Life style

King of Noodles

Published

4 years ago

2021/05/2

Food-loving Malaysians have been known to debate the best local food spots for hours. Tan Chooi Hong, hunched over a blazing hot wok, hadn’t broken a sweat. Flames from the charcoal sparked and danced up the side of the wok, crackling as he added the ingredients one by one, just as his father taught him almost 60 years ago. Char kway teow, Malaysia’s most famous street food, is a simple rice noodle dish made with soy sauce, eggs, cockles, bean sprouts, Chinese sausage and a couple of shrimp. It’s common throughout the country – devoured at roadside stalls or feasted on at hawker centres – but there is only one “king” of char kway teow, and he’s in Penang. Uncle Tan, as he’s known, is a sturdy 79-year-old with a shock of white hair and an all-knowing glimmer in his eye. He’s been cooking this single dish from a wok-cart attached to a bicycle and pushed into place on the side of Siam Road in central George Town for decades. “I don’t remember how old I was when I started. But char kway teow is all I know,” said Uncle Tan.

Uncle Tan’s unlikely fame began in 2012 when he was interviewed by a local who put the story on Facebook. His decades of cooking experience, combined with layered flavours of smoky-unctuous noodles perfectly balanced with the salty-sweet Chinese sausage, quickly got the younger generation of foodies salivating. Nothing is better than a simple noodle dish with an interesting backstory, and young Penangites ate it up. The article went viral and people began flying to the island just to taste his dish.

In 2015, celebrity chef Martin Yan, known for his Yan Can Cook TV show, visited the stall for his TV show Taste of Malaysia. If that fame didn’t cement Uncle Tan’s title as king, placing 14th (out of 50) at the World Street Food Congress in 2017 certainly did. Today, his roadside wok-cart is a fixture in the food scene and he’s widely revered as serving up the most delicious, flavoursome char kway teow in Malaysia, churning out hundreds of plates a day with people waiting in line for hours.

Uncle Tan is unfazed by his fame and prefers to keep a low profile. Humble and shy, he can’t understand what all the fuss is about and doesn’t think his version is any better than anoyone else’s.

“My dad didn’t go to school to learn any skills. It wasn’t an option. He had to work for his father, so he worked by his side cooking char kway teow every day,” his daughter, Tan Evelyn, told . “And he’s never stopped.”

The ingredients of char kway teow are so simple that it takes a lot of skill to get it right. The main ingredient is flat rice noodles. No self-respecting char kway teow stall would use dried noodles, so Uncle Tan gets bags of the fresh, chewy goodness delivered by scooter regularly.

I watched as he skillfully added one ingredient at a time, just by feel and sight. He threw a large handful of slippery noodles in the blisteringly hot wok and used a wide metal spatula to spin them around in the garlic and lard waiting for them. After pushing the noodles up the side of the pan, he expertly cracked an egg into the middle, breaking it with the spatula to let the yolk ooze into the noodles.

A few soy sauce dashes, a spoonful of chilli sauce and a little water created a silky sauce that the noodles absorbed. Then Uncle Tan tossed in a couple of shrimp and a few slices of sweet lap cheong, or Chinese sausage. Finally, a smattering of cockles got a spin in the wok. He topped it all with a handful of crunchy bean sprouts, chives and small homemade croutons made of crispy pork fat.

He eyed the steaming noodles for the perfect consistency and then scooped them onto a melamine plate and started all over again. The whole process was lightning fast – less than two minutes – and Uncle Tan made it look effortless.

While many stalls use gas, Uncle Tan cooks on charcoal, frying one order at a time for maximum flavour and wok hei, which translates to “breath of the wok”. Wok hei is the smoky depth of flavour that charcoal adds to the dish and is expertly created by cooking the right portion over the right temperature. It’s something that gas heat cannot achieve.

Some people say that charcoal is the secret to Uncle Tan’s success, but, “they like my father’s char kway teow better than others because he’s perfected it over 60 years,” said Evelyn. “Other stalls use charcoal and the same ingredients, but no-one has his skill. Not even my brother Kean Huat who learned from him.”

Others try to attribute Uncle’s success to a secret sauce. “I promise. There is no secret sauce; it’s his wok skill,” said Evelyn. “I also cannot fry as my brother or dad. My brother has been working for years learning from my dad, and his skills are still improving. It takes a lifetime. Just ask my dad.”

“If I give you the same ingredients, you cannot make the same taste as me,” agreed Uncle Tan.

Even though char kway teow has become synonymous with Penang street food, its origins lie in China. In the 19th Century, the Chinese diaspora brought over Teochew and Hokkien people from Guangdong and Fujian provinces on China’s south-eastern coast. During that same time, Penang grew under British rule and it became a bustling entrepot providing greater employment opportunites. The Hokkien people came to work in the rubber plantations and as traders and merchants, while the Teochew found jobs in the tin mines and as fisherman. With them came some of their kitchen staples like soy sauce, bean curd and noodles called kway teow.

In Hokkien, the word char means “stir-fried”, and kway teow means “rice cake strips”, referring to the noodles. What had begun in China’s south-eastern provinces as a simple noodle dish with pork, fish sauce and soy sauce was transformed into a seafood delight once it hit the island’s shores. Initially, it was sold at night by fisherman and cockle gatherers trying to make an extra buck. Instead of the traditional ingredients, they used what was plentiful to create a revised version of the dish. It was a poor man’s food and the other Chinese immigrants devoured it as something fast, cheap and tasty to sustain them for hours under the hot sun. The dish became a labourer’s staple.

“When the waves of Teochew and Hokkien immigrants came from China, they came alone, leaving their wives and families behind. Since there was no-one to cook for them, they survived on cheap street food,” said Nazlina Hussin, a Penangite culinary specialist and author. “From wok to plate, char kway teow takes no time. These men could stop for lunch, eat and be back to work within a few minutes.”

To this day, most of the Chinese in Penang are of Hokkien and Teochew descent. It’s the only place in Malaysia where Hokkien is commonly spoken, which is why char kway teow has remained so closely linked to Penang. And although you can find the dish outside of Penang, locals say it’s not as good unless a Hokkien or Teochew makes it. That’s why people fly here from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and wait in line for hours, in the hot sun, to try Uncle Tan’s char kway teow.

It’s that good.

Plus, he’s one of the oldest char kway teow legends in Malaysia. There is a reverence in that. “Most customers come here for my dad. People say he’s a char kway teow idol. So, if he’s not cooking, they keep on driving,” said Evelyn.

In 2018, for the first time in nearly 60 years, Uncle Tan took a break. On doctor’s orders after cataract surgery, he closed his shop for six months, and his devotees, like those of any idol or guru, went berserk. The whole island almost had a breakdown, with stories in local media lamenting his sudden overnight retirement. “Today we’ve had to endure the greatest loss of mankind,” wrote culinary website Penang Foodie. “Siam Road Char Koay Teow is believed to be closed down for go

Uncle Tan’s son took over for a brief moment and locals weren’t kind to him; Penangites are loyal foodies and they wanted the master’s char kway teow. After six months of ever-more grandiose gossip, “We had to find a place; we couldn’t let the people down,” declared Evelyn. Instead of going back to his original roadside spot, they decided to find a premises on the same street. Today Uncle Tan still cooks from a bike pushcart with a wok attached; it’s just parked in front of his shop.

He’s widely revered as serving up the most delicious, flavoursome char kway teow in Malaysia

“Now, my son and I can take turns cooking. When I get tired, I can sit down and watch Kean Huat try to perfect my dish,” he said with a wink. “It isn’t easy. But he’s a third-generation char kway teow cook, and even though he didn’t start as young as I did, he’ll be able to perfect his skills one day too.”

Uncle Tan’s char kway teow is not only Penang’s history on a plate; it’s his family’s history as well. Hopefully, Kean Huat will live up to his father’s reputation and teach future generations how to follow in the king’s footsteps.

But until then, “I have no plans to retire. As long as I can still stand and cook over the wok, I’ll be here on Jalan Siam,” laughed Uncle Tan.–BBC

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Life style

Sri Lanka’s first elephant orphanage celebrates 50 years

Published

21 hours ago

2025/02/23

Thilina Walpola

Sri Lanka is also facing a major human-elephant conflict in areas bordering traditional wild sanctuaries

By Amal Jayasinghe
Pics by Ishara Kodikara

Sri Lanka’s main elephant orphanage marked its 50th anniversary on Sunday february 16 with a fruit feast for the 68 jumbos at the showpiece centre, reputedly the world’s first care home for destitute pachyderms. The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage lavished pineapples, bananas, melons and cucumbers on its residents to celebrate the anniversary of their home, which is a major tourist attraction.

A few officials and tourists invited to the low-key celebration were served milk rice and traditional sweets while four generations of elephants born in captivity frolicked in the nearby Maha Oya river.

“The first birth at this orphanage was in 1984, and since then, there have been a total of 76,” said chief curator Sanjaya Ratnayake, as the elephants returned from their daily river bath.

“This has been a successful breeding programme, and today we have four generations of elephants here, with the youngest 18 months old and the oldest 70 years,” he told AFP.

The orphanage recorded its first twin birth in August 2021 — a rarity among Asian elephants — and both calves are doing well.

Two years before the orphanage was formally established as a government institution in February 1975, five orphaned elephants were cared for at a smaller facility in the southern resort town of Bentota.

“Since the orphanage was set up at Pinnawala in 1975, in a coconut grove, the animals have had more space to roam, with good weather and plenty of food available in the surrounding area,” Ratnayake said.

The home requires 14,500 kilos of coconut and palm tree leaves, along with other foliage, to satisfy the elephants’ voracious appetites.

It also buys tonnes of fruit and milk for the younger calves, who are adored by the foreign and local visitors to the orphanage, located about 90 kilometres (56 miles) east of the capital Colombo.

It is also a major revenue generator for the state, earning millions of dollars a year in entrance fees. Visitors can watch the elephants from a distance or get up close and help scrub them during bath times.

Sri Lanka’s Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is a major tourist attraction

– Tragic toll –

The facility lacked running water and electricity at its inception but things improved as it gained international fame in subsequent years, said retired senior mahout K.G. Sumanabanda, 65.

“I was also fortunate to be present when we had the first birth in captivity,” Sumanabanda told AFP, visiting the home for the jubilee celebrations.

During his career spanning over three decades as a traditional elephant keeper, he trained more than 60 other mahouts and is still consulted by temples and individuals who own domesticated elephants.

Twenty years ago, Sri Lankan authorities opened another elephant home south of the island to care for orphaned, abandoned or injured elephants and later return them back to the wild.

While Pinnawala is seen by many as a success, Sri Lanka is also facing a major human-elephant conflict in areas bordering traditional wildlife sanctuaries.

Elephants return to Sri Lanka’s Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage after taking their daily bath in a river

Deputy Minister of Environment Anton Jayakody told AFP on Sunday that 450 elephants and 150 people were killed in clashes in 2023, continuing an alarming trend of fatalities in the human-elephant conflict. The previous year saw 433 elephants and 145 people were killed.

Killing or harming elephants is a criminal offence in Sri Lanka, which has an estimated 7,000 wild elephants and where jumbos are considered a national treasure, partly due to their significance in Buddhist culture.

But the massacre continues as desperate farmers face the brunt of elephants raiding their crops and destroying livelihoods.

The minister was confident the new government could tackle the problem by preventing elephants from crossing into villages.

“We are planning to introduce multiple barriers—these may include electric fences, trenches, or other deterrents—to make it more difficult for wild elephants to stray into villages,” Jayakody told AFP.

Life style

Growing the Cultural Landscape with Suhanya Raffel

Published

21 hours ago

2025/02/23

Thilina Walpola

Suhanya Raffel

The Geoffrey Bawa Trust which was launched its 2025 is followed by Curatorial Conversations Series. Recently a presentation was made S by M+ Museum director and Geoffrey Bawa Trustee Suhanya Raffel. Speaking at the new Bawa Space on Horton Place, Raffel drew on extensive experience in the museum and art world to present insights and programming from the M+ Museum in Hong Kong. M+ is Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture and presents itself as an intersection of visual art, design and architecture, and the moving image.

The evening presented an opportunity to hear from a leading expert in the museum field and discuss Sri Lanka’s present and future cultural landscape. It also highlighted the role of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust in conserving the legacy of the architect and his collaborators, and promoting contemporary art and design. “There are amazing artists, great designers, and reactive minds in Sri Lanka and the region,” Raffel said at a press event earlier in the afternoon. “There is opportunity in the aspiration to establish things, artists doing very important work, and the energy of individuals to try to make a difference.”

In part, this opportunity stems from the lack of established large-scale infrastructure to conserve Sri Lanka’s modern cultural legacy and support emerging artists. While there is the scope to shape the domestic art world and build institutions reflective of the local cultural community, there are also limitations and challenges in realising this potential.

Raffel spoke extensively about the need to build curatorial skills and knowledge and nurture cultural leaders in the region. Recognising this need, the Geoffrey Bawa Trust maintains public programmes, including exhibitions, residencies, tours, and lectures, to broaden public discourse and knowledge on the built environment and the arts in Sri Lanka and overseas. To fulfil curatorial needs and encourage growth in artistic and cultural institutions such as museums, the Trust employs a dedicated curatorial team and runs a robust internship and training programme. It is hoped that building this skill base will encourage others to explore similar career opportunities and support art, design, and architecture in the region. Sri Lankan visual arts over the past century have enjoyed wide international acclaim. “Sri Lanka is known globally for its creative work,” says Raffel, “it is culturally very strong.”

Geoffrey Bawa is a great example of this global influence. During his lifetime, the architect was very well-known in Sri Lanka and among contemporaries around the world. His structural, landscape, and furniture designs continue to guide and inspire. “It is very important for makers to be seen with their international peers,” Raffel explains. This cultural engagement on regional and international platforms is paramount for ensuring open dialogue and exchange. This means supporting collaborations, encouraging foreign markers to come to Sri Lanka, and exhibiting Sri Lankan work internationally.

The Trust is working to support this global dialogue by hosting installations by artists and makers from Sri Lanka and abroad, as was done in celebration of Geoffrey Bawa’s 100th birthday and again throughout the To Lunuganga programme from 2023-2024. The Trust took Geoffrey Bawa’s work to the world in 2024 with the travelling It is Essential to be There exhibition in Sri Lanka, India, and the United States.

The Trust is proud to be part of major professional international forums such as the International Confederation of Architectural Museums and the Committee for Modern and Contemporary Art Museums, both affiliated with the International Council of Museums. These platforms are vital for global knowledge sharing and advocacy. “We want more of these types of collaborations to happen both with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, but also other arts and cultural institutions in Sri Lanka,” says Raffel.

In furthering this mission, the Trust is excited to present the new Bawa Space as the organisation’s public face and offer opportunities for the public to engage with the Trust’s work. Located in a recently restored Bawa-designed house from 1959, the Bawa Space doubles as the Geoffrey Bawa Trust headquarters and archives, as well as a new gallery and space for talks and events that will continue year-round.

Life style

Colombo Fashion Week 19-22 February: Two decades of creating the Fashion Eco-system in Sri Lanka

Published

21 hours ago

2025/02/23

Thilina Walpola

Bernhard Stefan, MD, Nestlé Lanka

This year CFW will showcase a selection of Emerging Designers alongside established Sri Lankan designers. Adding international flavour will be well known designers from India Suket Dhir, Urvashi Kaur and Zaheer Abbas from Pakistan.

Colombo Fashion Week (CFW), presented by Mastercard, enters its 22nd year in 2025 with its Summer edition, marking another milestone in its journey as one of the four fashion weeks in Asia that have surpassed 2o years.Emerging Designer initiative of CFW this time remains one of its main pillars, providing an entry point for the next generation to pursue design-based entrepreneurship. This in line with the introduction of the Craft Fashion Fund this year is a testament to this commitment. The Craft Fashion Fund will select two winners, one who incorporates batik and another who utilizes crafts other than batik. This initiative passed 20 years.

Over the years, CFW has proven to be the backbone of Sri Lanka’s fashion design industry—its only voice—while creating a fashion ecosystem that provides support to new emerging designers entering the industry. Informally known as South Asian Fashion Week, it serves as a regional hub due to its geopolitical advantage. It is also one of the most significant fashion weeks in South Asia, having played a crucial role in revitalizing the country’s fashion design industry.

This year, Colombo Fashion Week has also expanded its international footprint since joining as a founding member of the newly created BRICS International Fashion Federation. This aligns with CFW’s ongoing mission to bridge diverse fashion markets and foster creative dialogue across continents. As part of this federation, CFW has signed a designer exchange program with BRICS, where a designer from a BRICS country will showcase their work at CFW, and a Sri Lankan designer will present their collection there. CFW continues to play a pivotal role in presenting Sri Lanka through the lenses of arts, culture, and sustainability, further contributing to destination marketing on a global scale.

The Head Table From L to R: Harsha Maduranga, GM – Vision Care, Yatila Wijemanne, Chairman – Juniper, Dr. Vibash Wijeratne, Dirand CEO – Ninewells, Shamara Silva, Mrkt & Media Dir – Unilever, Ruwan Perera, CEO – NDB Wealth, Kamal Munasinghe, Area VP and GM – Cinnamon Grand, Ajai Vir Singh, Founder – CFW, Sandun Hapugoda, Country Mgr – Mastercard, Samrat Datta, GM – Taj Samudra, Bernhard Stefan, MD – Nestlé Lanka, Ramani Fernando, Founder – RF Salons, Arjuna Kumarasinghe, MD -Cargills Food & Beverages

Ajai Vir Singh, Founder, Colombo Fashion Week stated: “Colombo Fashion Week has consistently demonstrated its commitment to developing Sri Lanka’s fashion industry through strategic international partnerships and innovative platforms. Our growing international recognition and expanding designer network reflects vital role this platform plays in positioning Sri Lanka through its creative industries.”

Mastercard, as the presenting partner, continues to champion CFW’s vision of sustainable and inclusive fashion innovation, focusing on digitizing sustainability initiatives and supporting small and medium fashion enterprises.

Sandun Hapugoda, Country Manager, Sri Lanka & Maldives, highlights: “Mastercard is thrilled to partner with Colombo Fashion Week once again, celebrating the incredible talent and creativity within the fashion industry. This partnership aligns perfectly with our commitment to support local artistry. Together, we aim to inspire new possibilities, connect communities, support sustainable fashion initiatives, and elevate the local fashion industry to a global audience, delivering a truly priceless experience. We also anticipate CFW to be a great support to boost the Sri Lanka tourism industry as well.”

Fazeena Rajabdeen

The Craft Fashion Fund encourages young designers to engage with and incorporate Sri Lankan crafts into their collections. This approach has been highly successful for designers in other South Asian countries, where traditional crafts have helped establish a unique identity for them. Sri Lankan fashion has its best opportunity to develop a distinct identity when designers integrate local crafts into their work. The developing of this identity has been professed by CFW among the design fraternity, so they are able to create market demand beyond Sri Lanka.

The Emerging Designer initiative of CFW remains one of its main pillars, providing an entry point for the next generation to pursue design-based entrepreneurship. This in line with the introduction of the Craft Fashion Fund this year is a testament to this commitment. The Craft Fashion Fund will select two winners, one who incorporates batik and another who utilizes crafts other than batik. This initiative will support two exceptional designers, ensuring the preservation and evolution of Sri Lanka’s rich artistic heritage. This season, fifteen emerging designers will present their collections, further demonstrating CFW’s dedication to fostering the next generation of fashion talent.

Fazeena Majeed Rajabdeen, Director & CEO, Colombo Fashion Week further added: “Colombo Fashion Week, with its focus on nurturing new talent and emerging designers, has played a pivotal role in reviving and propelling Sri Lanka’s fashion industry. We are proud to present 15 emerging designers this year and to have Sharmila Ruberu mentoring these designers on collection planning. This, along with the Craft Fashion Fund, reiterates our commitment to further the thriving ecosystem we have built, embracing sustainability and empowering young talent.”

Colombo Fashion Week Summer 2025 is set to transform Colombo into an immersive fashion destination by showcasing designers across three of the city’s most prestigious locations. The key partners of Destination Colombo includes Shangri-La, Taj Samudra, and Cinnamon Grand. The shows will feature an impressive roster of international and local talent, including designers from India, Italy and Russia. Renowned creators such as Rimzim Dadu,

Cettina Bucca, Suneet Varma and JJ Valaya, will present alongside celebrated Sri Lankan designers including Fouzul Hameed, Sonali Dharmawardena, Asanka De Mel, Aslam Hussein, Kamil Hewawitharana, Dimuthu Sahabandu, Indi Yapa Abeywardena and Charini Suriyage.

Colombo Fashion Week 2025 is proudly supported by Mastercard, presenting partner along with Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand, Taj Samudra, NDB Wealth, Yatra, Ninewells Aesthetic Centre, Tresemme, Vaseline, Juniper, Chupa Chups, Nestle-Nescafe, Vision Care, Knuckles, Hameedia, Ramani Fernando, Wijeya Newspapers, Hard Talk, Acorn and Emerging Media.