Linda Lee, 80, has not manned the frying station at her Kuching stall for more than a year, but the Penang-born hawker still sets the standard for its char kueh tiaw. Her Penang Special stall at Kwong Hup Cafe has served the fried flat noodles to local diners for nearly two decades, long enough to make the dish a standing order at the coffee shop, DayakDaily reported.
Lee, who has 30 years of cooking experience, said she wanted to offer something different when she first prepared the dish in Kuching. The version she found here was simpler, usually fried with meat, eggs and bean sprouts. She introduced prawns, clams and chives, together with dried chilli paste, to give the noodles a spicy kick, and she substitutes bamboo clam on days when clams are hard to come by.
“Customers liked the taste, and that encouraged me to continue,” she said.
She also adjusted the cooking to suit local palates. Penang diners generally take their char kueh tiaw slightly moist, while Kuching customers prefer a drier plate. “I give my customers what they want, but I still maintain the Penang flavour in my cooking,” she said.
The stall carries other Penang favourites as well, including char kuih kak, or fried rice cake, and char bihun, fried rice vermicelli. For Lee, the work goes beyond business. “People do not need to travel all the way to Penang to enjoy these dishes. They can have the taste of Penang right here in Kuching,” she said, describing the stall as a way to share Malaysia’s diverse culinary heritage with her community.
Hawker food has shaped daily eating in Kuching since the years after the Second World War, when vendors worked from bicycles and tricycles before the city’s coffee shops and food courts took hold. Char kueh tiaw was among the dishes sold at the Open Air Market stalls, and the arrival of the food court concept in the 1990s changed the trade again, Borneo Post recounted.
Lee moved to Kuching in 1992, when her late husband came to work in the city, and she stayed as her children grew up and married locals. With no formal training behind her, she mastered the craft through years of hands-on work at the stove. She stepped back from the frying station over a year ago.
Her legacy now runs through her assistant, 32-year-old Ah Huat, whom she trained for 12 years before handing him the responsibility of preparing the dishes her customers have come to love. “I know he is capable of maintaining the authentic Penang taste, and I am proud of him,” she said. Her son keeps the family tradition going in another way, preparing their secret soy sauce recipe.
For Lee, the reward sits in the regulars who come back for the food she has prepared for so long. The Penang Special stall operates daily from 6.30am to 2.30pm at Kwong Hup Cafe in Jalan Tun Zaidi Adruce.
