Variety seems to be the way how restaurant operator YY Wong models her noodle shop in Dataran Sunway.

Ten Noodles Restaurant’s business model is interesting. Instead of the standard “eat-or-leave-it” dishes, Ten Noodles’ kitchen is set up to tailor noodles based on individual preferences.

This restaurant in Kota Damansara is well-known for its pork noodles, but the difference between its many other competitors is that her clients get to mix and match what they want for their meals.

With seven different types of noodles to choose from, the kitchen hands can prepare noodles either in soup or dry, accompanied by a variety of condiments.

Though only operating from September last year, Ten Noodles has received quite a positive response. Even on a working day, there is a steady flow of customers. We arrived at the restaurant for dinner at 7pm, and nearly every table was occupied.

“We have young and old people as well as people from different races, who love our pork noodles.”

“They have become our regular customers. The prices are based on what is being picked. Most of them who have been eating here know exactly what they are looking for.”

Most of the customers are office staff working in Dataran Sunway, but university students are also making this their favourite eatery, despite the numerous restaurants in the commercial square.

The friends who recommended Ten Noodles to me – who are now regulars – asked me to check out their pork noodles. According to Wong, the pork noodles are now starting to attract non-Chinese customers.

Besides the usual condiments, Wong said customers can also choose from a range of internal organs to go with their noodles. I have been reluctant to ingest organs since my youth, but I’ll take Wong’s word on many of her customers loving what has become their speciality.

“We allow the customers to tell us what exactly they would like to eat. In that way, there is little wastage.”

Wong’s love for pork went back as early as her 80s, when she was growing up on a pig farm in Negeri Sembilan.

“My family was involved in pig farming. From young, we had had a lot to do with pigs. I am familiar with the pork business; that’s why I decided to start a restaurant that sells pork noodles.”

It doesn’t just look like she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to pork; it tastes that way as well.

Restoran Ten Noodles is located at No. 25-1, Ground Floor, Jalan PJU 5/10, Dataran Sunway Kota Damansara.

The secrets of this concoction has been preserved as what is now known as the lei cha which is a famous cuisine amongst the Hakka diaspora in Malaysia. In recent years, due to a greater interest in health food, lei cha is now accepted by mainstream diners.

It takes a while to acquire the taste. My wife, who is a Hakka, did not like it initially, but after teasing from me, she decided to try it. Now, she can take the entire bowl of lei cha on her own without the rice!

The reason, as pointed out by Big Big Bowl Hakka Kitchen’s restaurant owner, Angie Lim, is because she uses more basil than mint.

“A lot of people cannot accept the strong mint taste,”

she explains.

“Our lei cha soup is thicker and it has more basil in it.”

For this, I can fully agree with her that in terms of value for money, Angie’s lei cha is a lot more concentrated and tastes better than that offered in most other places that I have tried.

Family Project

With the idea of teaching my children to always go for the more healthy food whenever they have to eat out, I decided to do a research into the lei cha.

Often mistaken for the word, ‘lei’ (雷) which means ‘thunder’, the actual Chinese word used for lei cha is 擂, which means, being ‘beaten.’ Combined with the word ‘cha’, it simply means ‘pounded tea.’

There are two versions of lei cha, but in Malaysia, it is the Hakka lei cha that is more popular than the Hunan lei cha.

According to Angie, they use eight different types of vegetables to prepare this one cuisine. The basil and mint leaves are pounded together with roasted sesame seeds and groundnuts into a paste that is to be added into water to turn it into a soup-like herbal tea.

“The vegetables have to be cut into smaller pieces so that the lei cha can then be added to the mix,”

she explains.

“They can either add white rice, brown rice or our lei cha noodles, handmade from pounded vegetables.”

If anything, the whole process is very time consuming and unless there is a high turnover, a number of restaurants only offer the lei cha once or twice a week.

However, at Angie’s Big Big Bowl, the lei cha is available throughout the week. In fact, you can even buy the refrigerated paste from her and prepare your own lei cha to be eaten any time of the day.

Customers like me who want to reduce the intake of carbohydrates, prefer to eat the lei cha without the additional rice or noodles.

I am amazed that both my children, including my six-year-old daughter, have already started to love the lei cha. This is a good way to encourage them to take more vegetables than meat.

Most of the Penang foodie fans whom I have spoken to have grown to love this particular version of the Penang cuisine. In fact, I am not surprised some of them are using this as the benchmark, for what they consider as ‘good’ Penang curry mee.

Here, they only use a pale white and watery curry stock instead of too much of the santan stuff. Usually, I take away the cubes of pig’s blood jelly, but I do not mind the blood cockles, cuttlefish, prawns and tofu puffs.

Not every Penangite, however, can accept the pig’s blood jelly or the blood cockles, but the stock that they use, even without their specially concocted chilli paste, is delicious.

Some do not even consider this as their ‘best’ curry mee; they prefer the one in Chulia Street. So, no two persons’ tastes buds are the same.

To me, it is the chilli paste that really makes the difference. The secret recipe has been with the family since the business started over three decades ago, when the dried chilli was grounded and fried in oil to give it a special aroma and spicy flavour.

What I like about this place is that they allow their customers to put in as much of the chilli paste they want depending on how spicy they like their bowl of noodles to taste. The paste is provided in a stainless steel bowl on each table.

The other thing I like of the people who are now operating the business are very simple and nice people. Although the coffee shop is already in the limelight where good food in Penang is concerned, I presume that they are easy to talk to as they appear not to be putting on airs.

When I asked for permission to take a photograph of them, one of them just waved to me and smiled. They are probably the most down-to-earth persons that I have seen in the food business. Unfortunately, they appeared too busy to chat and we were also in a hurry to go off.

Based on my own research, the original curry mee business was operated from a simple food cart in 1960 by a gentleman, the late Moey Saik Kooi, who is fondly known to his customers as Uncle Moey.

His curry mee became well-known that the business had to move to where it is currently located, where the eldest son, Kok Keong still runs the business.

So, we are in fact talking about a family food business that has survived nearly six decades, and based on my observations, a number of the people eating here are their local fans who are probably into their seventies. I can only guess that they have been regulars for many years.

This explains why the restaurant is frequented by Penangites who are back to their hometowns, and wherever they are, they still talk fervently about Lorong Seratus Penang Curry mee.

There is, in fact, now several Lorong Seratus Tahun restaurants. Its branch in SS 2 Petaling Jaya is operated by Kok Keong’s brother Kenny and his wife, Chan Lye Ho since 2000.

The others are licensees and located at Taipan, Publika food court and The Scott Garden at Jalan Kelang Lama, which serve authentic Penang cuisine, which includes a lot more varieties compared to the original outlet at Lorong Seratus Tahun.