Here In My Home - Malaysian Artistes For Unity

Monday 7 April 2008

A Taste Of Authentic Mee Kolok in KL

Well I had previously featured Apai's Roasted Chicken Rice in Desa Tasik previously. Well on Sunday Night I made a return visit with my family to their stall and was pleasantly surprised to see that they have expanded their menu to include original Sarawak Mee Kolok, the same as the one you will get at Kuching's Satok night glutton centre. Well this should not be a surprise as Apai's wife is from Kuching, and in one of the recent visits my wife actually asked her why she did not offer mee kolok at their place. I guess they had received many such feedback and thus since last week had started offering this dish. Since it was a slow period as it was Akademi Fantasia night, I managed to talked a bit longer with Apai himself and found out that he is an ex-cop previously based in East Malaysia for 15 years and before retirement spent his last 10 years in Kota Tinggi. All the while he had opened up a food stall and since retiring to KL, he took over a friends fruits stall and converted it to this food stall at the beginning of 2007 and from selling his roasted chicken rice had slowly expanded his stall and his menu to include the northern style roast beef rice, tripe soup and now mee kolok. And the best thing was I just found out that he is best mates with my regular fasting month bazaar sarawak style roast chicken and mee kolok food vendor, and they are both actually from my home state of Perak but since they were posted a long time to Sarawak, married Sarawakian wives and now able to offer authentic Sarawakian food to the local community. (His mate's wife is selling their offerings at Brickfields Police Station canteen that is open to the public if you want to try them out during non fasting month). Apai told me that he is grateful that the local populace has easily accepted such fare allowing him to expand his business without depending on those who are Sarawak natives or those who has acquired the taste from travels to Sarawak, and I responded by saying that Sarawak food has a taste that is easy on local palates, so I am not surprised with its acceptance. The only problem is like the food stalls lining the road in the area, they are all squatters and Apai dreads the day that he will finally be evicted. So do not wait too long to try his food. Anyway about the mee kolok itself I believe it was surely good and authentic, as my elder daughter polished it off in record time so there was no chance for pictures. And she is so particular about the taste as she had tasted the authentic mee koloq in Kuching itself, rejecting any that does not meet her standards. Well too bad I only managed to taste a bit of the great tasting leftover soup as I had a hankering for the beef rice that night, but I will surely order their mee koloq the next time we are there and take some pictures to be posted here or in a new posting. Oh yeah here you can have mee koloq in both dry and soupy versions unlike when I tapau during fasting season, and in al dente and ala minute fashion that really enhances the experience, something that you cannot have when you take away.

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