A little of everything-The Rojak!

ladies will swear that they are in seventh Heaven when they see a plate of rojak!It's more a lady's starter dish before the main course is eaten.I have seen many men too indulging in this mouth-watering delicacy though many will swear that its one of the 'must have' for the pregnant ladies!!!

What is this specialty that can make our saliva drool like there is no tomorrow?

Rojak, a Malay concoction comprising of a little bit of green unripe mango,nutmeg,cucumber,mankuang,,pineapple and other local fruits/vegetables mixed with thick Hae Kor( black prawn source)and roasted peanuts.Some enterprising stalls also add in small fried prawns and Ee Char Koay(a long piece of deep-fried ancient bread usually goes best with thick black coffee)

Almost all of the rojak sellers claim that theirs are the best but only an expert can tell where to go for such good titillating fruit/vegetable dish. My friend,Paul from Great Britain,dared not taste the thick prawn source or he would get high from it!For my two children, they must have generous amount of the thick black prawn source spilling onto the fruits/vegetables together with lots of fresh roasted peanuts to make the dish look very appertising!

I too have my 'Rojak king' on the island.Try the Hock Kee rojak stall right at the Mccallum Street flat and tell me what do you think?

Daniel's taste-bug was stirred up by GP Rojak at the Gurney Drive Hawker's complex while Paula's Ah Chye Rojak needs a GPS bearing to find him as he is all over the place!Mohan and wife prefer the Esplanade stall and Jong together with Paula concurred this fruit/rojak stall is rather good but pricey. Anyway to each his/her own but if you find a better rojak starter pack,just page me and I will be there!

Jong's Penang food bash!

Thank you Kensan for the breakfast! I just got back today, persuaded by friends and relatives for food food food. I never miss my hokkien mee in Presgrave St (Snar Teow Lorr). Ask for extra pai-koot or sio-bak, superb. The o-chean(oyster) and tauknua chen are also good. So is its kueh-kark. The wantan mee is also good. I also love the ice kacang.

The pek-kueh tng and heng jin char along Kimberly St are also nice. Too bad we don't have them here in Ipoh.

Amazing you have not visited Ipoh in 10 years? How come, afterall it's only 1.5 hr drive away? My friends and I used to drive all the way to Penang just for the day's food! Once we left at 7 am, returned home at 7 pm and we consumned 11 types of hawker food. We had wanted to eat more but the stomach could not take it anymore. That was years back. Today we are all comparing our middle-age spread, trying not to consume carbs after lunch!

Btw Presgrave St is Snar Teow Lor, not Cheet Teow Lor(7th st) which is Cecil St. That's my territory - I grew up in MacCallum St - Gor Teow Lor(5th st). That whole area used to be gangster haunts but ever since young I will fight to my last breath if anybody ever includes MacCallum St because that's the only one left "clean"! Why? - because that's a street of government/public servants and professionals. We were all so safe, being surrounded and protected by those gangs. They never ever touched us. We were left alone. Imagine walking the dark streets(our lightings were nothing to shout about) late in the night for supper. Not today, can't even walk safe in broad daylight without handbags being snatched!

The ice kacang too is superb!

Kiam-Chye Boey:

We should remember how our elders used to “tapau” every remnance of good festival food on the table to turn them up into favourite of everyone - the ‘kiam-chye-boey’ a chopsui dish in Cantonese it’s called “choy-keok”. Wow I remember how popular they were but today because of health awareness and hygiene to prevent spread of heppatitis, such practice is strongly discouraged and discontinued. Whenever I have cravings for “kiam chye boey”, I’d have to buy the ingredients to ‘artifitually’ churn out ‘kiam-chye-boey’ using half a bird of roast chicken, roast pork, cans of mushrooms, lemon grass, dried chillies, carrots and plenty of kiam-chye and kuah chye! Anyone for this dish? I have a suggestion, can we get Paula distracted from her ’stress’ and pass her this “assignment”? And we will all be there to test it out if she would do a good job of it?!

~jong.-Thanks to youu too for sharing!