The formation of the Makan Club and our friendship began approximately six months ago with the anticipation of two events – eating char siew at Salak South and eating “lard noodles” at San Peng.

Pretty Pui, Bouncing Barbie and I were initially taken aback when the guys waxed lyrical about lard noodles. Seriously, how can anyone be excited about lard? Lard in this context is crunchy fried pork fat which is used in various chinese dishes like char koay teow, hokkien mee, and in this case, prawn noodles.

Bizzy Bertie and Ecstatic Eeyore described the dish as prawn noodles where half the bowl is filled with lard. Naturally, I wasn’t too impressed with the description.

The stall is located at Jalan San Peng, just after the flats and opposite a TM building. There is an open air carpark (which is actually just a vast piece of empty land) across the stall, so parking is not a problem.

A normal bowl of prawn noodles at this stall contains a generous portion of prawns and kangkung (water convolvulus) with noodles of your choice in a thick murky broth of prawn and pork soup. The lard is added according to your preference. This is a picture of Smokin’ SOB’s bowl of noodles (with a normal serving of lard):

Ecstatic Eeyore’s bowl looks like this:

Eeyore normally consumes a pot of chinese tea after eating his noodles in the hopes of washing down the fat and cleansing his system, but who’s he trying to kid? 🙂

We normally order a plate of steamed chicken together with our noodles. The steamed chicken is served on a bed of crunchy taugeh (bean sprouts) and is drizzled with aromatic sesame oil which adds a smooth texture and enhances the flavour of the chicken.

My initiation took place some time in July 2006. I have since returned to this stall several times.

It was a very hot Wednesday afternoon and we decided to drive out for lunch. We had heard about the famous ginger wine chicken in Pudu and were keen to try it even though we had no idea where the restaurant was. Perhaps the heat coupled with our hunger brought out the adventurous side in us.

On an aside, I am now laughing, alone, while writing this as it is highly amusing to think that this is what I would classify as “adventurous”. hehe. It must be the age thing.

After some very skillful parking at Jalan Yew, we trudged along the old shoplots, the smells of the market still in the air as workers swept up the debris from the road. Directions were promptly obtained from one of the shopowners.

We are big fans of ginger wine chicken, and we were trembling with excitement at the thought of savoring the dish in a matter of minutes.

Our order of fishballs stuffed with minced meat came first. I felt like I had bitten into a cottony-soft pillow. Our excitement grew.

The mee suah (wheat noodle) in red ginger wine soup arrived. Mee suah has traditionally been the stuff one would eat when sick. Pretty Pui wasn’t too excited about the noodles, but was willing to overlook that for the sake of the soup.

I love mee suah, so the entire dish sounded perfect. Served with sliced ginger and black fungus in a thin red wine soup and generous portions of chicken, it looked rather interesting (the soup was red, after all) but nevertheless, appetising.

One mouthful, and the bubble burst.

Sigh.

Hup Yick
No. 30, Jalan Yew
Pudu, 55100 KL