GEORGE TOWN, Nov 18 — In most families, mothers pass down their recipes to their children. Usually the daughters.
In Lallbi Ibrahim’s large family, they have gone one step further. Not only are most of her siblings good cooks, thanks to their mother, but they are also in the food business.
Lallbi, 71, who is one of the older of 23 children in her family, said most of them had to help in their mother’s kitchen when they were growing up.
“I used to follow her around and watch her cook and this was how I learned the basics of cooking,” she said.
Lallbi started her stall selling Malay dishes and rice back in 1976.
“With just RM40 and a three-wheeled cart, I started selling rice by the roadside along Jalan Tanjung Bungah to help my family,” she said.
In the first few years, she said business was poor as there was barely any traffic along that lonely stretch of road heading towards Batu Ferringhi.
Business only started to pick up after more hotels were built along Batu Ferringhi.
“After 15 years of selling by the roadside, the local authorities built a food court down the road and all of the traders were told to move there,” she said.
Lallbi continued selling Malay rice at the food court and was one of the more popular stalls frequented by both locals and visitors.
The food court was partially destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. Later, it was torn down to make way for flats that were built for tsunami victims in the area.
Lallbi, who named her stall using a combination of her two daughters’ names “Lidiana”, then shifted to a new food court built right across from the floating mosque in Tanjung Bungah.
The first year of business in the new location was dismal but soon enough, all of her regular customers came back and the stall has remained a popular haunt till today.
Lallbi’s sisters and extended family are also in the food business. One of her younger sisters, Noorbee Ibrahim, 67, used to run a similar Malay rice food stall in the Tanjung Tokong village, near where the family lived.
When parts of the village was demolished to make way for flats, Noorbee moved her stall to the ground floor of the Tanjung Tokong UDA flats in 1987.
Just like Lallbi, Noorbee’s stall gained a large following of regular customers and would be crowded during lunch hour.
Unfortunately, Noorbee had to retire in June this year. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer and she had to take care of him full time.
Instead of closing down the stall, one of her younger sisters, Noormah Ibrahim, and her husband Mahadi Taib took over the business.
They renamed the stall “Nasi Melayu Mahadi” as Mahadi and Noormah previously had a stall in Kinta Lane in town.
“Almost all of us are in the food business... one of my older sisters does catering,” said another sister, Azzizah Bee, 64, who was helping out at Mahadi’s stall the day we visited.
She said they have nieces and nephews in the food industry too. Some are running stalls in school canteens and one is operating a chicken rice stall.
“All of us learned to cook from our mother and when we came out to start our own business, we each cook our own style and came up with our own recipes,” she said.
Lallbi said when she first started her business, she learned to fine tune her cooking through trial and error.
“When you are poverty-stricken and have to help support a large family, you have to learn and work hard to make it... I helped raise most of my younger siblings,” she said.
Now, Lallbi mostly supervises the cooks at her stall in the mornings while her daughter, Nordiana Daud, has taken over managing the place.
Kedai Makanan Lidiana
No 5, Arked Tanjung Bungah,
11200 Tanjung Bungah
Time: 7am-4pm
Closed on Sundays
Nasi Melayu Mahadi
Gerai No. 9, Flat UDA,
Tanjung Tokong
Time: 7.30am-3.30pm
Closed on Saturdays
