Oh, I just had a good meal. Went out to Taman Taynton View pasar malam [ night market ] and spent about 30-45 minutes there. Here’s the story :
I was searching for food, when the a certain stall caught my eye. It was just a table about 2 by 3 feet, with a light hanging over it. On it was just tupperware boxes with their covers just left on it [ not secure lah ... ]. I was wondering. How can astall only have so little things on the table, and what were they selling? I scooted over and over heard this lady ordering something. Then the lady manning the stall opened up this large container that sat on the floor and scouped up some whitish thick liquid. I thought,”Oh, it’s porridge. ” But how can a porridge stall survive in a pasar malam where there’s so much more food that taste better? “It must be good“, I thought. Decided to take the plunge as I’ve been eating from the same stall the previous two weeks in this particular pasar malam. So I ordered a large packet [ to tapau (take away) back home to savour in my comfy room [ oh, the irony ] ] and she said a whole string of words in cantonese in which I caught a large part of. “Kai see, phei tahn“, I replied her calmly, putting on a cool face implying that I understood her every word. Kai see is strips of boiled chicken meat, and phei tahn is century egg. Then I went over to a stall which sells fried stuff, such as fried chicken drumsticks, wings, fishballs [ fish have balls? ], sotong balls [ oh, squid has balls? ], sotongs , among others. Bought a piece of chicken wing and drumstick each to go with my porridge. Walked a bit further down and I thought that I wouldn’t be able to keep from being hungry later at night only on porridge and chicken. So I decided to look for something that I could bite on later in the night, as my food supply in the room has ran out. Don’t know where it escaped to, but all I know is that it ran out. [ *laughs to myself. I surprise myself with my own humour sometimes! ]
Anyhow, as I was walking, another stall caught my eye. The tables were laid, but it was empty except for a few metal trays with [ I would suspect ] confectionary. Funny thing is, there was a crowd around it, and all of them were waiting! Waiting for what? I drew closer and found this uncle and aunty [ late fifties and forties, respectively ] hurriedly slicing and packing up some stuff. The uncle was slicing a sponge cake and the aunty was packing some… puffs. Not too sure what kind,but puffs. *puffs
[ because of the nature of most Penangites and probably some REAL food lovers towards food, we tend to be drawn to stalls/food places that are crowded. It's one proof that it's established and that there's something that keep the crowd coming. ]
So, my tastebuds, trained and developed in Penang [ the land of THE food, not just food, but THE food ]… immediately smelled the quality of the food item through my eyes. Everybody, Waaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!
Had to wait a long time before my turn came to order and get my pandan sponge cake sliced. Noticed some banana cake in the tray which looked really good when sliced earlier for another customer. I’m a sell-out for good banana food items, especially banana cakes. Secret recipe’s chocolate banana is absolutely fantabulous. I also settle for ordinary banana cakes gladly. So all in all, I spent RM4.50 at the scarce cake shop which was so crowded and busy till they didn’t even have the time to set up their lights and generator to power their lights!
Finally, the real test came. Arrived home, and dug in. OOOH, boy was it messy, with the oil from the fried chicken, chilli sauce and porridge! But it was good. Really good. Porridge was nice. Chicken has been good for the past few weeks, and the sponge cake - What can I say. The wait was worth it! It didn’t taste dry, nor was it too hard. It was easy to swallow but not effortless to bite into. It’s just nice. Oh… ecstacy! Good meal.
Thus, to mark the ending of my food blog :
PS: Damn, that gif file took me at least half an hour to make. Just had the banana cake. OOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!!! SO SMOOTH! Whoa. No wonder the crowd was there waiting even before the shop could fully open!
I’ve gotta say it again!
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