I have this thing for beef noodles. Not the Teochew soup version, but the Hainanese dry enticer. I picture the dish – some thick white beehoon peeping out at you through a slosh of thick gooey and beefy sauce, covered with slices of soft shin beef with traces of tendon, as if artificially pressed in, under some pile of stewed tripes, medium cooked top side beef slices and with a couple of beef balls showered with roasted peanuts and beansprouts. . I can taste my imagination – the thick sauce clinging onto the slightly sweet beehoon, with some pieces of tripe all dangling on my chopsticks (I don’t pick them up like my late stern Cantonese dad taught me, but kinda scoop it all up without dripping one drop. It’s actually a skill.). Wait. There’s that little ball of lime, tucked at the side of the bowl beside that little salad of pickled vegetable – like some fireman on call, all ready to douse the desire and calm the beefiness. There’s more, the stinging own-made chilli sauce has a dollop of chinchalok (fermented shrimps and onion sauce) inside, dip the beef in, and it’s the finale to each mouthful. It tastes beefy, sour, spicy hot, sweet, salty and feels soft, chewy, crunchy, saucy and juicy.

The original seremban "Beef Noodle" stall - The outstanding element in this beef noodles dish, besides the nice sweetness of the sauce, is the thick own-made beehoon noodles.

Which is why I have to tell you folks about the Seremban beef noodle legacy, which made its first appearance in Amoy Street Food Centre five years ago. I’ve being enjoying Mr Wong’s Seremban Beef Noodle for some time here. It’s not that I have any idea what the real deal Seremban version tastes like then, he just makes a mean version of it (he also does it with a mean look – a mask that hides his pride and professionalism in his craft). But about one month ago, chance brought me there. Helen and Adrian’s wedding made us turn off the North East highway just before Kuala Lumpur into Seremban, a place many of us know, but never go. Of course the wedding was NOT by chance, the morning breakfast trip to the original Seremban beef noodle shrine, was. Seremban is a nice old charming town, very humdrum and not much to distract – safe for the beef noodles and the popular Seremban Siew Pau (baked meat buns – but that’s another story.).

The old town wet market at Jalan Pasar has a little hawker centre above and it is here that the original “Beef Noodle” stall (no 748) was born some 60 years ago. It’s a little run down but very well oiled and patronised. At least two bowls of noodles fly off the counter every minute they open from 7am to 3pm each day they open. The Goh family, originally from Hainan, China is an icon there. The founding patriarch, at 95 years old, is still out at the stall everyday fielding kaypoh questions from people like me and offering a smile when you wonder what makes him tick, “it’s my beef noodles.”, he said, short, sharp and rehearsed.. The real talking came from his little bowl of thick sauced noodles. The beefiness was intense but not too savoury as many versions I’ve had are wont to be. It had a nice sweetness that perhaps came from herbs that did not jar the flavour but the outstanding element in there, besides the sauce, was the thick own-made beehoon noodles – it tasted completely like rice flour without that chewy sensation that mass produced ones gave. It carried the flavour of the sauce very well. They naturally used the chilled and fresher local beef that helps in making a good base stock. The meat was soft, juicy and the tripe had a soft crunch to it. The peanuts, sesames seeds and salted vegetable were all nice touches.

Mr Wong Chin Tong, the nephew of the original seremban beef noodle stall, learnt it from his uncle for 5 years before returning back to Singapore to start his own stall.

“So tok kong (slang for sensational), that’s why I had to learn from my uncle and sell it in Singapore lor.’, was what Mr Wong Chin Tong did for five years before returning to his native Singapore to set up shop. The only element he cannot replicate is the noodles, a bit of a bummer as “the cost to make it – central kitchen, machine and time, is not worthwhile for just this one shop of mine”. So he resorts to suppliers but he makes up for it with his beefier than original sauce as “I’ve to improvise with other ingredients because I cannot afford to use fresh chilled beef here.” I found traces of carrots and radish in his stock. The meats come juicy and moist and he uses beef shin and lean slices. Sometimes he’ll ask regulars if they want some divine slivers of fat on their meat, which many like me, dive in for it.

Heck, I usually just pretend that the roasted peanuts are fibre, the salted vegetables are fat burners, the lime colon cleanses and his thick chilli sauce is an antioxidant.