GEORGE TOWN, May 21 — When Lee Kar Tee first arrived in Malaya from China, he was so poor he could barely afford a place to stay.

He rented a horse stable to live in for $1 per month and set up a stall along Swatow Lane to sell soya milk and ice balls drizzled with syrup to earn a living.

The year was 1923. This marked the beginning of the Lee Brothers ice kacang stall, otherwise known as Swatow Lane ice kacang.

"The ice balls were manually made, my grandfather shaved the ice using a wooden apparatus with sharp knives at the end and then compacted the ice into balls using his hands,” Lee Eng Lai said.

Red sugar syrup was then drizzled onto the ice balls and sold at only one sen each at that time.

Kar Tee would keep the stall open as long as there was business; at that time, there were no street lights so he had to rely on oil lamps for lighting.

Sarsi ice kacang... and other ‘special’ orders

When Kar Tee’s sons, Soo Eng and Soo Khan, took over the stall in the 1950s, the ice balls had already evolved into ice kacang. This was essentially shaved ice topped with cooked sweetened kidney beans and two different types of syrup, red and Sarsi-flavoured syrup.

"In my father’s time, we were very well known for our Sarsi ice kacang. We used our own special Sarsi syrup along with the red syrup to flavour our ice kacang,” Eng Lai said.

He said customers wanted the Sarsi ice kacang because of its unique flavour.

The Sarsi syrup was a special concoction made from syrup and the soft drink Sarsi. The addition of this syrup gave the ice kacang a sharp flavour in contrast to the just-sweet red syrup.

"It was our hot-selling item for many years but nowadays very few people order it,” he said.

Lee Eng Lai making ice kacang at the stall

At that time, they only made one can of Sarsi syrup each day as the syrup couldn’t last for more than a day before the carbonation evaporated.

"So, we would sell out the Sarsi syrup ice kacang really fast... these days, some people even think it is strange,” he said.

The stall still allows special requests for Sarsi ice kacang while their normal bowl of ice kacang uses the usual red and brown syrup.

A few decades after the Sarsi ice kacang craze, a special request by a customer led to another new craze — the banana ice kacang.

Eng Lai said it first started with a request by a customer to add bananas to the ice kacang and before long, there were requests for other fruits such as mangoes to be added too.

Till today, customers can custom-order the type of ice kacang they prefer and the fruits they want to add to it.

In the old days, this soft, silky smooth yellow custard-like kuih called kee nya kuih by the locals was a popular snack sold at a stall next to the Lee Brothers’ stall.

The kuih is doused in brown sugar syrup before it is served for a sweet and silky smooth treat.

According to Eng Lai’s son, Wah Chai, his mother learnt the recipe from the stall owner and soon started making her own kee nya kuih. It was not something easy as it takes hours to mix the concoction and steam it to perfection.

"After a while, my mother taught my aunt how to make it and today, my aunt is probably the only  maker left in Penang,” he said.

The kuih is made from a mix of rice flour, tapioca flour, borax and alkaline water, thus giving it an alkaline taste that blends well with the accompanying thick brown sugar syrup.

The word "kee” is borax in Hokkien but the recipe has since been modified using less borax, Wah Chai said. The kuih is now known mostly as tee nya kuih. "Tee” stands for sweet.

The kuih is still available at the Lee Brothers’ stall in New World Park.

Lively times at Sin Sei Kai

During the 1930s up to 1969, Swatow Lane was popular as huge crowds would go to the nearby Sin Sei Kai to watch movies and "live” performances.

Sin Sei Kai, which is Hokkien for "new world”, was an entertainment site located along Swatow Lane bordering on Burmah Road and Hutton Lane. The space had two cinemas and three stages for "live” performances.

"There were Lido and Globe cinemas but of course at that time, there was no air-conditioning so there were only fans and since the cinemas are enclosed, it was very stuffy and hot inside,” Eng Lai recalled.

The Lee Brothers ice kacang stall in New World Park

He said there were two separate entrance fees, 10 cents to enter the Sin Sei Kai compound and another 10 cents or 15 cents to get into either the cinemas or one of the stage performances.

"The stage performances were a mix of ‘live’ shows from wrestling matches, boxing matches, basketball matches to Chinese opera shows and of course, the famous cabaret shows,” he said.

He said there were also the Pin Chen Tai (Penang opera), Sin Kah Poh Tai (Singapore opera), Kuala Lumpur Tai (Kuala Lumpur opera) and Liew Ping Ke Tai which was for comedy and singing performances.

Though he couldn’t afford the entrance fees, Eng Lai said he used to sneak in and watch the performances and movies from the side for free.

"I remember watching movies like Tarzan, Hercules and James Bond 007 at the cinemas then,” he said.

As for the cabaret and striptease shows and Penang’s very own famous stripper, Rose Chan, he said he was too young then so he never managed to watch any of them.

"Those shows were only for those above 18 so I never got to watch any but we got to see Rose Chan when she was outside,” he said.

He also remembered a famous wrestler of that time by the name of "King Kong.”

"People liked to watch the wrestling matches, I used to sneak in to watch too and this King Kong was so huge, with big muscles, it was great to watch him wrestle,” he said.

Sin Sei Kai was not only an entertainment spot at night; in December, it was the location for the annual chan nam hui or what is currently known as the Pesta Pulau Pinang.

"They had many stalls selling branded clothes and shoes and the most popular were the beauty pageants where people had to pay 25 sen to cast votes for their favourites,” Eng Lai said.

That was the month that Eng Lai got to earn some extra income as he used to charge patrons 10 sen each to take care of their bicycles which they parked outside before entering Sin Sei Kai.

New World Park

Sin Sei Kai closed down in 1969 and after that, the cinemas and theatres were torn down. The piece of land was left vacant for many years with only portions of its old cement wall serving as a reminder of its glorious past.

Back in 2007, New World Park, which was named after Sin Sei Kai, was built on the vacant land and hawker stalls that used to line the road next to it, along Swatow Lane, including the Lee Brothers Ice Kacang stall, were shifted into the hawker complex within.

From left: The Lee brothers: Fourth generation Wah Chai and Wah Onn and the third generation, Lee Eng Huat and Lee Eng Lai

"There were about 15 stalls along Swatow Lane previously so after they shifted us inside into a larger space, more hawker stalls opened in the complex,” he said.

The new space provided clean and comfortable seating for customers along with ample parking space, thus attracting more people to the site right until late 2015 when there was talk of the complex being torn down to make way for development.

Business took a dive; Wah Chai said it was a struggle to get customers to come back even though the development plans had been shelved.

"We are all still here but I guess most customers didn’t know and besides, a lot of the tour buses don’t come here anymore... they prefer to go to M Mall,” he lamented.

Wah Chai and his brother, Wah Onn, now manage the Lee Brothers stall along with another drinks stall in the hawker complex while Eng Lai continues to come in to help out.

They are the anchor tenant for the complex and they manage the renting out of the other stalls to hawkers.

"We take great care to maintain good hawkers in this complex so we hope customers will come back for our ice kacang and the good hawker food available here,” they said.

Lee Brothers (Swatow Lane) Ice Kacang

New World Park, Lorong Hutton, George Town, Penang.

Time: 11am-6pm (daily)