After picking up Gill from her friends’ at the foot hill of Penang Hill, she was nagging me to go to Paya Terubong to try out the extra long crullers that we read in the bloggs. Thus, with all that ‘cute faces’ showing how could I not go, especially when we seldom come along to Air Itam area without any intentions or business. Actually, I used to live near by the Air Itam area, just a stones’ throw from here in Jalan Padang Tembak. Those days coming to Air Itam was easy and fast with my motorbike, now it seems to take ages especially with all the inconsiderate drivers who park as they please and choke up the road. Driving through this area is at time frustrating!
A cruller in western context is a fried pastry made of dough which may resemble the shape of a doughnut or twister sticks with some cake characteristics. Crullers are often topped with powdered sugar or icing, but now-a-days with more sinful ingredients. Traditional crullers were being made and sold at Dunkin’ Donuts, not until 2003 when they decided to stop these delicacies due to the labour-intensive nature of the process.
In this part of the globe, crullers are almost the same as those found on the western hemisphere except that they are coated nor topped with any other ingredients. Chinese crullers or commonly known as ‘you tiao’ are sticks of dough deep fried till goldenly crisp, with the inners of the ‘you tiao’ should still retaining some softness. Last Sunday, after reviewing the Ivy’s Kitchen and after picking Gill up at her friends’, we went to this road side stall along the main road of Paya Terubong in search of the not-so-well-known ‘Te Chang You Tiao’ or extra long crullers.
The ‘Te Chang You Tiao’ stall is manned by Mr. Tan junior and his pretty efficient workers. Over here one could get a glimpse of how the traditional Chinese crullers are made. It all starts with a batch of dough which is then separated into smaller batches or blocks. Then the dough is left to sit or rise before they are prep for the fryer. What is so special of the crullers stall is that they produce extra long golden crisp cruller sticks which are around 14 to 15 inch. The normal Chinese crullers in town are half the length of Tan’s crullers.
Other than producing traditional Chinese cruller sticks with the dough, they also churn our butterfly crullers or ‘hua chi’. In some places, this butterfly crullers are also known as horse feet or ‘mah kiauk’ in Cantonese. The dough is cut to shorter lengths and coated with sugar paste and knot together at the centre which after frying would look like a butter fly. At this stall the butter fly crullers are not only coated with sugar paste, they are also given an extra fragrant and taste of black and white sesame seeds. Even the knotting also differs from others, with it placed at the top rather at the centre.
The butterfly crullers or what Tan calls is, twins crullers, were not exceptionally sweet and were fluffily soft. With the sesame seeds, it had that nutty fragrant which was quite attractive in my point of view.
Other that enjoying the traditional Chinese cruller straight up, in a bowl of piping hot porridge, or dunk in a cup of aromatic kopi ‘o’ (Hainanese coffee), now one could also savour the crullers with trendy fillings like kaya(coconut jam) and butter, honey and butter, peanut butter, pork floss and mayo, or tuna salad.
With the added kaya and butter, the taste experience of this traditional snack turn from fatty and savoury to sweet and rich.
The tuna salad filling with lots of chopped cabbage, carrot and onion gave the other wise plain cruller a refreshing feeling and some crunchy texture. With mayonnaise, who would not like this snack?!
Average Rating for this place:
* 4.2/5 for value (size 2 times longer then the ordinary yet is just RM1, very reasonable)
* 3.8/5 for taste & texture (texture something like ham cim peng, different from the normal)
* 3.8/5 for service (friendly service)
* 4.0/5 for cleanliness (it was fly season)
* 3.0/5 for atmosphere (road side mah!)
Te Chang You Tiao Wang Enterprise
1250-A, Jalan Paya Terubong, 11600 Penang, Malaysia.
+60 (16) 4337301
Daily from 1:00pm~8:30pm. Closed on Alternate Tuesdays.
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Popularity: 5% [?]
i didn’t know got add extra stuffing!!! wow!!!
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Added to my hit list for next Penang food trips on this. The Eu Char Koay look so crunchy!
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Jason Wong Reply:
May 11th, 2009 at 2:18 PM
email2me,
Next trip, bring along own kopi ‘o’ to dunk the you tiao.
Duckie,
Yup! The have stuffing, even frankfurters. My favorite is still kaya & butter.
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eh, wonderful stuff. i like you tiao with ANYTHING!
with bubur, kopi-o, plain, stuffed, mayo, kaya ……
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Jason Wong Reply:
May 11th, 2009 at 2:20 PM
J2Kfm,
The plain you tiao that I could not finish, I added it into the clay pot Japanese tofu for dinner the next day.
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hmmmm… geh liao… still prefer the ordinary one. yet to be that adventurous!
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Aiya… next time I go nearby order black coffee and we sit there makan.. haha
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You Tiao, is my wife’s favorite food.
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ok..i’m comin back soon!!
or better stl, we discuss and open one here in KL ok? charge DOUBLE. LOL
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Very interesting to see the process of making it.
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I went there once, they have many varities leh….^-^
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I wanna go liao eventhough it’s oily
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