Memories of my friend Dr Gan Chong Wan

The Pork Luck Club has lost one of our fellowship. Dr Gan Chong Wan was our very dear friend whose friendship and company we will miss tremendously.

I just want to share some of my memories of him to try and get some of this pain and sadness I am feeling out of my system. We all knew he was on borrowed time, but his death has hit me harder than I thought it would. Editing this is still choking me up.

He was a Leukemia survivor. Diagnosed twelve years ago, he beat the thing and had just recently celebrated ten years in remission. It resurfaced late August this year and he had undergone two sessions of chemotherapy. The results were promising. He and I shared Pol Roger Champagne and Oysters and Pork Belly at the Ribs on November 6th. Then he felt well enough to join us at the Ginza Sushimasa with Toru-san and PLC friends on November 15th. Seems that sometime soon after this he contracted some viral fever and was laid out for three days. He was getting back to normal and recovering, but on Friday November 28th I received a text from his sister saying he was in ICU at UH and that he was in very bad shape. It was thought he would not survive for long, but apparently he swore that he would. Seems UH were pumping him with stabiliser meds and sedatives for severe pain and seeking to stop the organs from dying. However, at 3am Sunday November 30th his family received a phone call from UH and they were with him when he passed at 6.30am. He was 62.

A wake was held at Gui Yuan Funeral Parlour in PJ on December 1st from 3pm and it had been decided that a Roast Pig would be served. Friends were also invited to bring food and wine and whiskey to celebrate Dr Gan's life. We arrived at 5.30pm and brought some white wine. Luckily it was screwtop as no one had a corkscrew - mine had been transferred out of its usual place in the backpack for some air travel reason. There was red wine and brandy, though few seemed in the mood to drink. I was. I cracked the white and got stuck in. We sat with friends David Law and Philip Chai (friends from his short time with Musical Theatre in the early 1980s) and Jimmy Tang and sister Yoong, friends since primary school days. We were all pretty desolate.

Mr Tan from Checkers Restaurant showed up with some croissants and prunes wrapped in bacon. Mr Tan is also is a cancer survivor and I know that Dr Gan helped him through some of his not so good times with the treatment. Gan's old schoolfriends were also in attendance. Many had also been friends since primary and secondary school days. The mood was somber but not too sad. His sisters were playing some of his favourite classical and opera tunes and showing a slideshow of photos from his life that his brother had quickly put together. That he could do this with only one hour sleep on a thirty hour trip from Wisconsin was little short of remarkable. 

At the Noble House in Jalan Delima, Kuala Lumpur

A golden flower shrine around a photo of Gan had been put together with fruit and candles and sweet cake offerings and placed before the coffin. The coffin was open and I felt I had to go see him one more time. I barely recognised him. His face was all puffy, apparently from the steroids he had been pumped with in the efforts to keep him alive. If I had my time again, I would prefer not to have seen him like that. But there you go. We take our friends in both good and bad shape and these become the totality of our experience with them. 

Old friends May Ph'ng and Siang came to pay respects. May shared that she had lit 64 candles to help speed Dr Gan's transmigration - in Buddhism, as I understand it, the spirit/soul/essence leaves the body and either goes onward toward enlightenment or returns to a newborn being to learn whatever was not learned in this present lifetime. And whether this newborn is a higher or lower lifeform depends on our karma and merit earned in this lifetime. We shared some Roast Pig and wine. 

The wine helped shift the low mood. Felt like I had been whacked by a big stick all day. Dr Gan's sisters shared stories of him and his life and friends. Seems he and present PM Najib were schoolmates and sat next to each other in the classroom. The story went that whenever Najib was naughty, Dr Gan always got the blame. They stayed in touch through the years and it seems Najib was a regular visitor to the Gan household when travel and work permitted. Seems also that PM Najib visited the Gui Yuan to pay his respects the following morning prior to the funeral, replete with outriders and bigass car. I saw them haring along the Federal Highway back to KL as I was on my way to the funeral.

Arriving, I parked in the same space as the night before. The mood was more subdued today. David, Jimmy and Yoong had come, and it was David who shared that Najib had come. Fellow PLC friend May Peng also came to pay respects. Everyone still felt shock that Dr Gan was no longer with us. The brother was bearing up well, the sisters not so.

At the IWFS KL Presidents' Dinner December 2013

Again, the funeral was not a grand affair. No chanting or ritual, unlike the ruckus that was going on at the funeral next door, Someone was playing big drums and something sounding like a World Cup vuvuzela horn and they were belting out "Roll Out The Barrel" and "She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain" military style as the deceased in the adjoining part of the compound was being taken for the last drive to the incinerator. Felt a bit bizarre but I'm sure it would have made the Doc smile. Didn't seem to make anyone else smile, though. It also drowned out the speech of Gan's brother thanking everyone for coming to pay their respects. We all made one last round of the coffin where our friend was laying. He looked less puffy today. That was when I noticed the shirt he was wearing - I have an exact same one hanging in the closet at home. He was open collar, no tie as is often imposed by the funeral directors. The sisters know their brother well - he hated restrictions of all kinds. Then the minions moved in, hammered the lid into place and made ready for the last ride.

As the flower shrine was being dismantled in preparation for moving the coffin to the car, I saw that everyone was turning to face away. Never seen this before, and found it a shade disconcerting - in the West, to show one's back at this juncture would be seen as a mark of disrespect... but then we are not in the West. Clearly there was some meaning in this that eluded me. Once the coffin was in the car and closed, everyone moved into place and we all followed the hearse around the compound as it made its way to the burner. The family placed their hands on the car and it slowly made one round of the complex. There was a slight delay as the forerunning deceased had the barrel rolled out one last time. But no one was in any mood to rush anything.

New Year's Eve Dec 2013 at Soleil

And again, as the coffin was taken from the hearse, everyone turned their backs to it! Someone later suggested that possibly this was to avert any bad luck that might arise as a result of seeing the last walk of a friend. Could be. The coffin was placed onto the burner rail, the cinder block door lifted, the rollers moved the coffin into place, the door lowered, and that was it. Goodbye Doc.

Sadder than sad. My good friend got took away and I will miss his laugh, his wit, his intelligent humour and his sardonic view of life and its madness and occasional seeming futility. Prior to his initial diagnosis, he had a tendency to rail against people's shortcomings. After successfully completing his treatment he saw more of the comedy in it all and chose to laugh at it more than anything. In this sense, I witnessed a life change in him and we enjoyed ten years of his company in this changed attitude of mind. 

There was Buddhism in him, for he would visit the temple on the auspicious days of the year. Though he was not a lover of ritual ceremony and pomp. For him, the simple joys of food on the street with a breeze heralding rain, or with his dogs out for a run would be enough to remind him that all was well in the universe. His breadth of knowledge on many things was staggering, especially for things Chinese. He loved his Chinese history and porcelain and he amassed an amazing collection which he would delight in taking out to handle - he always said that porcelain was a tactile medium rather than being merely visual. 

Chinese New Year 2014

He had a great passion for good food cooked well, and would always insist on ordering (and more often pre-ordering) the food for our get togethers. He introduced us to so many excellent eating places in the city and beyond. Dengkil Seafood, You Mi Chi, Lao Mah Zhi, and found one of our lost favourites the Hoi Kee. He would rail against the upmarket Chinese cuisine outlets like the Noble House chain, saying the over sweet sauces catered more to the gwailo market and rendered the food not as authentically Chinese as he would have demanded. But he would occasionally tolerate them and indulge us when the company and the wine were good. I have great memories of times with him at Sage, Cilantro, Soleil, the Overseas on Imbi, the Marco Polo on Raja Chulan, and Checkers in Damansara. These were among those to which we would return on many occasions. I also have great memories of him coming to gatherings at our home with friends and food and wine. He would cook, serve, eat, wash dishes, and then we would share our good whiskey, brandy and armagnac with him when everyone had gone home. We would go with him to concerts at the MPO, eating at Chinoz or Ben's and having Gin and Tonics in the intermission. He truly loved his music. He also loved good food, good wines and good company and he valued his friends hugely. That so many stayed with him through the years is testament to his character and how much we all treasured his friendship and company. 

He taught me that our time together is too short and precious to fritter. If you're going to have a time together, make sure it is a darn good one and spare no reasonable expense. Break out the good wine and food, always. And for him, we always would. 

His late mother and favourite pet dogs are in the grounds of the Gan home and we hear that the Doc will similarly be staying there. Someone asked what would happen if they ever sell the house, to which friend and wit David Law responded by saying that it would not be entirely "vacant possession".

One of the last things he said to me as we were leaving the Ribs from the Pol Roger dinner was "Dying is easy." I guess he had lived with his own mortality for a long time and had come to terms with it. And he was a doctor - he would know that not every life can get saved. Not to say that he was submitting to anything - he had absolute conviction that he would beat the thing again and he was very aggressive in his treatment regime. He wasn't supposed to die. We once joked about moving to Songkhla when we retired to open a bordello where we all would live and look out for each other. Maybe next time around. I hope there is one.

January 17th 2015 will mark the seventh day of the seventh week that he passed, which stands as the time when the soul will completely pass. Prayers will be said for him at 10am at the Buddhist temple on Jalan Gasing where a tablet to his memory is located. I would call on his friends to raise a glass and toast his memory and our time together. Let us each honour him as we know best and how he would want - in pork, wine and friendship. 

He would definitely not want us to be sad. Normally he would scold people for feeling sad, saying "life too short lorrr." He's right, as he always usually was. But then the dead don't have to live with death. For those who are still alive, it is a sad, sad time. I mourn the loss of my dear, dear friend. 

At the Soleil August 2014

And I hope he would spare me on this occasion. Not all sadness is a bad thing. It keeps us human. Like Dr Gan himself. There's a line from the second Star Trek movie where Captain Kirk is giving a eulogy for Spock who had been apparently killed by nuclear radiation. Kirk says of Spock "Of all the souls I have known, his was the most.... human." Of my friend, I would say the same. Goodbye Doc.

Magnificent Fish at Dengkil Seafood Restaurant

Malaysians have a tendency to not think twice to travel large distances when the food is good. They will happily all pile into a couple of cars with no more than an address in a distant town and the promise of a friend that the food at this place is off the map. Though it does often turn out to be nearer the truth that it is the restaurant itself that is off the map, with much frustrating time spent telephoning the restaurant from the car to get directions to the place. But it all ultimately gets smoothed over and tempers calmed when the group is sat sated and full and the instigator of the expedition can bask in the glory when everyone vociferously refutes the original claim that the food is, indeed, off the map. 

Mee Hoon

I find these food safari adventures generally not fun and go along on them with feelings of dread and trepidation. The loss of control of where we are heading is like my comfort blanket being ripped from my clutches. The control freak in me likes to know where we are going and equally how we are going to get back. In this, the Garmin GPS in the car has been a godsend - well, most of the time except when it sends you off into some tropical rainforest wild road with the soft Californian female voice insists on recalculating everytime you take a different turn that you think is better. Switch you off, dear - go and recalculate that. 

Nothwithstanding, normally it is safe to say I do not like to travel too far for my food.  I still prefer a fast drive across town to get from table to bed within fifteen minutes. The prospect of a hot sweaty one hour drive along strange roads to an uncertain destination is not one to be relished. 

But the Dengkil Seafood is an exception. Located about forty minutes south of Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur near the airport and easily reachable along the wonderfully straight MEX Highway, Dengkil Seafood is a treasure to be found and delighted in. Indeed, the reason we found it was in order to avoid an expedition to eat fish at some distant outpost of the old Empire recommended by a friend that would have taken two hours to reach. When we explained our predicament, the Good Doctor told us about Dengkil Seafood. This was about a year ago and we have been there about ten times in the interim and introduced it to many friends who have also become regular visitors and introduced THEIR friends. The food is consistenly good and often outstanding.

Kampong Chicken

The most recent excursion had us doing two nights in succession at the restaurant. The first had been booked some time ago to treat overseas friends whilst the second was a replacement for a raincheck we had to call due to the pair of us getting slammed with a nasty chest infection. Getting stuffed twice in two nights at the same restaurant in addition to driving forty minutes plus to do it. This was a serious first. 

The first night saw seven of us having wine and three types of noodles - the Hokkien Mee, the La La Mai Fun and the Ban Mee. We also had the potato leaves, Patin fish and the castrated chicken. This procedure apparently makes the poor deknackered bird grow large and fat, presumably as a consequence of being no longer inclined to perform his roostering duties in the henhouse. Maybe, but what a price to pay and you end up on a plate anyway.  Not sure if the same logic applies to men. Better not to give the darling partner any ideas here. 

The price paid by the chicken equals the price paid for it by the consumer. It is seen as a speciality and one that needs to be paid for. We have had it on previous occasions when it proved to be a firmer bird than your average KFC broiler. Leaner, firmer, but still tender meat that presumably got salted overnight. Our quarter of emasculated chicken got eaten and savoured but somehow didn't inspire gasps of total delight from the assembled. Perhaps we were not sure of what we should be looking for in the dish. It was fine, just not magnificent and perhaps we didn't know why. All enjoyed the food enormously, especially the Patin and the Pan Mee which had the little crunchy bits of deep fried lard, the Siew Jie, which give a delightful fat bite to the noodle. Pan Mee is the Malaysian Chinese equivalent of linguine and various prawn and pork and veggie bits in a rich brown sauce. Scoop it up with a touch of chopped garlic and you have a mouthful for the ages. Soul food, as real as it gets. Got everyone's top vote.  

Potato Leaves

Our second night proved more of a party. Originally there were to be eight of us, but someone added one and someone else added one and suddenly we were up to twelve. Qjuite a mixed bag, but all with one thing in common - a liking for good and tasty food washed down with a decent drop of wine. This could get fun.

The wines that everyone had brought were various, though enough of a range to keep everyone drinking something - two ladies stuck with a sweet Moscato all night while the rest of us started with a racy Chilean SB from Nam Lee Cheong (can't remember the name - something like "Off The Planet") before tucking away two bottles of 2011 Vicar's Choice Sauvignon Blanc from the Saint Clair winery. The Vicar's Choice had smoother balance of fruit and acidity with softer fruits than the grapefruit sharp Chilean. But both were lovely drops that refreshed the mouth and spritzed up the palate. 

First food out was the potato leaves. These are quickly steeped in hot salted water and served with stewed garlic and have a soft green feel. Bit like a spinach, but bigger leaves and stems. Not too chewy but with a little crunch to bite, it's a good way to get some early iron and green vitamins and minerals into the system. 

Pan Mee

Second up was the Kampung Chicken. In contrast to the bird of the previous evening, this one tasted incredibly good. Itt had a firm texture yet was still wonderfully succulent. There is a tendency to oversalt the skin wth the Ajinomoto, and that would be a criticism here. Even so, not a bad chook. Was okay with the SB but a Chard would have done better.

Third up was the Pan Mee, which was as good as the previous evening's serving. The better noodles are made fresh from flour and water and these were excellent - good bite and not powdery.  Supper of champions. 

Some of us were moving to the reds as the Tung Po pork came out. This is more Northern Chinese and is deep braised pig and skin in gravy and traditionally eaten with bread. It is excellent in the Restoran Esquire Ktichen chain where the gravy is more brown and meaty and richly thick. Honorable mention also to the Tung Po at the Pik Wah  - sweet and sour and delicious. Dengkil's Tung Po was a bit disappointing, tasting of cherry pop sauce and mostly fat. Very tasty, in a pig fat kind of way, but more like a gunky pigfat sandwich than a meaty chew. 

YC had opened his Big Red which proved a metallic, gunpowder, smack in the face explosion of alcoholic cassis and black fruit. Can't remember the name. Massively big, but not overly so, the bold yet even tannins cut the sweet sauce to produce a taste that somehow made sense - a cherry pig fat sandwich with a full mouthful of fruit forward wine. 

Tung Po Pork

There was also the remnant  of a Sandalford 1997 Cab Sauv that had been inherited from the Datin at the office which had been opened for a couple of days already. A glass had been passed to our Tai Chi Master who had no complaints and it did indeed taste well. Excellent balance, even tannins with firm blackcurrant and plum producing a full lingering finish. 

We were still sipping the Vicar's Choice when the restaurant brought out the fish. It was a whopping Soon Hock steamed to tender and sweet perfection that melted into salivatory perfection as soon as it hit the tongue. The flesh had that tender firmness that lets you bite and squeeze at the same time to release the juices. The zippy salty soy and electric crunch of the cilantro garnish did amazing things with the sweet fish meat - a complex melange of tastes across the tongue and palate that excited and delighted. It didn't need any wine to match, thought the Vicar helped in washing the salt off the tongue in preparation for the next teasing mouthful of the fish. Totally stellar.

Soon Hock Yee

For info, the Soon Hock is a river fish that is a river bottom crawler, and not a very energetic one at that. Known as the Marbled Sleeper, this South Asian swimmer can reach up to two feet in lengh. It is a hugely popular fish dish thanks to its sweet white meat and fine softly firm texture According to Wikipedia, it may have healing qualities and promote longevity - and fetches high prices due to high demand and variable supply. Well, and maybe on this one. The Doc says that much of the Soon Hock in the restaurants is of the farmed variety. Dengkil seafood prides itself on serving only wild catch rather than farmed fish. And indeed there is a difference. The farmed fish available in Kuala Lumpur have a generally firmer texture whilst the wild ones in Dengkil have a sweeter softness about them. The Patin we had the previous evening was lovely in a fish oily kind of way. But the Soon Hock remains clear fish dish of choice. You pay for it, but absolutely worth what you pay. Possibly some of the best fish you will ever taste.

Turtle Feet

Friend YC had apparently been salivating about the next dish for the previous week leading up to the dinner. He had been texting Lenglui in excited terms about it, so perhaps my expectations had become a bit heightened. As it was, the Turtle Feet came out to a somewhat muted welcome by the table, due possibly in part to the fact that everyone was still pretty ecstatic over the fish. Everyone looked at the dish with a mix of curiousity and apprehension. Most of the table didn't seem to know what to make of it. Turtle is one of those dishes that generate mixed responses. Some refuse to eat on principle because it is endangered and everyone has seen a movie where the animated Turtle talks like a teenager and is too cute to eat. Others would say, hey it shows its back to the sun, therefore it is edible. I'm somewhere in the middle - try most things once for experience but only eat where enjoyable. This presentation was a bit visually strange - it was partly dark and partly light, and distinctly unappealing from a visual perspective. Dirty looking meat is never attractive, and a few people indeed shied away from this one. Served in a rich sweet gravy, the addition of brocolli and garlic did give helpful splashes of colour. But it did still look an edible challenge. 

Close the eyes, chopsticks in and…  hmmm.  The taste was….   okay, I guess. Texturally somewhere between a soft chicken and a firm wagyu and tasting a bit smoky. The beefy fruit and chestbeating alcohol of Big Red went excellently well with the smoky meat. But turtle for me showed itself as not really a taste to be soon repeated. Not quite enough to satisfy for some reason; neither big in the belly nor full in the mouth. Must be an acquired taste, though not an immediate one demanding to be cultivated. YC seemed happy enough, though.

On the home stretch and out came the lightly fried mee hoon. Tossed with spinach, beanshoots and dried prawn, the chef seemed again to be overgenerous with the Ajinomoto seasoning - it dried out the tastebuds. A bottle of Robertson Chenin was opened to rehydrate the tongue, which it did admirably.

Chicken in Rice Wine

The opening of the Chenin turned out to be quite prescient as the kitchen brought the Chicken in Rice Wine to the table. The broth was lovely, tasting of cheek pinching vinegar and sugar cane with hints of spice. The meat was very firm and lean almost to the point of overcooked, and seemed to taste more of Frog Leg rather than chicken. A superb dish, made all the more delightful by getting paired with the Chenin. For the second time, this wine has paired excellently well with a sour soup dish (previously at Onsemiro with the Chicken in Ginseng). The mildly bland texture works nicely with the Rice Wine, cutting and softening the sour alkilinity without diminishing its power to stimulate. At the same time, the broth allowed the charming almond notes and rosepetal in the Chenin to come forward.  An offering of the Chenin to the table got greeted with grunts of refusal - everyone was sticking with their red. So it goes. Must definitely get some more of this wine. Quite versatile.

The kitchen had saved the Suckling Pig for the last for some reason - normally it would be third or fourth out. Whatever, it came out to thunderous applause and flashing cameras getting whipped out to snap the baby porker in all its suckling glory. Tastewise, there is better to be had at other restaurants, most notably at the Marco Polo in Kuala Lumpur. The skin was nicely salted with good firm texture and crunch between skin and fat. Perhaps a bit too much skin adn not enough fat and meat, though it was still well prepared and not overdone. 

A bottle of La Boca 2009 Merlot had got opened by this time which proved to be a mistake - too mild and thin to follow the Big Bad Cab, So another Australian Cab, Johnny Q or something, which had been brought by our friend the Geezer got opened to finish the night. Not bad, full mouth, not too tannic, nice finish and with that boldy acoholic body that marks out a muscular Aussie wine. The Merlot and Chenin got recorked and taken home. 

Suckling Pig

There were a couple of birthdays and Lenglui had brought a chocolate cake to celebrate. We ended up toasting three birthdays and scarfing down all of the chocolate cake. Barely a crumb was left on the plate. Everyone clearly needed some chocolate carbo to end the night. 

In sum, wonderful fish and chicken in rice wine, pan mee and potato leaves. Good kampung chicken and mee hoon, Pork dishes so so. The fish dishes are clearly the stars of the restaurant and they do them extremely well. The rest was okay. Perhaps because it was s full house on a Sunday evening then maybe the kitchen was a bit stretched to get the food out. Certainly the mee hoon has been better on previous visits. The suckling pig was a first time and was acceptable whilst the cherry sweet Tung Po pork was a new experience but unlikely to be repeated. Prefer the richer sauce and more meaty Tung Po in Kuala Lumpur. 

Happy Diners!

So another expedition to Dengkil in search of restaurants that we can happily recommend to friends as a "must go" came to an end, and we basked in the praise of our friends that the restaurant food was indeed wonderful and definitely worth the trip. There was a bonus in all of us paying some 25 to 30% less than one would normally pay for similar banquets in town. Conventional wisdom holds that success eventually goes to a restaurant's head and sooner or later either quality or quantity dips as the prices rise. As a result it is better to enjoy these places now as they may not maintain in the long term. I hope Dengkil holds itself in quality terms and the food remains off the map for a long time to come. The chef clearly cares about the fish he serves and they are prepared conistently well and expertly. I would be happy if Dengkil Seafood could remain off the map completely and save this place for ourselves. But that is unfair. Good food and great places should be shared. Good luck in finding it.

Somehow I inherited the leftovers mee hoon, the turtle and the pig head, and ended up passing them to Alex, our home handyman who had come to repair a leaky aircon unit. He seemed very happy. Free food. Of course he is happy, it is free food and something out of the ordinary. Must find out if he liked the Turtle. He won't be getting any more from me. 

Photos kind courtesy of Jan Shaw.