Wan Tan Mee

雲吞麵. Wan tan noodles. It is one of the most common hawker food in Malaysia. It is also the fastest food to get when you only have 40 minutes of lunch time - this being said, Ping was thinking about all the after school lunch with mum and dad while they were both working at the Sunway HQ building, close to school and home. They will pick us up from school and we'll head over to a kopitiam near our house (shoot! Can't remember what is that area called!! Taman something...ish!). They have one of the best wan tan mee ever!! Ping had it twice this last trip back to M'sia!!!
It is basically egg noodles (but when you buy it here, they specifically label it 'Wan Tan Noodles' because they also have a different kind of noodles that they call 'egg noodles', which is the one that they use for yee fu mee back in M'sia). The typical one is thin like in the photo above (which is the one that Ping made) but there is also a different type, called 'chor mee', which is made of the same ingredient but is much thicker. Ping likes the 'chor mee' better because it is more tangy. The noodles takes only a minute or less to cook, by simply blanching it in boiling water. Blanching too long will make the noodle soft and 'liam peh peh', making one of the most common reason wan tan mee doesn't taste good at all. The photo below is the one that has 'chor mee'. This wantan mee is the one at some corner kopitiam at downtown Penang (daddy, remember which one? It was on the day when just the three of us went downtown to kia kia while you brought Kancil's backside to be repaired at the shop next to St. Xavier's. It think the shop sells only Wan Tan mee and gu bak mee suah). Haha, the typical wan tan mee you get at the stalls has basically nothing excpet a few pieces of char siew and chai...wonder how much would Ping's wan tan mee cost in M'sia today. Hehe...
As the name defines, the main 'liao' (err...stuff besides the noodle) is the wan tan. However, the wan tan is the one thing Ping usually don't eat just because there are more flour (the wan tan skin) than meat. Ping did make wan tan this time but Ping didn't like it at all because the wan tan skin is sooo thick...definitely not getting that brand again! Now Ping have to figure what other things Ping can do with the remaining 80 pieces of wan tan skin!! Thanks to Jo for bringing some home!!! (Oh yeah, Ping had Jo and Ming over since the rest of our regular M'sian gang are either in M'sia or other parts of US). But looking at the photo above, it seems like Ping must have missed a 'procedure' while cooking the wan tan because Ping's wan tan looks white...rather than yellowish. Maybe there is different kind of skin.

Besides wan tan, the other common ingredients are char siew (叉燒, BBQ pork, but there is a special char siew sauce, not just the American BBQ sauce) and chai sim (菜心, err....heart vege?...haha..some kind of vege lah). Ping was lucky enough to get chai sim at O-Mart today, as it is not always available - definitely not from Meijer!.

Those are the basics of wan tan mee but there are some places that also have other 'liao' that you can add, like mo gu kae kah (還是不要翻譯這, 怕會嚇倒些朋友), minced pork (肉絲) or curry chicken. Ping's favorite is the minced pork. The best one Ping tried is the one at SS14, there's a corner kopitiam that sells wan tan mee with char siew or rou si only. Used to go there after college when Ping only has morning class...haven't gone back since college days. So Ping also made some minced pork with mo gu and pickled vege (this is not kiam chai right??? there is another name for it! Arggh!! Time to go to bed...).

For those of us who are from Penang, you all probably still remember 'Tok Tok Mee' right? Stalls that still call it Tok Tok mee is definitely getting less...Ping haven't seen it in a while. Why Tok Tok? A long time ago (man...Ping feels old!!), there are hawkers who cycle their stalls around to sell wan tan mee and they attract attention by knocking on something with something (haha..can't remember how) that makes the noise 'tok tok', hence it was known as 'tok tok mee'. Guess only those who sell tok tok mee makes that noise, otherwise, people would be confuse on what the guy is selling right? Hmm...okay, definitely time to go to bed.