A little bit me, a little bit you…

I saw the photograph of our YB DUN Nangka enjoying his bowl of mee sua here on Facebook and my nephew, one of our local municipal councillors here, also had a bowl of the same…

…but no, I did not make my way there…

…right away to give it a try and see if it was any good or not.

A friend of mine, a Malay lady, a teacher, insisted that it was not nice but of course, I would always take what she says with a pinch of salt – she will tell you that 9 out of 10 things she has tried outside are not good. LOL!!! On my part, however, I did walk to that end of the food centre/court once but it was VERY crowded and kind of dark. There was no shop sign (I only saw it the other day, there beside the gas tanks, behind the kid’s bicycle) and if you come in via the front entrance (from the “main road”), you are actually entering it from the back. Generally, I did not get a good first impression and did not feel like sitting down to eat anything there…so I left.

As far as I know, my girl’s good friend, Dayang, has been there to eat their halal kampua mee…and our friend/her coursemate, Farid Bubu, used to drop by for their kampua, kicap but they got their transfer back to teach in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia and are no longer around here anymore. When he saw my photo of the mee sua on Facebook the other day, he promptly commented on it to say that he missed the place and the kampua mee so much!

Finally, at long last, I made my way there the other morning to give it a try. I must say I was kind of disappointed when it was served because it did not look anything like our Chinese/Foochow mee sua, not at all but of course, as the saying goes, the test of the pudding is in the eating!

I had a sip of the soup and the first thought that crossed my mind was that it was SWEET!!! No, it was not sweet because of the wine like what I had at Jalan Alor in KL a long time ago (and never wanted to eat again); it was sweet because of the red dates and the wolfberries/goji berries added to the soup…

…alongside the dried shitake mushrooms (soaked in hot water to soften) and yes, I could detect the lovely taste and fragrance of ginger in it, just like in the original Chinese version. My friend even adds lenggeng kua (dried longans) and that will bring the sweetness and the taste to a whole new level. I’ve tried it before and I loved it but I’ve never tried cooking with it myself.

However, once I got over the initial surprise over the sweetness of the soup, I started to enjoy it a lot. Yes, I would say it might have been completely different from our Chinese version but it was very nice in its own way.

No, they did not use the extra fine, extra smooth and translucent mee sua…

Perhaps they do not know about this difference in the different parts of the noodles so they just bought any of those that are easily available at the shops, most likely, the factory made ones.

That sambal/chili dip that they gave by the side was simply out of this world though! It was so delicious and went so well with the noodles…

…and also with the chicken. I sure enjoyed that to the max. Do not expect to get anything like that if you drop by the Chinese mee sua stalls – to the most, only if you ask for it, usually, they will just give you some freshly-cut red chili in dark soy sauce.

For one thing, I was given a fork and spoon to eat the mee sua with – perhaps the aforementioned YB asked for a pair of chopsticks so he had those to use to eat his bowl in the photograph, unlike me – I had to twirl the noodles around the fork…like eating spaghetti.

Now wait a minute! It did not dawn on me then but eventually, I realised that I was not given any egg, never mind whether it was hardboiled or fried or poached. That is one thing they will never miss at the Chinese stalls as it is part and parcel of the whole thing and of course, being halal, there was no traditional Foochow red wine used in the cooking of the soup either. Perhaps that was why this was only RM6.00 a bowl, compared to how much they are currently charging at the Chinese stalls, RM8.00…but with an egg!

To sum up this review, I would say that it was VERY nice, a little bit different but a little bit the same…and I sure would not mind going for it again should I happen to be around those parts of the woods. In the meantime, if you’re interested, you can browse through this video clip to see all that they have to offer…

LITTLE RARA HUT (2.314878, 111.825245)…

…is located at No. 7C, Bangunan SEDC, Jalan Bandong, among the shops at the Bandong Food Centre/Food Court, to the left – the surau side while the Nasi Lemak Bandong Walk shop is on the extreme right beside the car park.