On my way back to JB or Singapore from KL, I usually have my breakfast in Seremban town (instead of KL), to escape the KL morning crawl.
One of my favourite places for breakfast is the Seremban main market (Pasar Besar Seremban), right at the heart of town, about 10 minutes drive from the toll station.
At the ground level is the busy "wet" market where there are vegetable and fruit stalls, butchers and fish mongers. Slippery, wet, noisy, colourful, fascinating!
On the second floor is a sprawling hawker centre, with a thriving treasure trove of heritage street food. There are some 50 stalls here, many with over 50 years of history.
One of them is Tow Kee Hakka Mee. Uncle Yee is in his 70s now and opens his stall only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7:00am. Usually by 10:30, all his house made noodles are sold out. At 10:45am this Sunday morning, I was one of his last customers for the day. So lucky, me 😄
This is Hakka Mee at its most fundamental.
It's just noodles, lightly fried minced pork, a sprinkle of cut spring onion, and pork soup. That's it.
Plain looking. Not much colour. Not very sexy at all.
That clear pork soup has the taste and flavour of soup that I had at my primary school tuck shop noodle stall in 1960s Singapore.
The fried minced pork is tender and tastes savoury in layers with a subtle underlying natural sweetness.
Aromatic oil, sauces and juices from the fried minced pork pool at the bottom of the ceramic bowl.
After a good toss, the thick flat noodles were wrapped in a slick coat of the quite robust savoury sauce. The tender crunchy noodles felt wet and slurpy slippery.
In the mouth, it's layers of savouriness from robust to mild with very subtle sweetness from the pork and noodles.
There are many interesting old stalls to explore in this hawker centre. I love the nostalgic feel of those old signboards with 1960s vintage Chinese fonts. Tow Kee had one of these weathered ones until recently.
Mr. Yee's elder brother runs the Tow Kee shop just across the road from Pasar Besar Seremban. It opens at 6pm but I am not sure of the days. I never had the chance to eat here so far (always closed on me 😂 ).
4-Star (out of 5). It's quite rare to get heritage street food in it's basic, no frills form nowadays. So, if you are passing by Seremban town in the morning on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, do swing by Tow Kee for authentic Hakka mee. There are also plenty of other heritage street food choices here at Seremban's main market.
Restaurant name: Tow Kee Hakka Mee 滔记客家面
Address: Stall 810, Pasar Besar Seremban, Jalan Pasar, Seremban Negeri Sembilan
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/pobFe
GPS: 2.730913,101.936870
Hours: 7:00am to 12:00 noon.
Non Halal
Date visited: 28 May 2014, 6 Aug 2017
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Wow! These two stalls are still around! As a kid some 40 years ago, my grannies used to bring me to this market on a regular basis. My fav was Hakka and her fav was the beef brisket! Nostalgic!
ReplyDeleteMy mother in law always ta pow for us !
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