Archives for March 2006

Ah See Wantan Mee’s history revealed

Wantan Mee, Johor-style If you hail from Batu Pahat, there is no way you could escape Ah See Wantan Mee at Jalan Jenang. The fame! The legend! The shop is smack in the middle of town, some people (like me) ate it ALL the time growing up. We’d know the difference between Ah See and everyone else’s noodles.

When I was a kid, a regular order sold for RM1.20. I don’t know what’s the current price, but rumours were rife that while the price increased, the quality deteriorated. No matter. We are not here to dispute quality control or lack thereof; we are here to learn about the history of Ah See and his wantan mee! I know the story, and soon you shall too.

This would be a good time to get on your knees and thank your lucky stars while praising my goodness….

No? Okay then.

Ah See Wantan Mee has a long standing history and tradition. Legend goes that once in China, there was no soy sauce at all. Then someone brilliantly invented this remarkable, highly versatile sauce. It became the HIT of town. People began taking soy sauce with their meals, regardless of whether they were eating roasted pig or salted fish or salted vege or rice or mooncakes or ang ku kueh.

One day Mr. See got tired of too much salt in his meals. He rightly figured that was the reason he had been having problems with his kidneys, which led to… uhm, reproduction problems.

He decided to make his own sauce for food. After 7 weeks of experimenting in the kitchen, ta-dahhh! He came out with a nice, orange-y kind of sauce. Excited with his discovery, he began putting the sauce on his noodles.

However his wife was not pleased with just eating dry noodles. So she bought some pork from the butcher, roasted them, then slice into pieces to eat together with the noodles.

Now, Mr. See was angry that his wife found a better way of eating noodles. He raided the pantry and came out with flour, shrimp and meat. Thus, he pounded the shrimp and meat together, made them into little balls, tucked the balls of meat into thin flour pieces. He boiled them in broth and it came out REALLY GOOD!

Soon his invention was the talk of town. Being Chinese, Mr. See grabbed the opportunity to start his own noodle stall. His wife put aside personal grudges and helped him with his thriving business. They became very very rich but Mr. See never recovered the use of his… organ. So it was lucky for them that they had a son prior to the soy sauce wreckage of life.

Years later, Mr See’s great great great great great grandson arrived in Batu Pahat in a tiny boat to escape from the nasty Japs, to find that Malaysia was sadly faring no better. So he started a stall selling noodles, using his great great great great great grandfather’s secret recipe. The Japanese soldiers liked his noodles so much that every time they finished a bowl, they would shout in glee, WANTAN MEE, WANTAN MEE! And that was how wantan mee got its name.

Business was so good that he could hardly cope. A few years later he was blessed with a son, which he named Ah See in memory of his ancestor. Ah See Junior in turn named all his children Ah See, like Ah See Girl, Ah See Boy, Ah See Girl Girl, Ah See Boy Boy and so on. They were all Ah See and if my information is correct, they are still all Ah See. The Ah Sees continued the highly lucrative wantan mee business and their fame spread far and wide.

As we all know, success breeds jealousy. Some people got extremely jealous and decided to make their own wantan mee, mainly to cash in Ah See’s success. A mistake in the research lab produced black coloured wantan mee. Ah See Junior then warned the copycats that if they continued with their experiments to produce a replica of his wantan mee, he would sue them till they have no money to take the bus home. The competitors thought, what the heck and began selling the black kaler wantan mee. Hence today we see so many stalls selling such a wantan mee and you know they are downright not nice to eat at all…

Get real wantan mee only at Ah See Wantan Mee. Tidak ditanggung halal.

(Very obviously, this is a work of ridiculous fiction written many years ago. It was lunch time and I was missing home.)

bye bye baby

White Proton Iswara