By Robyn Eckhardt

The other day a Malaysian asked me if I thought his countrymen (and women) take their food culture for granted. My reply? On the one hand, not at all. I mean, have you ever heard a Malaysian rag on the paucity of our neighbour down south’s food scene? It can get pretty brutal. Yes, Malaysians as a whole are proud as all get out of the edibles their country has to offer.

On the other hand there exists among many a certain fascination with the spanking new, the clean and the shiny, the improvised and improved that can lead one to forget or overlook all that’s made this country the best place to eat in Southeast Asia. Call it the side effect of an embarrassment of riches. If you own six posh residences what’s the difference if one burns to the ground? If your driveway’s filled with a lineup of Mercedes, Porsches, Beemers, and Range Rovers, why get worked up over a crack-up? And when, at any given lunchtime, you’re within a 30-minute driving radius of ten good versions of wonton mee, seven vendors of nasi lemak, and nine dudes flipping a rad roti and serving it with a slurpworthy curry, what’s to worry if one or the other eventually goes missing?

Besides, logic tells us that every profitable food business owner wants to pass it all on to the kids. When dad the curry laksa vendor retires the generation will keep it all going, right? Well, not necessarily. Not if that profitable business eats up 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week. Manning a hawker stall or running a sit-down restaurant is viciously hard work. So, for every 80-year-old kopitiam on its dependable, wild-for-the-business third generation (think Yut Kee) there are many others that will one day, for lack of committed heirs, be closing their doors for good. It’s safe to say that over the next 20 years or so the Klang Valley will lose many of its primo food sellers. Perhaps it’s time to revisit those unflashy, reliable old stand-bys you, we, I – all of us – often take for granted. We may not think of them often, but we’ll miss them when they’re gone. Eat here now, before it’s too late:

‘It’s long hours, and I start very early everyday, but what can I do? I have to work for my girls,’ says Hong Ngek proprietor Liew Hing Ling, explaining her presence behind the counter at this stalwart of KL’s Hokkien food scene. Liew’s late father-in-law opened the restaurant in the 1940s; now she runs it with the assistance of a coterie of able helpers. When asked if she’ll pass the business on to her young daughters she shakes her head. ‘This work is too hard. I don’t want that for them.’ Hong Ngek’s air-conditioned upstairs and open-to-the-street downstairs dining rooms are packed at weekday lunch hours with office workers, many of whom Liew greets like old friends as she points them to a table. ‘Noodles or rice?’ you’ll be asked as soon as you sit. If it’s the former then zero in on the excellent mee sua and expertly fried beehoon. Those aiming to really tuck in will want plenty of rice to go with Guiness pork ribs (succulent knobs of meat in a complex russet sauce), the pleasantly tart, thickly battered sweet and sour fish, and the veggie special, a lotus leaf ‘bowl’ stuffed with strips of chewy fucuk, gluten, lotus seeds, baby corn, and three types of meaty mushrooms, all bathed in a rich sauce. End with Hong Ngek’s famous crab balls, juicy five spice-scented orbs of chopped meat, fish, and water chestnuts wrapped in bean curd skin and deep-fried to a crackly crunch. Eat here just once and Liew will remember your face, even if your next visit is more than two years later. Service like that is a rare thing indeed.

Sited a few blocks over in a high-profile colonial-era building with bright yellow shutters, Sin Seng Nam has been dishing up old-time favourites for over 80 years. The high-ceilinged, shotgun-narrow shop has terrible acoustics (tiled floors and walls guarantee every a high decibel level) but boasts sweet nostalgic touches, from a framed picture of the Fab Four on the wall to the old-timers seated around the room taking their grilled bread and kopi with a dose of the daily news. The Hainan chicken (flavourful bird accompanied by sublimely chicken fat-flavoured, not-at-all gloppy rice) is so popular it’s usually sold out by noon, but it’s Sin Seng Nam’s chicken chop that steals the show, with its gorgeous bronzed and crispy skin and incredibly moist, tender flesh. It’s so good we can even forgive the cold canned baked beans and so-so frozen crinkle-cut fries alongside. Sin Seng Nam’s owners and staff are getting up there; when they’re asked if there’s a next generation lined up to take over the reins when the time comes the reply is ‘Maybe.’

Fong Swee Kin is a Chinatown fixture, slicing and saucing slippery chee cheong fun at a feverish pace under a single bulb at her stall in the heart of KL’s Chinatown. The business, which she inherited from her mother and father-in-law, has been around for decades; the small space that she shares with an equally well-known porridge seller still retains its original wood stove and blue mosaic tile floor. Seated at one of her six indoor tables, tucking into a plate of Fong’s smooth-as-glass rice noodles doused with sweet bean and chilli sauces and showered with sesame seeds, one can only pity the hordes of tourists outside obliviously bypassing one of the areas best eats. Every day 600 noodle sheets, once upon a time handmade by Fong’s mother-in-law but now produced in a rented factory space (not to worry, they’re still top-notch) are sold here, but maybe not for too much longer. ‘My five kids are all in university,’ the vendor relates, ‘and they won’t continue the business.’ But if you really, really love her chee cheong fun, the proud and personable Fong has an offer: ‘Anyone who wants to learn how to make my chee cheong fun, we’ll show them.’ A hawker offering to share her trade secrets – is this for real? ‘Yes, really,’ she insists. ‘I mean it.’

It’s all in the flick of the wrist, or so it would seem at PJ New Town’s Restoran Hock Lim, where wonton mee vendor Song Kee tosses his noodles high into the air not once, not twice, but three times after pulling them from boiling water. Then, sauced with dark soy and plenty of lard oil, the golden strands are topped with char siew (or char yoke, if you wish) and served with big, meaty wonton floating in a broth that speaks of pork rather than MSG. ‘This is one of the best wonton mee in town!’ says a stranger waiting for an order to go and, indeed, the noodles attain that perfect textural balance of chewy and elastic and the barbecued meat, while on the lean side, sports lots of savoury sweet black charred bits. Song’s only been at this game for 15 or so years, but he and the two stern-faced but ultimately smiley women (one his wife, the other his sister-in-law) who help him run the stall certainly have their fair share of fans; when other businesses in the coffee shop are quiet this one just keeps humming. But it won’t go on forever. ‘Have you all got children, and will they step in to take over at the boiler one day?’ we ask. ‘Got,’ one of the aunties replies. ‘No, don’t want,’ she elaborates. While Song’s no doddering grandpa and PJ New Town’s in no danger of losing its best wonton mee seller in the nearish future, you’d still be best off heading over for a taste sooner rather than later.

Six days a week at exactly three o’clock a short, slight man known as Ah Mun pops open an umbrella and begins setting up his kuih stall in front of Bangsar’s Nam Chuan coffee shop. Half an hour later he’s encircled by customers, many of whom have been buying his masterpieces for all of the more than 20 years he’s been in business. The man moves fast to fill orders so there’s no time for chitchat, but a query as to whether or not he’s training an heir elicits a ‘No.’ There are many reasons to love Ah Mun. His onde-onde, for instance, are truly pandan-flavoured, easily the best in KL; his kuih talam are smooth-textured and wobbly; and he tops his yam cake with exceptionally tasty preserved vegetable. But the thing that makes us absolutely adore this man is that he won’t abide line cutters. Upon arrival put yourself in his line of vision and then stand back; he’ll wait on you in turn, no matter how many pointy-elbowed tai-tais try to jump the queue.

TTDI must have been a much quieter place when Jayang Super Cendol set up shop 23 years ago. ‘It’s just like rojak, but we Northerners call it ‘pasembur’,’ explains stall owner and Perlis native Allauddin, as he tosses freshly grated turnip and cucumber shreds with tofu and fritters in a slightly spicy, un-stodgy sauce bursting with the flavour of roasted peanuts. The cendol’s tasty too. Allauddin, his wife, his display case, and his ice grater have occupied the same corner all these years. As he throws orders together she beckons to passers-by (‘Rojak? Cendol?’), but there’s really no need; everyone in the ‘hood already knows the couple. ‘Got two kids. The boy’s a driver, the girl works in a factory,’ he smilingly tells us. We know what that means: get Allauddin’s pasembur and cendol while you can.

Hong Ngek, 50 Jalan Tun H.S. Lee. Closed Sunday.
Sin Seng Nam, 8-10 Jalan Medan Pasar. Closed Sunday.
Chee Cheong Fun stall, Jalan Petaling (corner opposite Hong Leong Bank). 7am-4pm.
Song Kee Wonton Mee stall, Restoran Hock Lim, Jalan 52/18, PJ New Town.
Ah Mun kuih seller, Lorong Ara Kiri 2 outside Kedai Makanan Nam Chuan, 3.30-7pm (weekends often sold out by 5pm).
Jayang Super Cendol, Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad (corner Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad 2), TTDI. 3-7pm. Off Sunday.