Hokkien Mee, Pasar Pulau Tikus ( NH )

Update February 2018 : the old couple is no more. In their place is another person but the noodles are not as good as before

Pasar Pulau Tikus is a gluttons corner with a good selection of Penang hawker fare .

Tourists rarely come here, preferring to explore Gurney Drive, effectively making this a local haunt. So hard to find a quiet place that is not crawling with tourists these days, you know ?

My personal favourites are the koay teow thn'g stall (the one with a picture of a tuna) , apom balik (excellent ! ) , ikan bakar (very hot & very spicy !), lok lok (middle stall) and the very plain ang tau thn'g from a pushcart that opens after 9pm.

Though I also fancy the Hokkien Mee, that is situated at a lorong on the right hand side of this wetmarket, I have not been able to 'land' myself a bowl  for the past one year.
Always either too late or closed for the night. Unbelievable.

Today, however, I'm in luck. This old 70ish year old couple opens for business for only 2 hours or so.

Bowls look tiny but portion is substantial. Soup stock is done the old fashioned way, salty with no artificial sweetener,boiled from a concoction of prawn heads,pounded dried shrimps and lethal dried chillies to give you that extra sadistic kick .

For $3.50, you cannot find another stall that will give you more prawns and slices of juicy pork than here.

I regret to inform you that I could not snap a picture of this very elusive, very in demand bowl because I was too overcome with joy, hands and lips quivering in anticipation of my first slurp. 

Oh my god.... One year is a long time coming for a hearty bowl of Hokkien Mee such as this.

Didn't matter to me if the sliced hard boiled egg was negligible or that there was just one 4cm string of kangkong or that the taugey was limp. What matters here to his regulars, and desperados like me, is the taste of the soup and the sambal that goes with it,portion of noodles and small whole prawns, also the dish's wholesome simplicity that is such a refreshing throwback to the no frills, laid back days of old.

Just when I thought of going for seconds, his slow and steady clientele saw to it that they politely wiped everything out.

Leaving me to lick my own gone in seconds sediments at the bottom of my bowl with a wounded heart.

Location : Pasar Pulau Tikus

Chowtime : night

Directions : look for Bandar Baru supermarket in Pulau Tikus, for the street that is fronting it. Walk past the length of the market to the end,till you come to the first stall on the right side of the market, in a small lane.