Choon Prawn Mee House

Peter Kang used to have a prawn mee stall at the O&S coffee shop in PJ Paramount Garden. Not too long ago, he moved out to open his own makan place specialising in, what else but Hokkein prawn mee. 

He calls his shop Choon Prawn Mee House. Choon apparently is his nickname. Or perhaps even his actual Chinese name. I know him only as Peter. Anyway, his shop is only several doors away from the O&S coffee shop, along Jalan 20/14.

I asked him how his business was. "OK lah," he said in his modest genial manner, "can cari makan (can make a living)."

Judging by the crowd in his place that weekend morning, I think he did better than just "cari makan". He had several foreign workers and all of them were working hard to cope with an constant flow of customers.

His shop was basic but comfortable. It was even air conditioned. He brought along his old stall from from O&S coffee shop. Ever wondered why all prawn mee stalls have this unique design - with a glass window?

He had a proper menu. His main offer was of course prawn mee, with various extras - pork ribs, pork tail, pork intestines and so on. Beside that, he also offered other coffee-shop food like chee cheong fun, koay teow soup, nasi lemak, to name a few.

And the whole range of hot and cold beverages. We opted for the normal tea with milk. They came in mugs, which was nice and sufficient.

I ordered a bowl of prawn mee with pork tail and intestine. Peter Kang certainly had not lost his touch. As far as I could remember, it tasted exactly the same as it was in O&S. There were nice pieces of pork tails. The intestine tasted particularly good. The soup was rich and tasty but rather oily. The generous sprinkling of fried shallot and the small dish of chilli added extra oomph to the total flavour. This bowl reinforced my verdict that Peter serves the best prawn mee in Petaling Jaya.

My wife had this bowl of koay teow soup. In it were fish balls, fish cake, pork slices and ample chu yaw char (猪油渣). I had a taste of the soup. Not bad at all. There was definitely adequate flavour in the clear soup.

My wife likes Penang chee cheong fun (猪肠粉). So we ordered a plate. Again, it was good. The prawn paste sauce was thick and flavourful. A dash of chilli paste added to the flavour. The ample fried shallots and sesame seeds made the dish very appetising.

We only managed to taste 3 dishes in Peter Kang's new makan shop. And we liked them all. I wish him luck in his new business venture. I hope he will be around for a long long time; so that whenever I have an itch for Penang prawn mee with some juicy pork tail and intestine, he would be there to serve me.

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!

Super Hokkien Mee

Penang Hokkein prawn mee is absolutely unique to Malaysia. You don't find it in any other country - not even Singapore. Indeed we can proudly claim undisputedly that this wonderful soup noodle is Malaysian true and true. The noodle is known by various names - Hokkein mee, prawn mee and mee yoke. I have tasted quite a few good prawn mees in KL and PJ. However, I believe Hokkein prawn mee originated from Penang and to get the real thing, I needed to go north.

On a recent visit to the island, my brother-in-law SL suggested a Hokkein prawn stall which he said was very good and famous. But he cautioned that we would have to be there very early as they sell out very quickly, and that we have to be willing to wait. For the sake of a good bowl of prawn mee, we left SL's place just after 7.30am one morning and drove about half an hour to Burmah Road. The place we ended in was the One Corner Cafe (和喜茶室), directly behind the Royal Hotel (formerly the Sheraton). It is a coffee shop cum mini hawker centre with stalls selling the various Penang food.

 

The Super Hokkein Mee (雲来福 建麵) is one of many stalls in this place. Soon as we arrived, we quickly headed for the stall. A lady with a clipboard took our orders. But before that, she tersely told us "45 minutes" - the time we needed to wait. We had pulled ourselves up before 7am that morning and drove all the way here. What was another 45 minutes? We resignedly ordered our coffee and sat down to wait.

We were not the only people waiting. In that early hour, the place was already crowded. Many were sipping their beverages or reading their papers. Most were probably like us, crazily waiting for a bowl of Penang prawn noodles. While waiting, I could see more people making their orders. All of them were greeted with the brusque "45 minutes" from the unfriendly lady.

We did not have to wait the full 45 minutes. Our noodles arrived after about half an hour. The bowls of prawn mee looked no different from those we get in PJ and KL. Each came with a spoonful of chili sauce. I mixed the sauce into the soup and took a slurp of it. It was good. I liked the rich flavor of prawn. The accompanying ingredients were no different from any prawn mee stall. There were slices of boiled pork, boiled prawn and a generous sprinkling of fried shallots. Some stalls provide boiled egg, but there was no egg here. I also noted a conspicuous absence of kangkong.

SL approached the stall keeper and got a small plate of chu yaw char (猪油渣). It added more flavor to the noodles.

The essence of any prawn noodle is in the soup. And the soup I slurped was rich, aromatic, fully prawn-flavored and very delicious. The stall owner obviously put a lot of effort in it. I enjoyed the bowl of prawn noodle very much. I wished I had an egg. I personally like the yolk in the soup to make it even richer and tastier.

Was Super Hokkein Mee great? Was it the ultimate "holy grail" of all Penang prawn noodles? Unfortunately, I do not think it was. I think there is one stall in PJ that perhaps cooks a better bowl of Hokkein prawn mee. Perhaps I will blog about that one day. Would I drag myself up again before dawn and drive all the way for the same bowl of noodles? I think I would need greater incentive than that.