Choice

Three years ago I posted Village memories 2 - fussy orders in my other blog Kongsamkok. Then I had written about chee cheong fun as follows (selected extracts):

Recently I was told this story by a sweetie who came back from Penang.

nostalgic scene of Penang trishaws, then king of the roads

She was at a chee cheong fun stall when she heard what she believed was the most fussy order she had ever come across. [...]

When serving, the chee cheong fun or rice noodle roll is usually unfurled (unrolled) before the hawker cuts the rice noodles into bite-able length ...

hawker unfurling the chee cheong fun prior to cutting it
photo 'borrowed' from Foodie galore, thanks to blogger Yi Lyn

... and then lavishes the pasta with sauce which in the Penang version must include hare-koe (prawn paste - nope, not belacan, though some hawkers include grilled and grounded belacan as part of the sauce but which doesn't substitute for and thus won't exclude the vital hare-koe).

my personal choice of prawn paste (hare-koe)
is Keat Hoe's 'shrimp & boy' brand

Sometimes some hawkers don't unfurled or unrolled the rice noodle rolls and would just chop up the rolls as they are.

I personally like the rolls unfurled because the sauce (the X-factor in the dish being hare-koe) would cover the rice noodles more evenly, giving a better and more consistent taste. But then, some argued the rice pasta left in their original rolled form provide better textured (springy or chewy) bite.

Penang chee cheong fun
served with noodle rolls as is (not unrolled) 

As I was told by an unbelieving sweetie - unbelieving at the extraordinary fussiness of the order she witnessed at a morning market food court wakakaka - a woman gave the hawker unique specifications on her 3 takeaway orders of chee cheong fun, as follows:

• one serve of noodle roll unrolled (the standard style)
• one serve of noodle roll as is (not unrolled), and get this last one
• one serve of noodle roll half unrolled and half as is, wakakaka.

served with noodle rolls unrolled (or unfurled)

How I wish I was there, wakakaka, just to interview or just chit-chat with the Penang Sally (as portrayed so cutely by Meg Ryan in 'When Harry met Sally') wakakaka so as to know the members of her family for whom those three serves were intended. My curiosity most certainly centres on who would have been the recipient of her last order, wakakaka.

Well I may just add on something I have just found out about chee cheong fun, wakakaka.

I was recently in Penang which naturally saw me re-sample many of its hawker food delights such as laksa (Penang original, not the KL bullsh*t), pasembur, char koay teow, bun cheang koay, rojak (original Penang version, not the mainland bullsh*t version which is essentially pasembur by another name), prawn mee (Penangites refer to as Hokkien mee which in KL is entirely different, being fried rather than the Penang soupy version), satay and nasi 7 benua, wakakaka, etc.

nasi 7 benua at Koo Boo Kafé 

its ayam kunyit goreng was not as good as kaytee's version, wakakaka,but its kari sotong was excellent 

halal Koo Boo Kafé in south Penang

run by Malay sweeties and patronised by all Malaysians 

Naturally my re-sampling covered chee cheong fun as well.

I was a wee surprised by its mixture of sauce, which was a combination of hare-koe, chillie, tnee chneow (somewhat like hoisin sauce) etc, but which was placed by the side of the plate containing the chee cheong fun, as in following photo:

sauce by side of chee cheong fun 

and not as it used to be in my time in Penang when the hawker poured the sauce all over the rice noodles, as follows:

sauce all over chee cheong fun 

When I questioned my host, sweetie told me it's about giving the customers a degree of 'choice', allowing them to apply as much or as little of said sauce on their chee cheong fun.

Hah, so 'choice' has finally visited even the consumption of chee cheong fun, wakakaka.

Well, you'll have 'choice' again in your voting soon. Remember voting your preferred candidate is a legal secret, and anyone who forces you to reveal your 'choice' is liable to criminal proceedings.

Good luck and may you make a good 'choice'.

Wakakaka.

a non-political version of this post will appear in my other blog Kongsamkok under the title 'Choice comes to Chee Cheong Fun', wakakaka