There are char siew noodles and there are char siew mee and it is no secret I am a big fan of this comfort pasta dish. I am as Cantonese as they come and I have a particular intimacy with this old South Chinese makan. There’s the heart warming rendition from Hong Kong, a sadder version in Bangkok (the Teochews there aren’t exactly the A-listers of char siew noodles), that sweetish, savoury and sometimes doused with, strangely, ketchup, Singapore version and my all time favourite, the dark sauce Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysian interpretation.

Resist the temptation to pinch the char siew when wet and hot,
and then go “wow” and touch your face.

I don’t get why, that uber famous stall in Lavender- the queues had been there since I first noticed, back in the days when the cheapest MRT rides was 80 cents (I kid you not). That spoon of noodle sauce comes strangely sweet, savoury and almost colourless. I’ve recreated that sensation using sugarcane juice, light soy and a splash of lard and cracklings. Yes, strange, but it’s strangely appealing. The accompanying char siew, I might as well take pork, smear it with pink lipstick, coat it with sugar and soy sauce and bake it. I’ll not go there, but they have their fans and we hear their voices too. And the only reason I figure why my buddies in Bangkok rave about the char siew noodles in Siam Square and that, open at night only, stall beside the Nana BTS rail station along Sukhumvit, is simple – they have been away for too long, and all that lemon grass and fish sauce has gone into their blood stream!

Ah, but then, if you’ve traversed those little back alleys in the Chinese quarters of Kuala Lumpur or in Petaling Jaya, in search of that unquestionably KL style creation, then you have an idea of what I am going on about here. To begin with, their char siew, it stares at you with a deliberately blacker and roastier (some just say more chow tar) than usual finish, simply because they don’t dust it with red colouring and they pile a bit (but I think it’s a lot) more sugar and thick dark soy sauce. Their noodles are often served overflowing off a porcelain spoon, which holds the dark soy sauce. Swirl the kiew kiew (soft and resilient) noodles about with the chopsticks and it all goes tan, dark, slippery and absolutely bewitching.

I can taste images like this and it’s so rewarding
if it came off your own kitchen

But then, I have to warn that not all stalls in KL serve up a version that can take your breath away, many will, in fact, make you run away. So to save you that 5 hour trip up north and embark on a fruitless search for that definitive KL char siew mee, I’ll share this concoction, tested just last week, with expert touches and some secrets entrusted to me by some of these noodle masters in KL. Eat my words, they work, at least for me.

Ingredients and marinate for char siew (for 4)
Half kilogram of pork (lean with streaks of fat, ask for wu hua rou (five flowers meat)
100gm white castor sugar
Half teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons(tbspn) of dark soy sauce

Noodles and sauce:
Mee Kia (or thin egg wanton noodles) enough for four
8 tbspn of lard or vegetable oil
4 tbspn of sesame oil
5 tbspn of dark soy sauce
2 tbspn of oyster sauce

Method:

Mix the char siew marinate and infused the meat in for about 2.5 hours in the fridge (flip the meat over halfway through). Set the griller to 250 degrees and roast the meat for about 25 minutes on each side (adjust heat for roastiness according to preference). Drizzle a little of the balance sauce over pork, every 10 minutes). Set aside when done.

Heat up the noodle sauce mix over low fire and set aside. Blanch the noodles till firm and soft then cool it in a bowl of cold water to stem the cooking. Strain or flick excess water and place on plate, pour two spoons of sauce over, top it with some blanched chye sim vegetables and slice your char siew (make it chunkier, you deserve it) over. Top it with some crispy shallots.