Little food haven

“BETTER late than never”, said a patron who chose to remain anonymous. He admits that he the huge crowd often made him changed his mind of visiting this famous place, although he has been visiting a close friend, who is staying nearby the stalls for business meetings every week for over two decades.

The people queuing up for food at the stall at SS2/1 In between the Kelana Jaya and Taman Bahagia LRT station.

However, he was glad that he decided to give it a try despite the usual long queue of hungry patrons, eager to get their hands on a bowl of hot Kedah Asam Laksa.

“We’ve decided to adopt the self-service practice when our business started to grow two years ago. We were just short of helpers to cater to the growing number of customers,” Ku said, adding that it was difficult for customers to adapt to the change at the beginning.

This humble stall has been around 18 years and is currently run by the second generation of successor, Ku Yaw Min. Business starts at 8pm daily, and closed on Sundays, but by 7.30pm while the owners are busy preparing for business, there are already a line of customers waiting to get a taste of this northern delicacy.

The people start queuing up at about 7.30pm. Before the stall is open.

Other than the Kedah Asam Laksa, there are the delicious Mee Jawa, Guan Chang Kuih, Mee Diao (traditional Teochew fried noodles), Chai Kuih (crystal vegetable dumplings), and traditional desserts such as red beans, green beans and pulut hitam (black glutinous rice). However, the desserts available vary day to day.

There are two versions of crystal vegetable dumplings available; one is filled with shredded cooked turnips while the other is made with chives filling, each cost RM0.70 and is also another hot seller.

The Teoh Chew Chai Kuih (Teochew Crystal Dumplings), is RM 0.70 per pic.

While waiting for the famous Kedah Asam Laksa stall to begin its business at 8 pm, I decided to order a bowl ice kacang from the next stall while I observe my surroundings.

The bowl colourful and cold dessert I had was something I would recommend. Mountain high shaved ice, with red, brown syrup poured over spoonful of red beans, jelly, sweet corn, roasted peanuts, cendol, cincau, dried coconut flakes, evaporated milk and the most important ingredient that makes ice kacang special, the “attap chi”.

As I was enjoying my bowl of ice kacang, passers-by started noticing my camera and started coming up to me, striking up a conversations.

Ais kacang is something special too, a pile of shaved ice with red and brown syrup over red beans, jelly, sweet corn, roasted peanuts, cincau, cendol, dried coconut, "attap chi" and evaporated milk. It costs only RM 2.50 per bowl.

“What are you doing here and do you speak English?” asked an old-timer who frequents the stall after hearing me speaking in Mandarin with his friend.I told him I was out food-hunting when I read about this place in blogs. After a brief introduction, we exchanged our views and notes about the noodles and the place. The noodles, we both agreed, have a unique texture compared to the usual noodles used in Asam Laksa.

This humble stall began operating its business back years before the LRT station was built in 1989. Then, when the LRT tracks were built, they were forced to shift to the current premise, which is as an open car park during the day.

The Kedah Asam Laksa comes with a serving of rice noodles and is distinctly different from the glutinous noodles served in Penang Laksa. It is RM 3.50 for small bowl and RM 4.00 for the big one. The Mee Jawa is make from sweet potatoes, mashed, medium prawns and yellow noodles. It is RM RM 3.00 for a small bowl and RM 4.00 for big bowl.

This are of hawker stalls is often mistaken located in SS4, Petaling Jaya. But according to a blogger, the stalls are actually located in SS2/1, in between the Kelana Jaya and Taman Bahagia LRT stations. “It’s technically located in between these two stations, no wonder people are often confused,” he added.

According to the patrons who frequent the stalls here, another stall not to be missed is the porridge stall at the end of the row, and I decided to give their advice a thought and go for it.

I ordered a bowl of special porridge which cost me RM5, the intense flavour of that bowl of porridge right in front of me, simply left me speechless and anticipating for the next bite.

To get to this area, you can take the LRT to Taman Bahagia station which is a 10-minute walk to this food haven.