Hatyai--Dim Sum Farewell

I left my drapes open, so I woke up way before the 7am wake up call.

I had already found out from the owner that the dim sum stall was open at 6:30am. Nevertheless, I took my time to get there. The air was still cool, and I picked a table with a fresh breeze over my shoulder.

She explained that some of the dishes were ordered a la carte, and the dim sum was all brought to the table--you reject what you don't want immediately.

I ordered the highly recommended Yam Congee with Century Egg (which came with fried doughballs like Yu Tiao), a Chinese Tea (Oolong) and accepted what looked like tiny Siew Mai and a Purple dumpling that looked like Har Kao.

Then I spotted it--a massive joint of braised pig trotters. The owner was gloved and pushing off chunks of meat and gelatinous skin, and piling it on a little platter followed by a small heap of salted vegetables. I finally scored my serving!

It was prefectly balanced--salty, earthy, briny, tangy with textures of moist succulent flesh with bits of gooey skin and crunchy preserved vegetable. A tap of fiesty, garlic chili-sauce scoured the rich gumminess in your mouth. Then wash it all down with almost acrid amber-colored tea.

Next came the up-sell. A helper who spoke no English brought a plate of fried squat cylinders. Smiling broadly, she said the one Thai Word that I needed to hear: "Aroy!" (delicious!). They were on a perfect run, so I accepted it. Why not?

The cylinders tasted like Pla Tod, she called them Ngoh Roi. No idea what that meant, or if I had even heard her correctly. She stood there while I bit into the steaming pucks and insisted that I dipped one into the chili-sauce. She was right on!

Finally, the proprietor asked if I had room for her fried yam cake (char kuih kak equivalent). I told her this was the last thing I dare eat. so she brought it out!

The bill was double what I had anticipated! A princely sum of Bt220 (US$7). An issue only because I was down to Bt180. She graciously said that she would share the bill with me, but I asked her if she would take Malaysian Ringgit. She said: "Sure!"

Now I had just enough Thai Baht to buy a massive bottle of water to accompany my ride back to Penang. The van back was a Petrol (Gasoline) Powered Toyota converted to use Compressed Natural Gas. A total of 3 Massive cylinders were under each row of seats. The van looked nice, but had a very harsh ride that caused nausea. Still, I found out that the conversion cost RM9,000 (US$3,000) and allowed the van to run at 1/2 the cost of diesel. Which, by my calculation would pay off in about 20 round-trips to Hatyai and Penang. That's not even a month to re-coup!

Cleaner, Greener, Penang--I was so happy to cross the bridge and see the green hills again!

~ Shien