Abu, Noodles and Permatang Pauh

The above caption is of KTN and Chung but affectionately called Abu by his friends in their Kelantan days. If you were to glance over to the sidebar there is an image of a print that Abu made at USM when he attended a printmaking seminar and workshop.

It was nice meeting up after so long but then again the meeting deserved a post of its own which KTN said that he would do in due time.

Do you know the only home-cooked food that KTN offered Abu during his stay here in Penang was his wife's special, he would like to call it such, gravied noodles with plenty of beef, prawns, potatoes, taukua and eggs.

Not much of a host that KTN fellow don't you think so? Well anyway, Abu is now back in Johor promising to be back in a year or two and may make Penang his next home, hopefully.

Anyway talking about noodles, just across the bridge in a place called Permatang Pauh where it was reported to be some kind of a war zone, friends have been calling me up to say that there is a new mobile noodle store serving an all new interesting noodle recipe.

KTN was salivating already when he heard about this new mobile stall because noodles is one of his favourite food. Back home it has always been either Hailam noodles, mamak noodles or his wife's special gravied noodles.

KTN headed across the bridge to catch this much hyped upon noodle stall, imagining a hot steamy plate of noodles full with dried sotong, chunks of beef, thumb-sized prawns and maybe pieces of chicken meat that would cover the whole plate.

Wait a minute, its a mobile stall so where is he going to find the stall? Being very familiar with Permatang Pauh, a constituency in which he was once a voter, KTN dialled a few numbers and was told that the stall would be operating in front of the UMNO building in Kubang Semang.

The suspense was killing him. He even told his wife that if the noodle was good enough, he would not be having any of her noodles anymore, at least until he gets fed-up of it, to which she gives a look that implied that he would be dissapointed because no one makes better noodles than her gravied noodles.

There was already a crowd of rowdy Mat Rempits at the stall. KTN is one guy who despises Mat Rempits, calling them the scums of society, but the lure of a new noodle recipe made him set aside his hatred for these hellish characters.

Now this KTN fellow is not one to dive into any food straightaway without first giving it a look over. It has to be well presented, has the right aroma and colour and most importantly has that x-factor which makes him fall in love with it at first sight.

This stall, crowded by the rowdies and the curious, just doesn't give a good first impression. It looked dirty, smells awful and is just totally repugnant.

He had a look at the sign of the stall, looked at the stall again and walked to his car to his waiting wife. He started the car and drove off. His wife knew that, KTN was disappointed. "Where to" she asked. "Cherok Tokun" he answered, rather dissapointed. "The crap-gravy noodle at the junction"? He just nodded his head.

They headed to Cherok Tokun and ate the famous crap-gravy noodles at the junction opposite the mosque and went home. "Why didn't you buy any noodles at Kubang Semang?" His wife asked. "One look at the seller, I lost my appetite. He is dirty, smelly and do you know what he called his stall?". She kept quite but knew he would tell her anyway. " SODO MEE"