Wah Suka Chiak

I'm at Penang now. It so happens that my ultimate favourite hawker food is Penang Hokkien mee (not to be confused with KL Hokkien mee — I don't know how something so deplorable can share the same name as something so divine). As it is with all types of Penang hawker food, there's a never-ending debate about which stall serves the best Hokkien mee on the island.

My parents like the Hokkien mee stall behind Giant. They say that the soup is thicker and more authentic. I suppose that their argument holds water judging by the crowds of people that throng the stall everyday. Demand is so great that when we once tried to order a few bowls of Hokkien mee from them, they scolded us, "Beh sai! Beh sai!" (Cannot! Cannot!) and attempted to stop us from ordering. When we persisted, they warned us, "Lu tan ku ku ah!" (You wait long long ah). Turned out that the stall owners were terrible pessimists, for the bowls of noodles came pretty quickly. Father and Mother enjoyed it, but I found the soup too strong and spicy as I have pathetic chili tolerance. On another note, this is a very interesting business model that utilizes reverse psychology. Perhaps by turning customers away, the desirability of the product increases!

My favourite Hokkien mee stall has always been the Bangkok Lane one, so we went there this morning. There is always a lovely balance of ingredients, and the soup is light. The soup was so addictive today that I sucked my noodles dry by the time I ate half my meal. Mother told me to ask the Hokkien mee uncle for a soup refill, but unfortunately Father arrived and that meant no refills (Father vehemently declares that Hokkien mee soup is full of MSG). Pity. While eating, I commented, "I hope the Hokkien mee uncle lives to a hundred."
When Father paid the uncle, he told him, "Wah eh cha boh kia chin chia suka lu eh Hokkien mee. Ee kong lu live to a hundred." (My daughter really likes your Hokkien mee. She says she wants you to live to a hundred.) LOL shy face. The uncle was pretty happy, I think, so he started explaining how he always puts in his best effort and the best ingredients into his Hokkien mee.
Father rates the Bangkok Lane Hokkien mee with a 4.2 over 5.0. I give it a 4.8.

I had a cup of teh si to go with my breakfast. Drinking hot tea while eating a spicy bowl of Hokkien mee in a stuffy coffee shop is a sure form of masochism. All the factors add up and make you sweat buckets and set your tongue on fire early in the morning. Yet it gives you this great sense of gastronomical pleasure when you slurp up the remains of the soup, drink the dregs of the tea, and lean back and sigh after everything has been licked clean. That's exactly what we did today.
Plus, we added to the masochism by ending our meal with apom. It's an experience in itself eating apom — paper-thin eggy pancakes — straight out of the skillet with one's hands. No one but losers ever eats apom with cutlery. So it was a joy to unwrap the brown paper package, peel off a piping hot apom from the stack and flip it from palm to palm like a hot potato to avoid being burnt. Oh, and eat it too, of course.

That was just breakfast. I have approximately eleven more meals here, and that doesn't count the in-between snack times. Feel free to turn green.