When is carrot cake not better with cream cheese icing?

restaurant

24 Jul

Written By Antony

POP INTO PANMURE - BLOSSOM COURT

When it’s Malaysian carrot cake, chai tow kway. A favourite dish from hawker centres and street vendors in Singapore and across Malaysia, you can get your fix in Tāmaki Makaurau at Blossom Court in Panmure. This carrot cake is a savoury stir-fry with the key ingredient being a cake made from savoury white radish (AKA lobak or daikon). There are no orange carrots, and certainly no walnuts, in sight.

Brought to Malaysia by Teochew migrants from China’s Chaoshan region, chai tow kway got its name from Hokkien dialect: chai tow being radish or carrot, and kway a pastry or rice cake. Radish cake (made by steaming shredded daikon and rice flour) is sliced and tossed in a white-hot wok with preserved radish and beaten egg. There are varying versions notably a ‘white’ version which tends to see the radish cake fried on top of beaten egg to form a kind of hash/omelette situation, and a ‘black version’, with sweet soy sauce adding colour and beaten egg tossed through in the wok.

Owner Jason Chan, who has spent 35 years working as a chef, worked in the kitchen at Blossom Court for five years before purchasing the business recently. He’s from Kuala Lumpur, and there is also a Penang leaning too thanks to chefs in the kitchen – Blossom Court is one of the few places serving one of Penang’s signature dishes, assam laksa – its tamarind-soured broth studded with fish. Jason talked us through some of the must-try dishes from his menu:

Fried carrot cake – as described earlier, the version at Blossom Court is black thanks to the addition of sweet soy. The slices of radish cake have a beautiful char at the edges and wear a sheen from the various sauces tossed through the wok. Garlic chives, bean sprouts, and scrambled eggs round out the fry party. This dish isn’t found on most Malaysian menus around town so it’s well worth paying Blossom Court a visit especially for this.

Nasi lemak with beef rendang – the classic plating of steamed coconut-infused rice with various accompaniments is well represented here. The beef rendang version boasts boneless beef that’s been slow-cooked for around three hours to infuse the aromatics and tenderise the meat. The kitchen here deep fries peanuts with skins on, as well as teeny anchovies, to provide the crunchy balance, and the sambal is redolent with more anchovies, onion and tomato.

Lo see fun – another dish that’s less commonly found on menus is one that is also fondly known as silver needle, rice pin, or mouse-tail noodles due to the shape of the white rice noodles, which taper to a fine point. A good dose of belacan in the mix means this dish will appeal to char kuey teow lovers – try something a bit different and give this a go in place of your usual CKT next time (although the KL-style CKT at Blossom Court is also well worth trying!).

The menu boasts a variety of Malaysian tea and coffee options as well as a plethora of bubble tea options. Save room for dessert – durian ice cream! Also ice kacang – shaved ice with a host of toppings, and on weekends you can order bubur cha cha – a warm dessert of pandan-infused coconut milk with sweet potato.