EXPERT AT WORK: Yap cutting beef tendons to bite sizes on a traditional chopping block.
BEEF may not be everyone’s idea of good food, especially to people who dislike its relatively strong odour and tough texture.
I avoid beef not because of its odour but the thought of having to struggle to chew through the meat.
So I was surprised when I first tried a bowl of beef noodle soup, recommended by relatives and prepared by a stall offering Peninsular Malaysia-style beef noodles at a coffeeshop in Bintang Jaya Commercial Centre, Miri.
The meat was tender and the taste enhanced by a herbal soup that goes well with Chinese egg noodles, rice noodles (bee hoon) or kueh tiaw.
Besides the meat, there are also tendons and tripes (beef stomach).
In fact, it was the tendons that got me hooked – the tough and seemingly inedible translucent to white portion of beef cooked to a tender, and somewhat chewy texture.
Prices range from RM4 for a small bowl of beef noodles (niu rou mien) and RM5 for a large bowl to RM6 for an all-ingredients mixed beef noodles (niu chak mien).
There’s a stall in Krokop offering something similar but the tendons are too soft, jelly-like and come in a few miserable pieces.
Another eatery near Imperial Mall offers beef noodles as a speciality but at a high price – about double what I could get for similar portions.
Still others offer a different mix of ingredients like beef balls but usually no tendons.
I have looked for better alternatives but my first find is still the best. Alas, the stall stopped operating early this year. I thought that was it – no more great beef noodles.
Then one day, while out for breakfast with a relative, I bumped into the stall owner, Yap Su Chong, 46, and his spouse, in a coffeeshop.
His new stall is at New Faradale Cafe at Faradale Garden shoplots near Courts Mammoth building in Boulevard Commercial Centre. I did not expect Yap to reveal his secret recipe but I managed to get hints talking to him – plus a bit of research online.
Once, I brought a friend from Singapore to try the beef noodles – we also ordered a bowl of tendons-only soup. We had a really good meal. The secret is in the soup!
The shop where Yap operated previously hired workers to prepare beef noodles (like his) that customers had come to like, and even improve on the presentation.
The only thing different is the soup or beef broth which may look the same as Yap’s but tastes different. In other outlets, the soup is either too thin or watery, and lacks that subtle fragrance.
To make the soup, one could use soy sauce and Chinese five-spice powder said to encompass all five flavours – sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty.
The ingredients in a commercial preparation include pepper corns, Chinese star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and fennel seeds although they may be substituted by other spices.
You could order beef noodles minus the soup but it is the fragrance of the herbal soup that puts zest into beef.
To get the deep, beef broth, the soup needs to be simmering for several hours, and the fat or other contaminants removed, or it will be too oily.
“We don’t throw away the soup – we add it to our stock of beef broth,” Yap said, giving a hint of his secret recipe.
Like the steamboat whose soup gets richer and tastier as the ingredients are added and removed, the last round produces the best soup with all the essence.
With the right beef broth, a bowl of beef noodle soup can be whipped up in minutes.
Yap originally worked in the food distribution industry and only learned how to cook beef noodles from his brother-in-law after meeting his spouse Tiow Miaw Ling in Melaka.
His elder sister persuaded him to start his stall here as there was a lack of good beef noodles in Miri.
His typical day starts around 5am, shopping for beef cuts in the local market before the morning crowd come in by 6.30am, and ends by noon.
“Actually, our work doesn’t end, for in the afternoon, we have to prepare the ingredients for the next day,” he said.
Though resting only one day a month, Yap sometimes takes several days off to be with his family.