The General Election

It is finally official. Parliament has been dissolved for the general election. In the weeks ahead, there will be intensive election campaigns, and candidates will be coming out in droves to persuade voters to cast their votes for their respective parties. They will be visiting housing estates, hospitals, kampongs, markets, pasar malams; they will be grinning from ear to ear, shaking hands and kissing babies. There will be free dinners where politicians will be sucking up to the people. Barisan component party members will be holding hands and hugging each other in a display of solidarity and camaraderie. Even before the announcement, the Barisan Nasional was already on a media blitz on the economic opportunities and the thousands of jobs that would be created from the launching of the various economic corridors stretching from the north of the peninsula to Sarawak. It has gone full swing handing out goodies in the form of allocations for development. Particularly evident were handouts to Chinese schools, Tamil schools and the poor. Even the Indian community has been assured that their temples would not be destroyed or relocated without first consulting the community. The police have uncharacteristically watched with a benign eye over the firing of deafening crackers by some die-hards this Chinese New Year. More goodies are expected in the coming weeks.

According to the Star survey, Malaysians will be concerned with bread and butter issues: rising food prices, possible petrol price hike, job security, unemployment, high crime rate, the more than two million immigrant workers, and restrictions on higher educational opportunities.

The ensuing weeks will make clearer the Barisan Nasional's manifesto. The rakyat will be watching how it is going to solve these challenging issues.

Shark's Head, anyone?

My friend, Larry recently made a telling comment, "You really know how to eat!". The remark caused me to sober up and evaluate what I have been posting for the past week. It has been nothing but food, food, food. It seems like Chinese New Year, which is celebrated over 15 days, is all about food. This collective food binge and drinking seem to be what many Chinese do, apart from the gambling that they indulge in during this period. Thank god, the government had banned firecrackers a few years back. Otherwise, many would have suffered from sleep deprivation over the incessant firing of loud crackers till the wee hours of the morning. Anyway, only a few days left of the Chinese New Year before we settled back to the routine of making a living.

Now back to food again. Sorry Larry, I have to post this. John, a great lover of food called up to say that there was a shark head available at Fong Wee restaurant; I am not particularly crazy about fish, but many would have jumped at the invitation; how often could one get to eat a shark's head? I don't really know what shark it is. It is definitely not the type that is permanently embedded in our psyche from watching 'Jaws'. Well, these food lovers just love the soft cartilage (or is it blubber?) beneath the shark's skin.

Well, the first course we had was wild foul soup, which was pretty good as it was cooked with Chinese herbs. Sorry, no picture of it, as I was late and they reserved a small bowl of soup for me.

The shark's head, steamed in light soya sauce with a sprinkling of fried shredded ginger and parsley. Ah Ping, with an eye for the best part of the shark, ferreted out the brain


The shark's head completely stripped, except for a bit of what seems to be blubber to me. For RM 120, I thought it was on the high side; but they thought otherwise


This is the smaller shark's head


Bok Seng, the owner of the restaurant cooked it for his family


We also had some eels Oni had brought to the restaurant. They were cut and fried


Close-up of a piece of eel meat; fried to crispiness, it's fabulous with chili in light soya sauce


Spinach fried with diced century egg; rather unusual, but very palatable


Wild boar meat fried with mint leaves, shredded ginger, curry powder and Thai chili


The usual sweet and sour pork


Thai ice-kacang


Oni's son and girlfriend enjoying a bowl of Thai ice-kacang

Some Chinese New Year Snacks

Chinese snacks have taken on a new complexion with the inclusion of the Indian favourite, the muruku, the Malay coconut-cream based 'kueh bangkit', the 'sambal udang' roll, green pea and anchovy crackers, and the butter-based cookies of the west. These are some of the usual snacks you would find in homes, apart from the usual preserved fruits, like plums and peaches.


Kueh bangkit


Preserved peaches


Puffed-rice biscuits


The chips are made from the tuber of a plant. The tuber is sliced thinly and deep-fried. The chips are slightly bitter to the taste. Peanut crackers, 'beehive' biscuits and seaweed snack



Seaweed snack and peanut crackers


Muruku, dried shrimp sambal rolls and cashew nuts


This stuff is really addictive


Barbecued sweetmeat. Sometimes eaten with sliced bread for breakfast. Shown here is minced meat. The sliced meat, more chewy, is much better


The 'nian gao' is a kind of sweet sticky cake that is offered to the kitchen god. It is said to glue the kitchen god's mouth to prevent him from giving unfavourable reports. It is cut into thin slices, dipped in a batter of eggs and flour and deep-fried.

Reunion Dinner

Reunion dinners have not been the same since dad passed on and mum has been afflicted by Alzheimer. Both were good cooks; dad once ran a food catering business for weddings and mum was known for her stewed duck soup and five-spice braised duck in black soya sauce. Now we have our reunion dinner at our aunt’s place.

Many Chinese have opted for the steamboat as the most convenient way for a reunion dinner. The dishes, prepared beforehand, are kept in the fridge and can be taken out at anytime.

White pomfrets and large prawns, traditionally the most popular items, will disappear from the market two months before the Chinese New Year to reappear close to the New Year and sold at two or three times their normal prices. Likewise, pig stomachs are another item in great demand, and since fresh pig stomachs are limited, they have been substituted with frozen ones from Holland or Australia. Pork sellers would buy the frozen ones, defrost them, spread fresh blood over them and pass them off as fresh, local pig stomachs which fetch a much higher price. Somehow, the dinner is incomplete without the sea cucumber. The dried sea cucumber is first soaked for days for it to expand and then boiled to clean and soften it. It has become more expensive to include in the menu. Likewise, the expensive canned abalone, the most sought after of which is Calmex, from San Diego, USA has been priced out of reach of many and left out of the menu of ordinary folks.

At my aunt's dinner, we had prawns and fish aplenty; her son. who is with a logging company in Sarawak, would bring home huge white pomfrets and other fish, prawns and lobsters packed in styrofoam containers. She would also make traditional dishes like pork rolls, egg rolls with meat fillings, stewed pork leg, and my favourite, prawn balls, which cannot be bought anywhere.

The common vegetable for the steamboat is the Chinese cabbage


Huge prawns from Sarawak


Peeled prawns


For me, one is enough


I don't know what this fish is



A large pomfret more than a foot long


Sliced pomfret to be cooked in the steamboat


A frozen lobster


A type of shell fish that has replaced the abalone that has become very expensive


On the right are prawn balls. These are springy and tasty. On the right are soaked slices of fried pork skin. They are packed and sold commercially and are popular during Chinese New Year


Cooked prawn balls and slices of pig stomach


An assortment of fish cakes, crab and fish balls. There are commercially available


Frozen egg rolls


Cut egg rolls


Cooked egg rolls. The filling is minced pork with a distinctive taste of ginger


This is the commercially available egg rolls


Homemade minced pork rolls. These are deep fried


Liver


Mushrooms
Sliced mushrooms and Inoki mushrooms


Homemade preserved vegetables


Homemade kim chee


Hainanese chicken


Fried mixed vegetables


Pork leg stewed in sweet sour black vinegar

Thai Cuisine

The restaurant is run by a son of a former High School Batu Pahat canteen operator who had since passed on. With his Thai wife and Thai relatives, Bok Seng dishes out Thai dishes, some of which are, by my rather rudimentary taste buds, exotic. Aside from the well-known tom yam seafood soup, other dishes lean towards the normal fare that a typical Thai family would eat.

The restaurant at Jalan Abu Bakar


Bok Seng's wife cooking up a bowl of tom yam beehoon (rice vermicelli) soup with seafood and slivers of pork.

She serves two other varieties of soup, one of which is a soup that consists of minced pork, chicken meat and chicken legs, pork ribs, coagulated pig's blood and chopped raw cabbage. It has a rather unusual taste to it and is popular with those more adventurous customers who relish the cubes of pig's blood. According to Bok Seng, this dish is from Chiengmai, where his wife comes from.

This is the tom yam beehoon soup with sliced squids, slivers of pork, a large prawn, fish and pork balls. Included are also abalone mushrooms. RM 4.50 a bowl. Taken steaming hot, the soup works wonders for my appetite.


Other dishes on offer titillate the taste buds in no small measure.


Snails in green curry


Deep-fried chicken wings coated in preserved red bean curd


Sweet sour lemon chicken


Sweet sour minced pork with raw sliced onions and fresh cabbage


Steamed tom yam ikan pari or stingray


A family eating at Fong Wee. The main course, the tom yam steamboat, comprises squids, prawns, fish, fish and pork balls, and abalone mushrooms


The other dishes include fried 'kai lan' or Chinese broccoli, fried squids, Thai style and omelette


The menu

The location