When I was growing up in Penang, I remember there was a period of time where we’d head go grandm’s over the weekends and more often than not, having Hokkien Char for breakfast at the old shack right outside Weld Quay. That was how I developed a taste for this particular dish.
Ai Jiak Penang Food, PJ Seapark
Hokkien Char (福建炒) simply meant Hokkien style fried noodle in Penang. While sharing almost similar name as Hokkien Mee in KL, the two dishes are quite different from each other.
While KL’s favorite comes with thick, fat noodle drench in very dark sauce, Penang’s style is quite a lot lighter and usually done with yellow noodle and meehun. Additionally, the Hokkien Char sambal is often a lot hotter and less mushy.
Back to Ai Jiak Penang Food restaurant.
I’ve actually heard about this place when it was situated in the old location at the Chung Ling Alumni Association in Jalan Utara, KL (fun fact, I am from the same school), the restaurant has since moved to Seapark, directly opposite Public Bank.
The restaurant offers a few Penang classic dishes to go with rice, such as asam fish head, curry chicken, pineapple curry prawns, pork trotter vinegar, sambal petai prawns, and so forth.
Additionally, they also offer single serving dishes such as asam laksa, chee cheong fun, herbal chicken meesuah, and what I came here for – Hokkien char!
Penang style “Hokkien Char”
So is their Hokkien Char any good?
The answer is a resounding yes! To be perfectly honest, if you didn’t grow up having Hokkien Char, it may not be a dish that speaks to you, but if you love spicy sambal and a dish of fried noodle that’s not overly strong or starchy, you may want to give this a try.
Address: Ai Jiak Penang Food 9, Jalan 21/12, Sea Park, 46300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor GPS: Tel: +6 011 2778 8428
The most famous instant noodle in town, MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee, has been widely praised as one of the bests. Authentic Penang flavor with that aromatic sambal paste right in your kitchen within a few minutes, it’s about as good as it gets, or is it?
the ingredients, with Penang White Curry mee
When it comes to cooking, I always like to experiment. So when I started to get a little bored with the standard way of cooking the MyKuali White Curry Mee, I improvised, and came up with this fried MyKuali Penang White Curry mee. The result turned out to be pretty good!
Here’s the recipe.
first, fry some chopped garlic and perhaps onion or shallots too
Ingredients (for 2):
2 packs standard MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee
1-2 bulb garlic and some shallots or onion, skinned and sliced
3-4 tablespoon cooking oil
2 eggs
8 crab sticks (or otherseafood of your choice)
use some hot water to stir the accompanying chilli paste and santan
Cooking instructions:
heat up cooking oil and fry garlic to golden brown, remove and put aside
fry shallot/onion to golden brown, remove and put aside
at the same time, boil the noodle for 3 minutes
use 2 tablespoon hot water (from boiling noodle) and mix up the seasoning and sambal from MyKuali packets
fry crabstick/seafood, remove and put aside
when noodle is done, remove from pot and start frying in the pan with oil
add the premixed seasoning (I only use about 70%)
add eggs and continue to fry till eggs are cooked
served with the fried garlic, shallots, and crab sticks
boil the noodle first before frying with “rempah” and egg
Yeap, this does take quite a bit more effort than your usual 3 minute work for coming up with a bowl of instant noodle, but unlike Indomie or Maggie goreng, you can’t get this at your friendly local Mamak restaurant, and dare I say, it tastes a whole lot more awesome as well.
Try it and let me know if you like it!
Fried MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee with Crab Sticks
Kim Lian Kee is one of the oldest restaurants in Petaling Streets, claimed to be one of the firsts Hokkien-style fried mee in in KL, it’s been run by the Lee family since 1927. We found ourselves at Petaling Street not too long ago and decided to have this as lunch.
Kim Lian Kee Hokkien Mee at Petaling Street
Kim Lian Kee still retains the small shop lot on ground floor with a few tables by the roadside in a semi alfresco style old school dining area, but walking upstairs revealed a comfortable dining hall with clean marbled table and air conditioning.
It’s good to see old school eateries upgrade to keep up with modern time.
old school hokkien mee and fried hor fun
We tried their Hokkien mee and Fried Hor Fun.
They were served relatively quickly, the Hokkien mee was really as good as advertised. Plenty of “wok hei” and made better by the generous amount of lard. Other ingredients are pork slices, prawns, and cabbage. The aroma of the noodle is said to be partly attributed to the usage of thick prawn shell soup. The sambal served along side with the noodle was top notch as well.
The fried hor fun was decent as well but I didn’t find it close to the standard of their Hokkien mee.
some squid with soya sauce as snack, with horng, yuki, and kerol
Other than fried noodles, Kim Lian Kee has quite a lot of other dishes on their menu. We only tried the squid with soya sauce as an accompanying dish. The seafood tasted pretty good, but it was a tad too salty.
If you find yourself at Petaling Street, do check out this restaurant for some good Hokkien Mee. Order other dishes at your own risk. Prices are in line with most air-conditioned places, expect to spend around RM10+ per person.
Address: Kim Lian Kee 49, Jalan Petaling Kuala Lumpur GPS:3.144496, 101.697532 Tel: 03-2032 4984
