Episode 2: Joo Hooi Cafe (Penang)

So the day after I arrived in Penang, Brione takes me to George Town and promises a lunch that would set me right for my stay, an intro-to-Penang meal of sorts. She wants to take me to an old-school coffee shop, tattered and worn, with top-notch food made by sweaty, overworked hawkers. I am about to see something very Penang, I'm told.

We get off the bus at the hilarious monstrosity that is the KOMTAR office tower (as pictured on the t-shirt above) and she leads to me a few blocks away to Joo Hooi Cafe. The place is a dump, but a charming one in that way that old businesses can be when you can easily imagine them to be exactly the same five decades back. The real reason we're here: To knock off very credible versions of two Penang classics at one stop – assam laksa and char kway teow.



First, a quick primer:

Assam laksa: A noodle soup with a sour and spicy tamarind-laced fish soup with rice noodles and served with a bit of shredded lettuce and cucmber.

Char kway teow: Rice noodles fried along with chili sauce, garlic, shrimp, Chinese sausage and eggs.

I have to admit that the laksa, at first taste, is a full assault on the taste buds and a totally confusing one, at first. My year in France prior to arriving here has tempered my tongue. The French are wonderful cooks, but they're not so much into huge flavours that overwhelm your tongue like a German blitzkrieg.
During my first two spoonfuls of laksa, I think I'm tasting several things that I have been hardwired by my classical French training that should not go together. First, it's incredibly fishy – the mackerel in the soup are flaked to thicken the stock, add texture and give a strong flavour. Secondly, it's quite spicy - there's an ample amount of chillies. Thirdly, there are overt sweet flavours (pineapple) alonside strong sour ones (tamarind). And to addto the fishy/seafood-y flavours, there's a dollop of shrimp paste added in, as well as a side dipping sauce of belancan-laced chilli dipping sauce. At first, while dissecting the dish, I thought I was getting the compost pile of the jungle thrown mixed with a ladle full of seawater from the bottom of the harbour.

Of course, it's much better than that. After saying goodbye to my French-trained papillae – I'm in Asia, goddamnit - I start to understand. This stuff is absolutely brilliant. Fishy isn't seen as a bad thing in Malaysia, and they have no qualms to push the strong flavours of oily fish over the top. (Given that I'm a fan of bottomfeeders like mackerel and sardines, I'm cool with that.) The sourness of the soup balances out the fish flavour, while the heat from the chillis is countered by the sweet notes of the pineapple. The flavours are so bold and complex make this dish super-addictive – the more I ate, the more I wanted it.

The char kway teow? The video says it all. It had plenty of that "wok hay" - nearly-burnt flavour from a superhot wok that makes Chinese food taste so, well, Chinese.

I've since tasted a few other versions of laksa and char kway teow and I can attest that Joo Hooi is definitely among the best in Penang based on my (relatively limited) experience.

I'm welcome to suggestions from those of you with other suggestions about where is best to taste these treats.