FRIED koay teow with thick black sauce seems to be a thing of the past.
Many felt that the manner in which char koay teow is prepared in the Klang Valley belonged to the Penangites.
I grew up having char koay teow with black sauce, blasted with choy sum, taugeh and a kilogramme of half-cooked cockles.
Well, I am joking about the see-hum (cockles), but am serious about how char koay teow was prepared back in the 1970s.
One of the surviving char koay teow sellers I know is Uncle Soo, a friend of mine and also a relative of my childhood friend KF Chia, who is now residing in Melbourne, Australia.
Decent find: Jipun Char Koay Teow store in Jalan Beringin, Banting, Selangor.To be blunt, I literally grew up eating Uncle Soo’s char koay teow.
Now, fast-forward to the present, and a recent discovery in Banting, Selangor.
After wrapping up a 78km ride from Morib to Bagan Lalang on my folding bike with my wife Michelle and two other friends, Money Toh and Kamo, I decided to head towards Banting with hopes of finding a new makan place.
Toh and Kamo are Strida bicycle ambassadors for Malaysia.
They joined me to test their cool 16-inch ‘foldies’ (an endearing term for little bikes that can be packed and stored).
“Eh Samo, I just joined you for the makan only ah!” said Toh with a laugh.
With that as my cue, we drove from Morib to Banting and as we were reaching the town area, I told my wife that I had a hunch that some good makan places could be found behind the main road.
My instincts for food led me to Kedai Mee Jipun near Jalan Beringin in this township.
The first thing that greeted us was a banner, stating that the store had moved to its new location from where it was previously located.
At the entrance, there was a young man frying koay teow and mee.
He was engrossed with the cooking and I could see him squirting a stream of thick, black soya sauce on the noodles while gently stirring it.
The dining area is air-conditioned and we were just happy to find a table to savour the noodles. A plate of char koay teow costs RM3.
You can have a larger helping by adding another RM1 and 50sen for an extra fried egg topping.
When the meal was served, my wife, who is a pro-Penang char koay teow lover remarked: “Eh, I don’t like this lah! It’s wet and soggy.”
I told her that I liked it that way and was glad to have found the noodle house.
“Fuhh… Not all is lost, finally, the last bastion of wet char koay teow has been found,” I said to Toh and Kamo, who were happily downing their late lunch.
Much to my wife’s protests, I gave the char koay teow shop an 8 out of 10 on the Samo-scale.
Now, what intrigued me the most was name of the shop.
So, I asked one of the owners on the origin of the Jipun name and was told that it was his father’s nickname.
Jipun char koay teow is located near Jalan Beringin in Banting. This is roughly about an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur’s city centre.
You can access this town via the KESAS or the ELITE highway.
And to all you tech-saavy gurus out there, the lat-long coordinates to this awesome char koay teow stall are: N 02 48 799, E 101 29 984.