By Sarawakian
Perhaps age has been catching up as of late. I have been feeling rather tired and restless all the time. It is an unfamiliar feeling. Perhaps this has got something to do with the seemingly hard to predict weather. This has hindered my efforts to take a leisurely walk down to my kopitiam.
Speaking of which, many stalls are now being staffed by foreigners, and it is hard to find your chicken rice, wantan mee or char kway teow being prepared by locals. If one can remember the 90s, stalls then were 100% run by Malaysians. Today, even nasi lemak is prepared by foreigners.
I am not xenophobic nor am I against the idea of foreigners trying to do business legally, but I do worry for the street food heritage of Malaysia. Many youngsters I understand from the elder folks who owned or staffed the stalls before have said that their children were disinterested. Those youngsters who wish to still endeavor themselves in the food and beverage business would now want to create a modern interpretation.
A good dish is not determined by the excessive use of condiments or elaborate plating, but by the careful selection and combination of each ingredient. My anxiety grows each time I head to my kopitiam and discover that the owner would be calling it quits soon. I have experienced this so many times. Even today, a good plate of char kway teow is hard to find. It is even harder to find a Malaysian cooking. The chicken rice stalls have nearly all been staffed by foreigners as with the chap fan places. It feels like we are now buying street food in a foreign land.
If you walk around Taipan and SS14 and SS15, you could find nearly most of the eateries having foreign cooks. Has this really changed the taste or the authenticity of the dishes? To be honest, not to the extent you cannot identify with them anymore. Luckily, the foreigners learnt well and still kept to the similar style and taste profile. This is something which they have done well.
Soon, they would one day return home with such culinary knowledge and open Malaysian styled eateries in their own villages and country. This would help Malaysian food have a further reach.
The anxiety I have is that once Malaysians leave this cooking to foreigners, and once they have headed home, what would happen? The real taste may disappear from our kopitiams and our streets. Could you imagine that one day we would have to travel overseas to find our lost tastes? Maybe I am just being dramatic, but it is still my anxiety.
I was at the usual kopitiam recently after doing my banking errands and had an enjoyable time talking to some like minded friends. The biggest change we have noticed is with the drinks. The Kopi and Teh have all become rather diluted and without any aroma. We all thought that our sense of smell had started to deteriorate but we were sure our tastebuds were still sharp.
The drinks in many kopitiams nowadays do not seem to have the kick of old. The tea is rather bland and weak. The same is true for coffee. The bitter and bold taste have long disappeared. We thought that perhaps there was something wrong with how they made coffee or tea nowadays. We were mostly right. Often, the kopitiam would make highly concentrated coffee or tea early in the day and keep the liquid. They would then mix with hot water and add milk or creamer, depending on the drink you ordered.
That explained as to why we cannot nowadays smell the coffee being made fresh with the “socks”. We could hardly see in Subang Jaya anymore. Even if they do, they must not have understood the type of ground coffee or tea leaves required and the water temperature. Let us hope the food will not one day follow the same trend as the drinks.
Another thing we noticed is that prices for a small portion of your favorite noodles in the kopitiam have now gone up. Most hover around the RM9 range per portion. It is harder now to have a decent bowl or plate with your kopi or teh within the RM10 range anymore. Prices have gone up after Chinese New Year. Even the prices for raw materials have gone up.
Prices for food in shopping centres are even worse. You would see that most items on the menu for say curry noodles would start from RM15 for a small portion. Even kopitiam coffee starts no lower than RM4 a small cup.
It is my anxiety. I feel that we are slowly losing our ability to cook typical hawker dishes when the masters have called it quits. We can only try to do similar dishes at home. It would be hard to get a wok hei with an induction cooker. You cannot have fried rice or fried noodles with wok hei on an induction stove. Have you tried the famous fried rice of Uncle Soon and Uncle Roger? One has a street price and one has a shopping centre price. Taste wise? I know which I prefer.
Even kopitiams nowadays have stopped serving roti and butter with the soft-boiled eggs. They claim few are ordering them. Strangely, they were right as we could see few ordering them in a kopitiam as they would prefer noodles, rice or pau. But when you are in a shopping centre, people would pay exorbitantly for them. Yes, I am talking about roti butter and kaya with soft boiled eggs. Many seem to gravitate to the glitzy marketing instead of the real taste of food and drinks.
I was in Singapore recently on a visit as well as to Penang. Both seem to have a strong hawker scene. Interestingly based on my observation, all are staffed by locals. Many prefer to patronise hawkers for fair value hawker fare regardless of the price. It seems to have a nostalgic effect. Otherwise, why would food shows be so popular?
Personally, I am not a fan of fancy kopitiams in shopping centres or Michelin starred establishments. These are just story tellers to make you believe the price is justified regardless of the taste.
I am looking forward to the Bazaar Ramdhan to see if I could get my favorite local delicacies. It is my anxiety now that I cannot find them. Let us keep our hopes up.
To all my Muslim friends, Selamat Bulan Berpuasa!
