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Nasi Kampung, take me home |
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At first I had wanted to introduce a difficult to find old childhood favorite of mine at a stall we chanced upon at Sims Place some months back. I thought it would be nice to introduce and expose this hawker who touts fried “ice cream stick noodles” or nian kao, a rice and glutinous flour strip like cake fried like our regular hor fun, except that is harder to do as you have to pre-soak them properly and over frying them can turn them into a blob. Heng Hua lor mee is also ladled off his wok constantly. So we went back for a third time, did the usual – ordered incognito to check that it was as good, and then identified ourselves (me and our food guide researcher) later for an interview. But alas, this time around it came bland, as if a hired hand wanted to “sabo” the boss by omitting the pre-requisite flavouring and salt. It was peak lunch hour, the stall was packed and, yes, the hired hand was cooking. I was caught – deadline looming, no immediate back up plan available, two bowls of uninspiring noodles staring at me, and still hungry. Perhaps the boss cook had to take a day off, I rationalized. But, I still had no story to tell. Then, I spied, through the corner of my eye, a phenomenon at the corner of the food centre- a big group of feeders (you know they are enjoying every bite as many came alone, merrily tearing at this same dish like they were having fresh Tian Tian chicken rice on their enroute to America flight stopover in Germany) oblivious to the world. Every one there had this shiny fish shaped brown blob over rice and some vegetables. It came from a stall just beside the little queue of borderline patient customers who would tolerate no delays and nonsense from anybody. Our researcher Yiling queued for a rice platter topped with the common orders.
I was confronted with this full sized, piping hot, deep fried ikan selar (scad) dunked completely in a bring-me-back-to-Katong-Park “makanan laut” (seaside kampong food) days kinda of sambal. It was dripping and calling out “eat me now!”. The sambal was not sweet nor sour nor was it jazzed up with hints of buah keluak. The sambal sotong with mussels was great – soft and gently coated with the dry rempah and the ikan billis petai was done with some onions and tomatoes- very rare and appealingly alluring. Most fry them over sambal but this was not spicy. Of course she topped it with the pre-requisite turmeric fried chicken wing but it was increasingly clear that it was insignificant. My first bite into the sambal fish with a spoon of plain rice stopped me in my tracks. The sambal swirled inside and all I could think of was plucking coconuts, catching spiders, playing marbles and swimming in the Geylang river as a skinny eight year old. “I only use sambal kering (freshly blended dried chili paste), red onions and garlic”, was all boss Mdm Sadiah Nain would offer when I prodded for the sambal recipe ( I was particularly kaypoh this time). Of course, there were sweet and sour tones to it but it was not screamingly so, and there was not one floss of hae bi (dried shrimp) in it. It was very spicy, the kind of sadistic spiciness that made you come back for more.( I am thinking of eating it now, again, as I write). I polished the whole plate in ten minutes flat. Now I am back with a story. Mdm Sadiah was a typical child of the 1950s’ here. She had to toil at her parent’s nasi stall in the Katong Park/ Amber Road area and later inherited it (sorry, her basic story is quite boring so I’ll tell you just how simple the whole set up is) . She cooks many dishes but by lunch, just about a dozen or so remains and it includes sambal cuttlefish, nangka lemak, tapioca leaves in curry, pineapple achar, sambal eggs, cabbage and sambal goreng( spicy tempah with beans and tofu). You’ll aslo see a stack of sambal drowned fried fish flying off the shelves like bats off a cave for supper with a huge tray of fried chicken trialing behind. They all go fast and it’s best to catch her in the “morning” shift which lasts till about 3pm when most stuff clears out. Of course I had to order a second “official” plate to devour. This time, I headed for the food centre’s corner seats with a view of a big green field (an imagine that it’s some kampung padang). Enak gila! Just one more thing - I encourage you to discover
her rendang. Go spoil yourself!
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