When you’re born in the Malaysian city of , like Chee Wong, you know a thing or two about street food.
“It’s a whole different world there! Growing up in Penang, there’s a lot of eating outside. We get street food all over the place. You go to a coffee shop and there are 20 different small stalls selling only one dish. Some hawkers trade from generation to generation and they keep all their recipes,” explains Wong.
30 years ago, one of these hawkers was Wong’s mother-in-law, Lulu Ong, who was famous in Penang for her .
Char kway teow (also spelled char koay teow) is a smoky noodle dish that was . Flat rice noodles are stir-fried in a wok with a light and dark soy-based sauce, and other ingredients like prawns, Chinese sausage, blood cockles, egg, garlic chives, lard, fish cakes and bean sprouts.
You can now find different versions of the dish all over Malaysia and Singapore prepared by skilled hawkers.
Char kway teow gets its smoky flavour from being cooked in the wok over high heat. Source: Lulu’s Char Koay Teow
“It’s a cultural thing in Malaysia,” says Wong.
At his Melbourne restaurant, , you can eat the , which is known to be more savoury, smokier and lighter in colour than its counterparts.
Wong is originally an electrician by trade, but decided to dedicate his time to char kway teow after a visit from his mother-in-law in 2018. Ong had brought her special sauce from Penang to cook the dish for the family while visiting Australia.
After she shared the recipe with him, Wong started selling char kway teow online and had a pop-up at HWKR food court. In 2020, he finally opened Lulu’s Char Koay Teow in a permanent location on Hardware Lane in the CBD – two days before Melbourne’s first lockdown.
Despite a challenging first 18 months, Wong is grateful for his loyal customers, who often form a long queue at lunchtime. “I like cooking and I love people enjoying my food, coming to my shop and seeing their happy faces,” he says.
His signature char kway teow is made with Ong’s sauce, noodles prepared specifically for the restaurant, plump prawns, Chinese sausage, egg, bean sprouts, chives, chilli, lard and lard croutons. Portions are cooked individually, quickly, and over very high heat, which is necessary to achieve , the characteristic charred taste and aroma. “The chef needs skills to cook like this, you can’t just put everything in the wok and stir it. There are lots of steps to make a good char kway teow,” explains Wong.
The restaurant offers seven variations of the signature dish. Wong’s favourite is the char kway teow with a duck egg instead of a chicken egg, which he says makes the noodles creamier. If you’re after a traditional char kway teow, go for the blood cockles, these clams filled with haemoglobin, a staple and delicacy in Malaysia.
Lulu Ong making char kway teow in Penang. Source: Lulu’s Char Koay Teow
Just like in Penang, whether you eat at the restaurant or order takeaway, your char kway teow will come on a banana leaf to accentuate the scent.
You can’t just put everything in the wok and stir it. There are lots of steps to make a good char kway teow,
Once you’ve eaten one (or a few) char kway teow, you’ll want to try other noodle dishes on the menu, like char mee, Hokkien mee and loh mee. And if you stop by the restaurant on a Saturday morning, you might be lucky enough to also get your hands on colourful , which are delivered once a week and sell out quickly.
Ong hasn’t been able to visit her namesake restaurant yet, but Wong says she’s excited by his success: “She’s very proud of me bringing up the culture and the food we grew up eating to Australia.”
27-31 Hardware Ln, Melbourne
Mon – Fri 10.30 am - 3pm, 5 pm - 7.30 pm (11 am opening time during lockdown)
Sat 10.30 am - 8 pm
Sun 10 am - 3 pm
