With the Dumpling Festival around the corner,I get sudden hankerings to enjoy these remarkable offerings.
Although I do have my favourite places,most of the bak chang sold in Penang itself are pretty acceptable except for this place in my opinion.
But if you ask most Penangites they will proudly herd you here,in a split second and force this down your throat like most well meaning Malaysian hosts.
Have tried the bak chang at many places before but I always avoid this van converted into a mobile foodstall.
Unless that is,that dear aunt of mine decides to bring their darned $6 dumpling(she loves me so much she has to get me the biggest size!) as a gift when she comes a house visiting.
Not wanting to dissapoint her I disappear into the kitchen to hide my heaving shoulders as I unwrap the most clumsily wrapped dumpling on the face of earth.
Just why is this is the most famous bak chang stall in Penang?
I'll tell you their 2 secrets.
1.Sugar (so much it defies logic,therefore I think they must have added Equal sweetener as well)
2.Extremely generous amounts of fresh stewed pork,chestnuts,salted egg.
Their owners discovered this secret a long long time ago.
Add a ton of sugar into the glutinous rice,mask it with a tinge of salt,good quality pepper and 99% of Penangites are sold.
Yea it's that easy to sell us winning foods here.
Quite the opposite of the government's "Kurangkan Gula" campaign.
Do that here and you loose your customers.
Seriously.
Which is why when Penangites go anywhere throughout the whole of Malaysia they bitch about the food in other states.
In order to momentarily solve your problem whether you are in KL or JB just carry a canister of syrup(preferably made from rock sugar) with you.
Add two tablespoons to your single plate of hokkein mee,curry mee and mix,mix,mix while it's hot.Mask it with deep fried onions(this is only for hokkein mee) and a little sweet soya sauce.Walla...you get a whiff of home.For fish curry just buy from the mamak stall,add mint leaves and one tablespoon of your home made rock sugar syrup concoction.When it comes to CKT (stress that you want it kurang,kurang,kurang eu/minyak)sprinkle the syrup via a shaker,mix while still steaming hot.
What we don't see,we don't care to know.
Who cares how much sugar the hawkers put into our foods as long as we didn't see with our own eyes?
Not me.Cos I do care since a dental appointment is astronomically challenging,billwise.
As I was saying earlier,the dumplings here are very clumsily wrapped.
There is an art to dumpling wrapping but the heir apparent who has taken over his Ah Sook's glorious money making empire,either doesn't care or has employed a fed up,overtaxed,abused and tired robotic Bangla to do the job like a one or two man factory hand.
That this stall makes so much moolah ($$$$money) it enables their entire clan to indulge in a couple of weeks long holiday overseas every year is beside the point.
We made them this rich just based on them exploiting our insane sugar craving.
Why on earth do we Penangites consume so much sugar in our foods and (not to mention deep fried pork lard/santan)in our diet yet think that,that, is what makes a good dish without recognising the unhealthy amount present in our diet?
Then in the next breathe walk the entire length of Gurney Drive (4 laps is a minimum,nuts!)because of the guilt factor we harbour after eating all that no,no,bad foods until the day we end up there in our 60s after a stroke disables half of our face or using walking aids into restaurants to scare the shit out of the next generation of kids.
Before I end allow me to add that I absolutely hate the mushrooms encased inside this A1 bak chang cos it has somehow managed to absorb some really icky smells from the lard.Ugh!
But in order not to cause my dear aunt heartache,I swallow the damn slimy smelly thing.Someday I will have to own up to this and break her heart when I tell her the hard truth,but in the meantime this coward most times dumps 3 quarters of the uneaten chang at the back of the fridge(I assure her I will have it for dinner/supper later).Oh the lies one has to tell when offline.
Maybe after I loose all my teeth I will have this to mutter to myself
"Hauch gum ai ditchen hafch zer nerf do sell hersh hwen ai hadtch zher chans.Hauch gum?hauch gum?"
In short eating the bak chang here is like slowly taking in a mouthful of condensed milk to coat your gums,followed by massaging your teeth with a blackforest cake to create new cavities* and finally topping it with sticky caramel made from glutinous rice and soya sauce pork belly stew to drill the nail into the coffin.
Even the flouride in your toothpaste cannot save your soul after this experience.
* Americans and Aussies might love this
Although I do have my favourite places,most of the bak chang sold in Penang itself are pretty acceptable except for this place in my opinion.
But if you ask most Penangites they will proudly herd you here,in a split second and force this down your throat like most well meaning Malaysian hosts.
Have tried the bak chang at many places before but I always avoid this van converted into a mobile foodstall.
Unless that is,that dear aunt of mine decides to bring their darned $6 dumpling(she loves me so much she has to get me the biggest size!) as a gift when she comes a house visiting.
Not wanting to dissapoint her I disappear into the kitchen to hide my heaving shoulders as I unwrap the most clumsily wrapped dumpling on the face of earth.
Just why is this is the most famous bak chang stall in Penang?
I'll tell you their 2 secrets.
1.Sugar (so much it defies logic,therefore I think they must have added Equal sweetener as well)
2.Extremely generous amounts of fresh stewed pork,chestnuts,salted egg.
Their owners discovered this secret a long long time ago.
Add a ton of sugar into the glutinous rice,mask it with a tinge of salt,good quality pepper and 99% of Penangites are sold.
Yea it's that easy to sell us winning foods here.
Quite the opposite of the government's "Kurangkan Gula" campaign.
Do that here and you loose your customers.
Seriously.
Which is why when Penangites go anywhere throughout the whole of Malaysia they bitch about the food in other states.
In order to momentarily solve your problem whether you are in KL or JB just carry a canister of syrup(preferably made from rock sugar) with you.
Add two tablespoons to your single plate of hokkein mee,curry mee and mix,mix,mix while it's hot.Mask it with deep fried onions(this is only for hokkein mee) and a little sweet soya sauce.Walla...you get a whiff of home.For fish curry just buy from the mamak stall,add mint leaves and one tablespoon of your home made rock sugar syrup concoction.When it comes to CKT (stress that you want it kurang,kurang,kurang eu/minyak)sprinkle the syrup via a shaker,mix while still steaming hot.
What we don't see,we don't care to know.
Who cares how much sugar the hawkers put into our foods as long as we didn't see with our own eyes?
Not me.Cos I do care since a dental appointment is astronomically challenging,billwise.
As I was saying earlier,the dumplings here are very clumsily wrapped.
There is an art to dumpling wrapping but the heir apparent who has taken over his Ah Sook's glorious money making empire,either doesn't care or has employed a fed up,overtaxed,abused and tired robotic Bangla to do the job like a one or two man factory hand.
That this stall makes so much moolah ($$$$money) it enables their entire clan to indulge in a couple of weeks long holiday overseas every year is beside the point.
We made them this rich just based on them exploiting our insane sugar craving.
Why on earth do we Penangites consume so much sugar in our foods and (not to mention deep fried pork lard/santan)in our diet yet think that,that, is what makes a good dish without recognising the unhealthy amount present in our diet?
Then in the next breathe walk the entire length of Gurney Drive (4 laps is a minimum,nuts!)because of the guilt factor we harbour after eating all that no,no,bad foods until the day we end up there in our 60s after a stroke disables half of our face or using walking aids into restaurants to scare the shit out of the next generation of kids.
Before I end allow me to add that I absolutely hate the mushrooms encased inside this A1 bak chang cos it has somehow managed to absorb some really icky smells from the lard.Ugh!
But in order not to cause my dear aunt heartache,I swallow the damn slimy smelly thing.Someday I will have to own up to this and break her heart when I tell her the hard truth,but in the meantime this coward most times dumps 3 quarters of the uneaten chang at the back of the fridge(I assure her I will have it for dinner/supper later).Oh the lies one has to tell when offline.
Maybe after I loose all my teeth I will have this to mutter to myself
"Hauch gum ai ditchen hafch zer nerf do sell hersh hwen ai hadtch zher chans.Hauch gum?hauch gum?"
In short eating the bak chang here is like slowly taking in a mouthful of condensed milk to coat your gums,followed by massaging your teeth with a blackforest cake to create new cavities* and finally topping it with sticky caramel made from glutinous rice and soya sauce pork belly stew to drill the nail into the coffin.
Even the flouride in your toothpaste cannot save your soul after this experience.
* Americans and Aussies might love this
