COCONUTS HOT SPOT — Over the past few years, Pan Mee has enjoyed increased popularity, with countless outlets sprouting all over the city. Basically, Pan Mee are noodles freshly made from wheat flour, rolled out into thin strands from a noodle maker.
Some old school pan mee sellers still dish out their pan mee the manual way, which is by pinching the wheat dough into smaller irregular flat pieces.
I like my pan mee, done the good old fashioned way, which is hand-made and hand pulled. Those flat pieces of “chinese pasta” are then cooked in a broth, simmered with anchovies and pork bones for hours to yield that particular level of sweetness.
Condiments are simple: just crunchy freshly fried anchovies (ikan bills), some minced meat, slivers of mushrooms and a bunch of sayur manis.
I have tried various places that serve “original” pan mee and one of the best Pan Mee I’ve had is at Uncle Chan’s stall in Fa Kee Kopitiam, Puchong. Uncle Chan’s Special Smooth Pan Mee is fabulously smooth and silky and still has this delightful slight chewiness in those broad strands.
The secret, as he discloses surreptitiously to me, lies in the skilful “pulling” of the dough before it’s cooked. You don’t see any kind of machinery at Uncle Chan’s stall. There’s just a big basin of water that’s turned quite cloudy from the soaking of the dough before it’s pulled into long wide strands.
The pulled strands of pan mee are then cooked in the tasty broth and served with minced pork cooked with thick slices of Chinese mushrooms and choi poh (pickled radish), crispy fried anchovies, crunchy beancurd skin with a side of fiery sambal belacan dip.
You can choose to have the soupy version (my all-time favourite) or the “dry kon lo” version where the pan mee is tossed with a tasty black sauce.
You can even choose to have either lettuce leaves or sayur manis in your bowl of pan mee, just let Uncle Chan know at point of ordering. Each bowl is RM5.50, fabulous value, if you ask me.
Special Smooth Pan Mee
Kedai Makanan Fa Kee
80 Jalan TK1/1
Taman Kinrara
47180 Kuala Lumpur
*Available from 8.00am till 2.00pm
Chris Wan also blogs at whttp://www.pureglutton.com.
