Trip To Yong Peng #2 - Then Eng Hin Chinese Biscuits.

We decided to drop into this shop (Eng Hin) selling traditional Chinese biscuits and cakes for my colleague to take home. It is mooncake season. I had bought a box of mooncake to take with me so I’m okay. Anyway I stepped in to have a look.

There were many varieties of oriental biscuits available for sales.

Freshly baked aromatic biscuits are arranged in a circular pattern in a large round rattan basket. The white pieces in the picture had not yet been baked. The little boy is playing with the Teo Chew mooncake stamping machine. Teo Chew mooncake is actually a biscuit which is quite different from the usual types of mooncake sold during this period. Watch out for your hand, kid.

These workers who are family members are transferring the filled dough onto the baking pans for baking in the gas fired oven. Baking only takes a few minutes.

These are how the looked like baked. They may not be very pretty looking but quite tasty. The fillings are groundnut paste that is sweet and slightly savory. They have a short shelf life and are generally eaten fresh not longer than a day.

This is a different variety topped with sesame seeds giving it an additional flavor.

The workers were a little suspicious of me clicking away with my camera. The owner came out and asked me why I was taking the photos. I gave him my sweetest smile and engaged in conversation of the production of his oh so delicious biscuits. He then invited me to the back of the shop which is his production area. He also made wet noodles for sales. We discussed on the qualities of flour for producing the various products. He told me a familiar story of first generation Malaysian Chinese who migrated from China with nothing but the shirt on his back and successfully build up a thriving business.

We bought the biscuits we wanted when her pregnant daughter-in-law stopped us just as we were about to depart. She insisted on presenting a box of Teo Chew mooncake for our journey. What nice people you find in small towns.

Trip To Yong Peng - First Yong Peng Fishballs.

Out of the spur of the moment, we decided to go on a road trip with a couple of my friends. I wanted to visit my goddaughter in Kluang whom I had not seen for sometime and my colleague wanted to go home in Paloh which is on the way. Another friend wanted to tack along and so we headed south for the state of Johore. On the highway, we saw this accident. A lorry had overturned on its side spilling oil palm fresh fruit bunches that are freshly harvested on the road closing one side.

One wondered how this could happen. A burst tyre? Careless over-taking? Over-speeding? Sleeping on the wheel? It was a straight wide road and this type of accident should not happened. Malaysia has one of the highest accident per capita rates in the world. And a lot has to do with the attitude of the drivers. We are all to be blamed.

Another bad habit of ours is we will slow down to have a look creating adding on to the jam. We have grown so accustomed to seeing this type of accidents on the road that it had made us insensitive.

We stopped by in the town of Yong Peng (Forever Peaceful) which actually has grown a bit more peaceful with the completion of the North-South highway. It used to be much busier in the old days as the road to Johor Bahru has to go through this town. I stopped for gas and to eat the famous Yong Peng fishballs again.

As I was filling up in this station, the owner came and asked me “so you’re coming home.” I did not go “huh?” but smiled. He engaged me in conversation about Paloh, which was also his hometown. Told me about the people I did not know and the changes about the place that I had not set my eyes on. As we talked, I realized that he was mistaking me for someone he knew at school when he was a boy. Anyway, it led to an interesting conversation with the most friendly petrol station owner I had ever met. He even waved as we pulled away. If ever I need gas within 50km of Yong Peng, I will head to his place. The girls even complained he only lavished all his attention on me, ha ha for once I beat them in the attraction department.

I asked him which restaurant has the best fishballs in town and he pointed us to this restaurant – Anthony. So we headed there. It is strange how a town can be famous for a particular type of food. For one reason or other, Yong Peng became famous for fish balls and in particular from a specific type of fish. So at a result, there are a number of restaurants here offering fishballs and travelers along the North-South highway will make a special stop just to savor the dish.

We will normally have the fishballs with noodles (either soup or dry types) and ordered an additional bowl of fishballs. But as we were still quite full from a heavy lunch, we skipped the noodles. I took an expectant sip and… it was just okay. I liked the fishballs from another shop which I previously tried better.

We then ordered two different types of fish cakes to try. One is a normal version while the other is a spicy version to go along with their special chilly sauce. This was again just okay so overall we were a bit disappointed but if we just always go back to the one we knew, we will never find a new taste. Anyway, our attempt here led us to our next discovery.

To be continued...