Char kway teow

Char Kway Teow is one of the quickest and seemingly simplest dishes obtained from the hawker markets in the streets of Malaysia, translated  it means fried flat rice noodles.

The Penang Food Trail, a very handy brochure for eating in Penang, says the, "perfect Fried Koay Teow should neither be not to wet or too dry". Yet for me it is not the noodles that are the highlight of this dish for the noodles are like the canvas where one creates the artwork and this dish is 'built' like a good piece of art, each colour (insert flavour as well) layered on the previous one to create depth and character. What I think makes this deceptively simple dish so fantastic are its contrasts, the soft malleable rice noodles and crispy beanshoots; sweet prawns, salty soy and sharp chilli. And then there's all the little treats one finds like the pieces of fried egg, cockles & Chinese sausage (lupchong) or batons of lard adding complexity. And what I love most about a 'good one' is the smokiness achieved by tossing in a scorching hot wok. 

For those of us that didn't grow up with this wonderful dish in our culinary repertoire of 'comforts', Wikipedia nicely details the history of the variants in these ingredients, such as the inclusion of cockles in seaside area's or the omitting of lard for 'health' reasons,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_kway_teow . Oh boy just thinking about it has me yearning for a plate.

chillipadi mamk kopitiam's Char Kway Teow

So what does one do upon arriving back home with a hankering for Malaysian style Char Kway Teow? Go looking for the closest version one can find in Melbourne of course! So normally I would head somewhere close by  for a 'quicky' like Straits Cafe or Rasa Malaya, both in Doncaster. But knowing it can be worth trying something new a little search suggested that chillipadi mamak kopitiam might be the go. They claim to prepare 'authentic' Malaysia cuisine and indeed I found their rendition of Char Kway Teow to be smoky and flavoursome with noodles which were neither 'too wet nor too dry', plenty of little morsels, crispy bean shoots and juicy sweet prawns! Not bad at all. There were a few other 'classics' that I look forward to trying next time: Laksa, Nasi Lemak.........

chillipadi mamak kopitiam
295 Racecourse Road Kensington