Peter Kang's Hokkein prawn mee

I don't often go to the O&S coffee shop in PJ Paramount Garden - not because the food there is lousy (on the contrary, there are some very good food stalls there), but because it is always so crowded and I often have to stand around waiting for a table. This popular coffee shop is located on Jalan 20/14 in PJ. It is a corner shop directly opposite a Caltex station. Parking can be a problem and people often resort to ridiculously parking on the middle of the road with no regard to traffic obstruction and inconvenience to others.

O&S is really a very good makan place. It is big and busy and has a good variety of food stalls. My favorites there include the fish ball noodle, chee cheong fun (猪肠粉), yong tau fu (釀豆腐), curry mee and the kueh nyonya.

I was there recently. It was to revisit a Hokkein prawn mee stall in this coffee shop which I think is very good. In light of my experience and what I had written about the Super Hokkein Mee in Penang, I wanted to see how they compare.

The stall is owned by a nice friendly fellow - Peter Kang. I have known him for quite sometime. He is from Penang and has had his prawn mee stall for many many years now. Each time he sees me in O&S, he would greet me regardless whether or not I patronize his stall. On this particular day when I proceeded to take his picture after ordering my noodles, he gave me an extra big smile.

His stall was rather messy - not dirty, just disorganized. He had things all over the stall, soup overflowing and dripping everywhere. Besides the normal Hokkein mee, he offered extras like pork intestines, pork trotter and pork tail.

I asked for a bowl of meehoon & mee, with pork tail. He picked up a tail from his tray and asked me if I wanted the big or small end of it. I opted for the later. My noodle arrived after several minutes. It wasn't cheap - RM7.50 with the tail. It was served with a small plate of chili sauce. I had a sip of the soup and did not deem it necessary to add in the chili sauce.

The bowl of Hokkein prawn mee looked and tasted very good. It had slices of boiled pork and whole prawns in it. There was also half an egg and a generous sprinkling of deep fried shallot. And there was kangkong. This bowl of prawn noodle was more complete than Super Hokkein Mee in Penang. The soup tasted very good. It was sweet, aromatic with the full flavor of prawn. It was sufficiently spicy - the reason I did away with the chili sauce. The pork tail was also very good. It was succulent and not over-cooked. The skin and the thin layer of fat below was springy and juicy. Overall, it was very delicious Hokkein prawn mee.

But I could not honestly tell which was better - Super or Peter Kang. I think it was a tough fight. They were on par. My wife had a taste of the soup and she too could not make a decision on the winner. But on other scores, I have to pick Peter Kang. His prawn mee was more complete - with egg and kangkong which Super did not include. He had options for extra (intestines, trotters and tails) which Super did not offer. And finally, he was a whole lot more friendly - without the terse "45 minutes" greeting and wait that we encountered with Super.

Ole to Peter!