GEORGE TOWN, April 22 — Almost 70 years ago, three men working on a trading ship, travelling between China and Malaya, didn’t want to let the leftover shark’s fin soup that had been served to the towkays onboard go to waste.
Cheah Meng Kin and two other cooks decided to heat up the leftover soup and added noodles to it to make a meal.
This resulted in a viscous and rich noodle dish that Cheah and the other workers enjoyed.
When Cheah left his job on the ship, he settled down in Penang with his wife and children.
“All he knew how to do was to cook Hainanese food. My grandfather is a Hainanese from China so he decided to set up a stall to sell noodles, especially the concoction he made from sharks fin soup but with some modifications,” said Cheah’s granddaughter, Zen Cheah.
Meng Kin, who was in his 30s by that time, set up a stall in Kimberley Street in 1957 and started selling loh mee, noodles served in a thick, sticky gravy similar to the consistency of shark’s fin soup but without the shark’s fin.
“My grandfather experimented with the recipe and added soy sauce to the sticky soup, that’s why it is a dark brown colour,” she said.
Meng Kin sold the loh mee — which is Hokkien for gravy noodles — at Kimberley Street together with his son, Yit Ong, for several years before they moved to a coffee shop along Pitt Street.
“At that time, my grandmother was already operating a coffee shop selling Hainanese coffee and toast but after my grandfather and father had problems with other hawkers in Kimberley Street, they decided to move the stall to the coffee shop,” Zen said.
Since then, the loh mee has been sold in Hai Beng Coffee Shop till today; the stall is now run by Zen.
Meng Kin, who is 92 years old now, taught Zen the recipe to the loh mee before letting her take over the stall a couple years ago.
Meng Kin and Zen’s parents still live above the coffee shop though Zen runs the coffee shop and stall on her own.
Zen, 36, had been working in Singapore before her parents asked if she wanted to take over the business.
“It’s my grandfather and father’s hard work in maintaining the business all these years, it would be a waste not to continue with it so I came back and took over,” she said.
Since the recipe for the noodles was inherited from her grandfather, Zen makes sure it is not lost by noting down every ingredient and measurement after much trial and error.
“My grandfather’s way of cooking was the traditional way of agak-agak without measuring the ingredients so I decided to measure and weigh so that I get it down to the very exact gram,” she said.
Every ingredient used in the loh mee is made from scratch; from the crispy deep fried shallots to the braised pork and soup.
Zen said she will keep the recipe as authentic as possible and if the flavours change due to quality of the local ingredients, she would adjust it to make sure that the authentic flavours are maintained.
Hai Beng Coffee Shop
Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling,
George Town.
Time: 8.30am-4pm
Closed on Wednesdays.
