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Dishes from a baba family

Karen and her mum, Teh

Her late grandmother was known for her cooking. So is her mother. Trained under the two women, Karen Chew is equally adept at Penang nonya cuisine, writes TAN BEE HONG

Tangy, zesty kiam chye ark or duck and salted mustard soup

Asam tumis with black pomfret

Jiu hu char is synonymous with Penang Hokkiens

A CUSTOMER is overheard whining: “There’s nothing very special about your food.” I can’t help smiling because that is precisely why I am here.

If you have a craving for sauteed scorpions, hairy crabs, snake soup or camel’s hump, do go elsewhere. Peony Garden offers only wholesome home-cooking, dishes that Karen Chew and her siblings grew up on in Penang. She does not profess to do more than family recipes handed down from her nonya grandmother but these she does very well indeed.

Karen remembers how she, her siblings and cousins had to help her grandmother, mother and aunts in the kitchen. They washed vegetables and cut them — to precise requirements or they’d get an earful from the matriarch, Madam Lim Geok Khuan, and be ordered to do it all over again. This early training has borne fruit and every member of the Chew family can replicate Lim’s recipes faithfully.

Black and white photographs of Lim hang on the wall behind the cashier counter. While the furnishings are very basic, with marble-topped tables and rosewood chairs on a tiled floor, the ambience is pleasing, especially with ceiling to floor curtains of gossamer chiffon.

Karen says: “Unlike Malacca nonya cooking which uses lots of santan, we tend to use more asam and lime in Penang nonya food.”

Only four months old, Peony Garden already has regular customers who come in for traditional dishes like jiu hu char (RM12), kiam chye ark (RM5.50) and inchi kabin (RM12).

“We have a few customers who insist we call them everytime we make perut ikan (RM15),” says Karen happily. “This is not offered daily as we need 16 types of herbs and vegetables. If one is not available, we won’t make it as this will compromise the taste. We also use pickled fish stomach, not fresh.”

The tangy dish, with a slight bitter aftertaste from the finely shredded daun kadok, is almost impossible to find in the Klang Valley as the preparation work is incredibly tedious and painstaking. Desperate customers have been known to hunt for the ingredients and bring them to Karen so that they can have perut ikan.

Another dish subject to availability of ingredients is nasi ulam (RM6.50). I love this rice salad dish that’s a complete meal on its own with rice tossed with different kinds of herbs (finely shredded), salted fish, dried shrimps and grated coconut.

Meanwhile, keeping an eagle’s eye on kitchen operations is Karen’s mother, Teh Sai Ngoh. “She has no qualms about telling us off when she feels a dish is not right,” confides Karen. “She makes us throw it out and start from scratch.”

For instance, for hu pau (RM5.50) or Penang-style otak-otak, Teh is unwavering in her decision to use ikan belanak (mullet) instead of meaty fish fillet. “I realise it’s a lot more work but the texture and flavour is so much better,” she says in Hokkien.

Indeed it is. Though I love to eat belanak, especially when deepfried, it’s not a fish I voluntarily buy as just scaling it takes a lot of time. But the flesh is delicate and it has a unique flavour.

Another fish dish worth trying is asam tumis hu (RM15) or sour fish curry, guaranteed to make you ask for a second helping of rice. I am delighted that Karen uses black pomfret. The spices bring out the best side of this oily fish which in turn, lends a lovely aroma to the piquant gravy.

Dry asam udang (RM15) is another of my favourite childhood dishes. The fried prawns marinated with the pulp of asam jawa are best eaten with hot rice and sambal belacan. Unfortunately, I find the version here rather bland as the unshelled prawns don’t absorb the marinade well. My mother used to make the dish with shelled prawns.

There are plenty of pork and chicken dishes. Tau yew bak (braised pork), and lor bak (RM12) take centrestage. The lor bak (deepfried pork rolls) are fragrant. The beancurd skin wrapper is crispy and the meaty filling juicy. “We use five-spice powder from Penang,” says Karen. “We tried using what’s sold here but we couldn’t get the same satisfying results. We bring in a lot of ingredients from Penang, including nutmeg.”

There’s chicken rendang, turmeric chicken, belacan chicken and that very special Penang dish of inchi cabin (RM12).

The last time I had this in a restaurant in Damansara Kim, I was totally disappointed. Peony Garden’s version though, is scrumptious. The chunky chicken, marinated with 10 types of herbs and spices, is deepfried and best eaten with a dip of worcestershire sauce with cut red chili for an added zing.

Karen says the worcestershire sauce is a home-made version. Indeed, it is slightly darker and less sweet than the bottled stuff. The sauce is also served with chun piah (RM8). These spring rolls are big and fat, with a filling of finely shredded yambean, belly pork, prawns, tofu and crabmeat. Eat them hot but do be careful as the stuffing can be quite hot.

Vegetables are a big deal in Peony Garden. Apart from chun piah, there’s jiu hu char, that ubiquitous dish synonymous with the baba and Hokkien people of Penang.

This seemingly simple dish of yambean fried with shredded cuttlefish makes a delightful salad on its own, wrapped up with a leaf of lettuce and topped with a dollop of sambal belacan. Or it can be a dish to go with rice.

Peony also offers pau chai sambal herbi. I’ve almost forgotten about the existence of this dish, not having eaten it for decades. Here, a dried prawn sambal filling is wrapped in blanched cabbage leaves. Very rustic. Very home-cooked. Very traditional.

If you like soups, Peony offers three at RM5.50 per portion. Kiam Chai Ark is a perennial favourite, with duck simmered with salted mustard green and sour plum and the unmistakable hint of nutmeg. Late-comers may not get any though as limited quantities are made daily. But you can still get too thor th’ng, a fiery pepper tripe soup with chicken and ginkgo nuts.

Peony Garden is open daily except Mondays. There is a three-course set lunch menu at RM7.50.

On weekends, it closes during the lunch hour to cater to functions like birthdays, reunions and baby’s full moon celebrations.

“For these, we offer nasi kunyit, red eggs, tortoise buns, birthday mee and ang koo kuih,” says Karen.

PEONY GARDEN (non-halal)
26-1 Jalan PJU5/10
Dataran Sunway
Kota Damansara, PJ
Tel: 03-6141 8323

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