It is a long and winding road, with a fair incline gradient. Long by walking standards. I think its a mile long from end to end. You can be forgiven if you walk or drive by without giving this area a second thought. It does not have the tallest twin towers in the world along it; nor the Merdeka 118 building which is the second tallest building in the world.

One of the oldest schools in P.J., La Salle Secondary School; is situated along the middle of this road (or street for those who are American). Then, there’s this one row (I wanted to use the word “strip”. It sounds a bit more decorative than identifying it as “row”. What say you?) of single-storey shops, lining (yes, still lining. Have not reached the “past tense” stage yet) up on one side, at the end (or is it the beginning? Depending which direction you are coming from or going to) of the road.

I have written several articles with mentions of this road or in relation to this road, “Through The Eyes Of A Four-Year Old” (1), and “65, Raring To Go To The Next 65!” (2). Cantik (3)

The rest of Cantik Road twigs off to smaller / shorter lanes, decorated with mostly detached (bungalows) houses. My wife Jeannie, and I; had finished work for the day. Though work was in actual sense not finished and we had nothing else to do until the next “assignment, all that we set out to do was completed. It was fairly late in the early part of the evening (This means that evening in the daylight was late, but the night was still young). “What to eat?” We hadn’t taken dinner (to where?) yet. Note that in Malaysia, “taken dinner” is correct over “had dinner”.

Beautiful (3) Road or Cantik Road is more popularly referred to as Jalan Cantik. Ay that point of time, we were nearby this street, I suggested we have dinner at the restaurant which was at the corner of the couple of rows of single storey shops. It was nostalgia as we used to have dinner at this restaurant quite often over 20 years ago. I remembered passing by this shop and noticing that it was business as usual. Jeannie okay-ed the idea.

We arrived at the restaurant a few minutes later. The restaurant was there, as it was over 20 years ago – the cornerstone of Cantik Road. However, it wasn’t exactly the same.

The last time it was al fresco dining. Tables and chairs were arranged on the road, in front of the restaurant. No tables and chairs were inside the restaurant building (I have to emphasize “building” as there are many restaurants in Malaysia that operate “Al Fresco style” – between buildings in alleys, under the yum-yum tree and so on… I am sure you get the picture now. It lends uniqueness and originality…”under the yum-yum tree” – that is how people know where to find the “restaurant”) The restaurant “controlled” the road in front of it and at the side which was the dead end. It was here where three chefs / cooks / fiesty wok warriors did their thing. Large shield / wok in one hand, and lance / long-handled ladle in another; saying “on guard” and then battling raw ingredients, conquering and turning them into delicious cooked meals.

What was interesting was that they each had a water faucet (termed as “tap” in Malaysia) in front of them, with a sort of drain just passed the wok-on-the-fire. After each dish was cooked, the cooks will lift the wok under the running water to wash them. They use a short handled – brush like broom to quickly clean the woks before they start cooking the next meal against the towering, tongue-lashing flames of fire, lighting up that part of the night. The cleaning process was done in a few short minutes. The whole meal preparation process was like a sight to behold.

Like in most other coffee shop restaurants, the cooks were almost always men. I don’t know if it is because they had to lift, toss and twirl the large, heavy woks for all the meals. The work hours were quite long – 6 hours to 8 hours, and standing throughout.

All this was 20 years and more, ago. Today, the food is cooked and prepared in the building. No more action, action with food tossed in the air to turn it over while cooking. No more flame throwing antics (at least I didn’t see any). Everyone dines in the restaurant proper itself. all respectfully quiet and talking under their breaths most of the time. Michelin star restaurant… mmmnn I don’t know…I don’t think so…. Maybe, one day soon.

The restaurant’s name is JL (presumable initials of the owner or the first letter of names of two owners. A menu each, was handed to us to make our orders. This was not your ordinary coffee shop where you just tell them what you want to eat and hope they serve it.

Being a food simpleton, my meal order is usually quite predictable. Singapore fried mee, char kueh teow, Yong tau foo, fruit rojak, chee cheong fun and not much more than that. My order this time round was Singapore fried mee.

Jeannie ordered a Cantonese fried style meal. Instead of the usual noodles, Jeannie ordered hers with rice.

My Singapore fried mee (noodles) meal was prepared in a fairly unusual way. Come to think of it, almost everywhere we order this meal, it comes prepared differently. This way of preparation is a distant cousin of what Singapore fried mee is (or at least to me). For simplicity sake, let’s just called this a noodle dish.

Looking at how this dish was prepared, it was prepared by a chef. All the ingredients were fresh and the food arrangement made it look appetizing. Now, for the truth.

The truth behold. Not only did it look appetizing, it tasted as good as it looked…and even more. The meal was accompanied by a little twin-sharing dish of cut chili padi in kicap (or light soy sauce) and ground garlic, to add on if you want to do so, to passionalize the meal even further. Every bite was flavor-filled, right down to the last chop-sticks (Did not use the spoon to scoop the food, so cannot say spoonful). The meal on the plate did not last long. It was gone, all gone before I realised it – into my stomach.

Jeannie’s Cantonese stirred-fried or fried-stir meal with rice instead of noodles was definitely unusual. It was the first time I’ve seen rice instead of noodles which is either kway teow or the dried-type mee, both of which is char-ed (fried, I think). All the other ingredients was the usual that went into a Cantonese-fried-styled dish. It’s signature preparation is with gravy that usually is almost over-flowing.

They (who are the “they”?) say looks can be deceiving. I beg to differ here. It tasted just as great, too.

As we were leaving after I paid the bill, I turned round to have another quick glance of this restaurant, as it will be quite some time before we next come here, that is if we will make it a point to come here. It is off our usual travel route. This restaurant, because of it’s spartan decor, can be easily be missed with the once-in-a-while customers like us.

However, customers in this neighbourhood, will frequent this restaurant. The order-taker (Captain, who was a lady), the young girl cashier and the cook, a fairly tall, big man; were all humble and friendly. Being the cornerstone of Jalan Cantik; it is going to be around for a very long time to come. What more when there are three fairly large art galleries around the area, quite chic really.

NOTES:
1. Through The Eyes Of A Four-Year Old” https://leatherpotato.com/2022/07/24/through-the-eyes-of-a-4-year-old-boy/
2. 65, Raring To Go To The Next 65! https://leatherpotato.com/2023/07/16/65-raring-to-go-to-the-next-65/
3. Cantik is a Bahasa Malaysia word which means beautiful, pretty or handsome. It is the most common adjective used to describe something or someone as beautiful, and it can be applied to people, objects, or scenery. 
It can be used to describe a “pretty girl,” a “beautiful tune,” or a “beautiful picture”. 
Adding “sekali” (cantik sekali or 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑘 𝑠𝑒𝑘𝑎𝑙𝑖) intensifies the meaning to “so beautiful”.