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| Mee Goreng Mamak |
In my almost nonstop rat race
for the last two weeks due to my semester’s end examination, fast food is my
daily diet. Breakfast with McDonald’s, lunch with Subway’s 6” sandwich, tea
with Mamak’s Roti Canai and packed
dinner bought at some street’s stall. Their taste at the very best is 5 on
Acepaizah’s scale but that is a normal standard for ready to go food or slave
myself in the hot kitchen.
What better way to eases my
mind than sitting with friends over a reasonable plate of Mee Goreng Mamak (yellow noodles) and a
glass of frothing Teh Tarik in a Mamak restaurant; a family oriented
restaurant which operates 24 hours and served Indian dishes. I wanted to use
the word “cuisine” but it is a misnomer since Mamak restaurant is more like a
fast food joint than fine dining. Besides the standard array of ready to eat
rice and its accompanying dishes, the staple of Mamak restaurant is its “Roti
Canai” in many variations and its fast frying dishes from the wok cook upon
order.
On one such day, I drop by a
Mamak restaurant called “Original Kayu”
(Kayu=literally means wood) in Ampang, just few meters away from the Kuala
Lumpur border. This restaurant is one of the “Kayu” branch which originated
from Penang (northern island of the West Malaysia) also known as Pearl of the
Orient. I ordered the Mee Goreng (fried yellow noodle) with my mandatory Teh
Tarik. As I frequent this particular restaurant quite often, one of the waiters
who always serve us (my companion NH & RA) knew what we wanted to order,
specially our drinks and knew I will always ask for dhal (dill) gravy to be
eaten with my fried noodle! My reason of having the gravy is to balance the
noodle spiciness.
The fried Mee Goreng consists of some veggies such as slices of cabbage, few stalks of bean sprouts
and cut tomatoes, some prawns, squids and smashed egg, a few pieces of fried bean curd, tofu
puff and cucur kelapa (deep fried
coconut fritters). It is garnished with
fried shallots, diced green onion, slices of green and red chilies and sprinkle sparingly with
grounded peanuts! The Mee Goreng texture is not as ‘dry’ as it should be but it
is acceptable to me. I am not a fan of the yellow noodle but I make an
exception with Mee Goreng Mamak. With the piping hot plate straight from the wok,
I squeezed a dash of lime juice, giving it sour-ish taste and devoured it like
a hungry wolf much to my companions’ amusement.
The Mee Goreng is a
respectable 6 on Acepaizah scale, friendliness an 8, value for money 6, table ware and cutlery 7, the ambience and atmosphere 5. It was very warm notwithstanding the supposedly air conditioned
were on, and with glass wall all round and Malaysia being in the Equator, it
was like we were being roasted in a slow cooker! Well that reminds me of an
ever green song, ‘Killing me softly with his song’, but that is a story for another
day.
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| Roti Telur, dhal gravy & mandatory Teh Tarik |
~fast food weekies~
~Acepaizah~
note: Roti Telur (Roti=literally means bread, here is dough & Telur=Egg) is a variation of Roti Canai.
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