Monday, October 22, 2012

Penang delights: Kueh Kak

The Anson Road market in Penang is one of the old favourites of my family. We used to live just about 1km away, and my mother would buy our daily groceries from there. There are a couple of iconic hawker food there. And Kueh Kak...today's feature is one of them.

I used to love the Char Kway Teow at the corner coffee shop...the uncle who fries the special dish uses a charcoal fire. Slow, super hot. Wonderful wok hei. The same coffee shop also has a wantan mee stall who have been run by the same fellow since I was in Kindergarten. And in the market proper, the Chee Cheong Chok...a congee dish with deep fried, crispy pig intestine dish is wonderful. But except for the wantan mee fellow (who sold out at about 9:30 when I arrived), sadly they are no more. CKT uncle passed away years ago, and CCC stall disappeared.

I was, however delighted to see that the Kueh Kak stall is still there. The uncle who does the frying...a talkative and jolly fellow who has been running the stall for the last 40 years, was game to dispense life advice as well as a mean kueh kak...a variant of our fried carrot cake.

The rice cake used as a base is somewhat smoother in texture and firmer than the ones used by Singapore's carrot cake. And the radish...the name carrot cake is a misnomer...for there is no carrot used in the ingredients, but rather preserved radish.

Deep smokey flavours, excellent wok hei. The egg was nicely fried and fragrant...and the radish is flavourful, permeating throughout the dish. The taugeh and koo chye providing counterpoint in the form of nice crunch. Very nice. Recommended.

Kueh Kak Stall
Anson Road Market
Penang

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