the new recipe of “Gong Pian” that we have created. In fact, some customers come in and buy over 300 pieces per order to take away,” says Hiong Koh.

The biscuits are made from wheat flour, yeast, salt and lard. The dough is kneaded carefully by hand before it is put into a machine to be rolled. After that, it is flattened and rolled into smaller pieces, stuffed with the fillings and rolled again with a rolling pin.

“Once done, we put them into the heated oven (tandoor) where they are baked for a few minutes until they are hard and crispy,” says Hiong Koh.


Hot stuff: The Gong Pian biscuits sold at the Sitiawan Cheong Cia Gong Pian shop.

The onion-filled biscuits cost 60 sen each while the “char siew” ones cost 90 sen each.

“We make at least 1,000 biscuits a day. The first batch is ready for sale at about 10am every day.”

Three batches are made and every single biscuit is snapped up even before the shop closes for the day in the evening, he adds.

“It’s a bit hard for us to make so many biscuits because the preparation and baking for each batch takes about one and a half hours,” he said.

In fact, business is so good for the family that the shop is closed during public holidays.

“As it is, the orders are for more than we can make every day. If we open during public holidays, I don’t think we can keep up with the demand,” says Hiong Koh.

So when in Sitiawan, do not miss out on the opportunity to feast on Hock Chew food, including the delicious “Gong Pian” biscuits.

Oozing Sweetness

By CHAN LI LEEN

A bite of the Sing Eng Heong kaya puff can put a smile on your face.

ALMOST anyone who emerges from Sin Eng Heong, a tiny biscuit shop on Jalan Mustapha Al-Bakri in Ipoh, has some sort of a jubilant look on his or her face.

The satisfied looks are telltale signs that they have just successfully “secured” boxes of the shop’s much sought-after kaya puffs.

Crispy on the inside, yet the flaky pastry underneath crumbles as you bite into it – that is how some fans describe the bite-sized puffs.

Others swear by the generous amount of steaming hot homemade kaya that oozes out when you sink your teeth into it.


Hot off the oven: Ng Lian Pin removing a tray of freshly baked kaya puffs from the oven at his shop.

Sin Eng Heong owner Ng Lian Pin says the kaya puffs are made on demand to ensure freshness.

True enough, there is always a long line of people waiting at the shop for the 74-year-old biscuit maker to take them out of the oven.

And before there is time for the kaya puffs to cool down, they are already sold.

“Customers have to pre-order for weekends and holidays,” Ng cautions against any disappointments.

Ng had started out as an apprentice in biscuit and pastry making at the age of 16, learning the tricks of the trade from various “sifu” in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

“I didn’t go to school and didn’t have a job.

“That was in the 1950s and I’ve been baking biscuits and pastries since,” he says, modestly.

Ng also makes traditional wedding cakes, ham tan sou (lotus paste and salted egg yolk puffs), Hong Kong wife biscuits, heong peah, and variations of everyone’s favourite dragon ball biscuit.

Sin Eng Heong opens daily from 9am to 8pm but go early if you intend to get your hands on some kaya puffs.

To play safe, however, call 05-243 9659 to place orders.

Aroma Of Fresh Bahulu

By ZULKIFLY MOHAMAD

FAMOUS Mengkuang Titi bahulu (traditional muffin) maker Che Som Man, 63, is fighting against time to deliver orders for her aromatic bahulu to customers before Hari Raya.

She has hired more workers and stocked up some 200,000 bahulu so as not to disappoint her customers.

Her bahulu is not only in big demand during Raya. Orders for the muffin double during the Chinese New Year.

Che Som began selling her bahulu in a small way back in 1982. She was making about 30 pieces daily then.

“They were snapped up immediately when they were put up for sale at sundry shops.

“I expanded my business by buying two ovens to meet the demand especially during Hari Raya,” she said at her Mengkuang Titi home in Bukit Mertajam, Penang.


Watchful eye: Che Som supervising the workers.

She said she bought four more ovens as orders kept pouring in, adding that she had to abandon the slow traditional method of using coconut husks to bake the muffins.

“I would lose customers if I continue with the traditional method. I need ovens in order to deliver the bahulu on time, especially during Hari Raya,” she said.

Che Som said she made 20,000 pieces of the bahulu daily beginning from the second half of Ramadan.

She said she used four gunny sacks of sugar weighing 50kg each, eight gunny sacks of flour and over 2,000 chicken eggs daily.

Her bahulu comes in different shapes and sizes.

She also makes goldfish and fruit-shaped bahulu and other designs as required by her customers especially during wedding ceremonies.

Che Som said she was using five giant modified ovens now. Each can bake 144 pieces at any one time.

Her son Zahari Md Akhir, 30, said the family was planning to market the bahulu nationwide and also internationally.

Zahari said a Chinese businessman ordered 70,000 bahulu from him daily one month before every Chinese New Year.


Neat rows: Zahari and wife Norhana Mohd Noor helping to pack the bahulu in boxes.