ALOR SETAR, Sept 23 — Along the busy main road of Jalan Gangsa in Alor Setar you will find a small van with several tables underneath a makeshift canopy where there is an ever-present crowd.
Any motorist passing by would be immediately attracted to the crowded stall and if your windows are down, you’d catch a whiff of something delicious, hot and spicy.
This is not just any normal food stall but Gerai Kak Pah; it has been around for the last 15 years offering only two types of food and one dessert; laksa, laksam and cendol.
Laksa and laksam are common snack time noodles, and can even be considered a light meal for lunch, but at Kak Pah’s, it hits the spot perfectly if the craving is for something spicy, thick and tasty.
The stall owner and main chef “Kak Pah” or Sharifah Hazemah Hanim Darus makes sure that the soup base for her laksa and laksam are thick, fragrant and carefully cooked to a perfect consistency every morning before setting up for the lunch and tea-time crowd.
The Kedah-style laksa is slightly different from the famous Penang assam laksa as it is not as sour and it does not have a strong pungent aroma.
Though the soup base is made also from fish, Kak Pah said it is also made from a mixture of herbs and spices to give it sharp flavours so that it would not have an overpowering fishy aroma.
“Every morning, my husband will help me cook four to five big pots of soup base for the laksa and laksam,” she said.
This will take the couple almost the whole morning and after this, the pots of steaming hot spicy soup are ready to be ladled over laksa noodles (rice noodles) or laksam (flat rice rolls).
Each plate of laksa consists of rice noodles covered generously in the thick, spicy soup and then garnished with hard boiled egg, fish flakes that was used to cook the soup, shredded salad greens, onions and half a lime for those who prefer to add some sourish flavours to the soup.
As for laksam, it may have the same basic soup but the ingredients used are different, giving is a slightly different taste.
The laksam consists of rice rolls, much like those used for chee cheong fun, and a mixture of vegetables such as bean sprouts and green beans.
The meal is then perfectly balanced out with a tall wide glass of creamy, rich cendol.
Now, the cendol here is unlike that at many other stalls as the ingredients are all made from scratch by Kak Pah.
“I make the cendol ingredients at night after we close the stall so we can use it for tomorrow,” she said.
On any hot day (or even a rainy cold one), Kak Pah’s cendol can be said to be one of the best in the area for a cool respite.
The cendol is a ball of shaved ice that is then covered with coconut milk and palm sugar before it is garnished with green jelly noodles, colourful cubes of jelly and creamed corn.
What really sets her cendol apart from others is not only the rich and creamy coconut milk mixture resulting from the concoction but the soft dollop of glutinous rice in it.
Its soft, chewy and slightly salty flavour gives an interesting contrast to the sweet, creamy concoction which effectively cuts out the sweetness of the whole mixture.
So, whether it is laksa, laksam or cendol you are craving, this unassuming roadside stall is worth stopping by to slake a thirst or fill an empty stomach.
Gerai Kak Pah
Jalan Gangsa, Alor Setar, Kedah GPS: 6.137056,100.36191
Time: 1pm–6pm (Closed on Fridays and major public holidays).
