Ah Lam preparing kolok mee in his shop Cafe Lee Hua.
A normal bowl of kolok mee that Ah Lam makes cost RM2.50.
Ah Lam’s RM1 noodle.
Ah Lam
ENGKILILI: If you happen to be in Engkilili and long to fill your tummy with a good bowl of `kolok mee’, then Cafe Lee Hua would be a good choice.
The BATVI team had a scrumptious serving of that springy egg noodle in that shop yesterday morning, and they were told the `secret’ recipe dated back several generations.
The cafe’s 64-year-old owner, Ah Lam, is as secretive about the recipe as of his name. The only thing he was willing to reveal was that his surname is Ng and that his kolok mee skills were handed down from his grandfather to his father and then to him.
Ah Lam, a Hakka, is delighted that his 30-something son Ng Chong Kee has a liking for the trade, meaning the family’s closely guarded ‘secret’ will continue for at least another generation.
“It runs in the family, and I am glad my son has inherited the skills that were passed to me by my father and grandfather,” he said.
Ah Lam, however, doubted that his four grand children would want to be kolok mee sellers. Two of them are living in Kuching with his daughter and son-in-law.
“But you never know,” he said, as a customer ordered a bowl of kolok mee.
Cafe Lee Hua opens at 6am every day, and Ah Lam will be busy at his stall serving a continuous flow of customers till about 1pm.
“Peak period is mid morning, between 9am and 10am.”
Most of his customers are villagers who come down to Engkilili bazaar to buy groceries.
Fridays and Sundays are really busy ones for him. On Fridays, those students who stayed at the school hostels would drop by his eatery for food before going back to their villages.
On Sundays, the routine repeats, but in the reverse order.
“Their parents would come along . . . picking them up on Fridays and dropping them off at the school on Sundays. It’s kind of a routine.”
During the interview, the BATVI team noticed many young customers picking up noodles in plastic bags, each costing RM1.
Ah Lam said these young customers were his favourites and claimed the RM1 noodles were so much healthier and tastier compared to junk food, like crackers and sweets.
Ah Lam’s scrumptious kolok mee is priced RM1 for a small packet (targeting children), RM2.50 for a normal bowl and RM3 for a large bowl.