Guang Zai Malaysia Style Curry & Soup Noodles (ABC Brickworks)

Throwback post. Mind you, this stall opened before Ah Yen. Run by an earnest but inexperienced guy. Overall, there's nothing wrong with it, but for Malaysian food, oddly I wasn't impressed to want to return.

光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 is a stall that we had been leading quite a fair bit of attention to whenever we come round looking at the stalls operating at ABC Brickworks Food Centre. It has been long since we had noted about the stall’s existence within the food centre, although we have not quite come round to giving them a go considering how we had always passed by only after having our meal elsewhere. It is fairly easy to locate 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 within ABC Brickworks Food Centre; the stall it occupies is directly beside that of the well-known Jin Jin Hot / Cold Desserts that is most notable for their Gangster Ice — an Ice Kachang-style dessert that features mango cubes, mango sauce and Vanilla ice-cream. 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面on the other hand specialises in Malaysian-style curry noodles and clear soup noodles, with patrons being able to opt for different variations of the two featuring different condiments in each variation. This would include different choices of meat such as steamed chicken, curry pig skin and more.

Going through the menu on what 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 has to offer, we knew that we were going for their range of Curry Noodle — we found ourselves opting for the Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup) considering how we just simply cannot get enough of Hakka Fried Pork. The Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup) comes with Hakka-style Fried Pork, sliced fish cake, beansprouts, long beans, Tau Pok (i.e. Tofu Puffs) and Tau Kee (i.e. Beancurd Skin) — patrons also can get to choose their preferences on the type of noodles to be served with their bowl of noodles; this includes thick Bee Hoon, yellow noodle, Bee Hoon and Kway Teow. For our order, we went for the Kway Teow option.

Digging into the bowl of Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup), we felt that the version served here at 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 is one that felt especially close to the one which we have had recently at Da Ma Restoran at Summerview Hotel along Bencoolen Street recently — the Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup) being one that is more focused on the flavours of the curry spices rather than that of the infusion of the curry spices with coconut milk. As such, the curry gravy here is especially flavoursome, but not particularly jelat. One thing which we found about the curry gravy in the Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup) served up at 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 is how it felt especially spicy — whilst we do think that the spiciness level of the dish is at where it would tickle the tastebuds of those who are tolerable to moderate levels of spiciness, we found ourselves breaking into a sweaty mess whilst enjoying the noodles; not sure if it was also made worse by the hot weather on the day that we had visited 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面. Our choice of Kway Teow features Kway Teow that is typically found in Ipoh Hor Fun; thin rice noodles which are especially slippery and smooth that matched the curry gravy well. We really liked how all the elements came together in the bowl; the Fried Pork being that of Hakka-style Fried Pork, which meant that the fried pork came with a crispy batter with a crunch on the exterior — all that with an umami note from the fermented beancurd that went into it in the preparation process. The pork is also especially juicy and easy to chew apart — the only qualm was how the batter does soak up the curry gravy and loses its crispness after a while. This could also be said about the Tau Kee, while the Tau Pok acted pretty much like sponges; absorbs all of the goodness of the curry gravy and oozes out the same as one chews on it. The long beans in the meanwhile added a crunch to the Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup) as well — adds a wholesome touch to the dish with the sliced fish cakes and the beansprouts as well.

We have been pretty much on a roll with Malaysian-style curry noodles served up from different stalls all around the island of the late — having had three different bowls of Malaysian-style curry noodles from various establishments within a span of one week, we must say that the variant served up at 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 was pretty much on par with the one that we have had at Da Ma Restoran; both of which we really quite enjoyed. 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 does serve up their Malaysian-style Curry Noodles with a wider variety of proteins; this also means more flexibility for patrons — this is also not forgetting about how 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 also provides patrons with the choice of opting of noodle choices that they wish to enjoy the curry noodles with, which is a plus against that of Da Ma Restoran and Nan Yang Dao the noodle options is largely fixed. Whilst we had only tried the Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup) at 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面, we do feel that there is quite a bit of effort maintained by the guy running the store to ensure that he only serves the best to his patrons — the quality of the Curry Fried Pork Noodle (Soup) being pretty much on-point; quite authentic to what one would have in Malaysia in our opinion. Prices of the food at 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 are also pretty affordable for the most part — all items being priced a a flat rate at $5.30; a decent price that would not be particularly out of touch with the crowds whom would usually dine at a hawker centre considering how they are also situated in one themselves. 光仔 Malaysia Style 咖喱 & 清汤面 is probably one of the spots that we would most certainly not mind dining at again; a spot to head to get those cravings for Malaysian-style curry noodles fixed without having to grab the passport and battling the jam just to cross the border for it!