KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 — This time round, Secret Eats went on a kind of treasure hunt led by reader Zakiah Hanum Kassim. She had raved to us about this hidden hole-in-the-wall place in the city centre that sold an awesome bakso.
Zakiah’s first encounter with this particular bakso stall was when one of her friends packed three packets of the noodles for her. Since she was not familiar with the dish, she shared it with her Indonesian maid who gave her the thumbs up on its authenticity.
Following her instructions, we drove around the busy city to end up at a nondescript wooden house painted a dull red and yellow. It’s just a short walk from the main road and the only landmark is a Malay food stall in front of it. In the distance, you see the city skyline; a juxtaposition of wooden houses with shiny office buildings and hotels.
Toasted peanuts are crushed with a cobek or the right angled pestle to make the sauce for pedal (left). Cleaning the beef shanks is tedious and back breaking (right)
We peek into the house. Inside the narrow living room, we’re greeted by a pleasant Indonesian woman with a wide smile. She beckons us into the house asking us to take off our shoes, which we carefully stored under a table piled high with snacks. The menu is simple. There’s a choice of bakso with urat (tendon) or tulang (bone). After we put in our orders, we settle down on the rattan sofa. She pushes a long rattan table to us and that becomes a make-shift dining table.
We waited in anticipation; we could hear her tinkering in the kitchen. Peeking inside, we see she’s busy at the stove heating up the broth that is stored in a large metal container. In another pot, she cooks the beef balls. At one corner of the kitchen, we spot her husband slowly cleaning the beef shanks.
It is a tedious job making sure it’s clean. Later we found out she insists on cleaning it with just water and using a knife to clean any bulu or fur. Unlike others, she does not use “kapur” or even burn the skin to clean the bones, as it affects the taste. You can sense how fussy she is about her ingredients, as she tells us the key to her delicious broth is fresh lime, chillies and shallots.
Each bowl of noodles is heaped with beef balls, tendons cut into pieces and topped generously with fried shallots, chopped daun sup or Chinese celery, and a cut piece of lime. The transparent strands of the mung bean noodles and dark coloured broth are hidden under the mountain of goodies. She adds a dash of chilli sauce on top of the noodles that gives it a pleasant kick. We squeeze a little of the lime juice over the noodles to lift the taste.
As we slurp down our mung bean noodles and bite on the tender beef balls, it’s the broth that wins us over. The addictive dark coloured broth is sweetened from boiling beef bones and shallots. We had also ordered a bowl of tulang or bones that still had some meat stuck to them. Forget your table manners and just gnaw at the meat.
The bright red chilli sauce is made from fiery red small chillies from Thailand, the more potent variant. The blended chilli paste packs a lethal punch, so go easy on how many spoonfuls you add to your noodles. She told us about one customer, a foreign film director, who took home some of the chillies with him so enamoured was he with them.
It s hard to stop eating the freshly assembled pecal (left). Eat up the tulang with your fingers to enjoy every piece of meat stuck on the bones (right)
The camera-shy woman migrated here from Surabaya. She has been trading from her home for 15 years.
Previously, she ran a small stall for nine years where they sold pecal, bakso and satay. People come from as far as Sungai Buloh, Shah Alam, Sepang and Gombak for her famous bakso. Usually, they take away packets of the noodles to enjoy in the comfort of their home. The place is open daily from 9am to 10pm.
Everything is freshly prepared. You can sense her pride in her cooking. No shortcuts are taken here and the cooking begins from 8am onwards. The key to her robust broth is the rempah that takes a whopping 12 hours to prepare. Since it’s so tedious to prepare (from 10am to 10pm), she usually does a big batch of it every two weeks, slowly cooking it in a gigantic wok.
The rempah has to be completely dry to ensure it can be stored properly, she explained. Sometimes, like that day we visited, her husband will help out when he’s not working at his construction job. Usually she prepares everything. You can also order the bakso for a party provided you give her advance notice of 2-3 days. She charges about RM500 for 100 people.
Later, as one customer beckoned through the open door, we discovered she also served pecal, a type of Indonesian rojak. We order a plate to sample. I like how everything is prepared only when we order. First, she fries the tofu pieces. Next she takes out her pestle and mortar, which is known in Indonesia as cobek and ulek-ulek.
The front of the wooden house in the shadow of a new building
The cobek is a right-angled pestle while her mortar or ulek-ulek is wider like a small platter. According to the lady, she carted this all the way from Indonesia and it’s served her for more than 20 years. She grinds toasted peanuts to make the creamy sauce, to which she adds spoonful of chilli sauce to elevate its spiciness.
Her pecal is a mixture of chopped cucumbers, blanched bean sprouts, fried tofu and nasi impit or compressed rice cubes with the peanut sauce. The rice is delicate and perfectly cooked. The creamy and aromatic sauce with just a subtle hint of kencur, a type of ginger, is addictive. Even though it’s a bit too spicy for me and I was rather full from my bowl of bakso, I could not stop spooning it into my mouth.
As we walked off, I vowed to return for that satisfying bowl of bakso. Maybe this time I’ll just pack a few packets of the addictive noodles.
If you want to try this bakso, how about an exchange? Email me your secret eat at khangyi@themalaymailonline.com and we’ll let you in on where to get this awesome bowl of bakso.
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