SEBERANG PERAI, May 10 — Penang is well known for its pungent fruit rojak — a medley of cut fruits and vegetables tossed in a dark, thick and sticky sauce which is then sprinkled with crushed groundnuts.
Over on the mainland side of the island state, this particular snack — also known as chiam chiam (sticks in Hokkien) or rojak cucuk (skewered rojak in Bahasa Malaysia) — is served a different way and the sauces also have a slightly different flavour.
The usual Penang island style fruit rojak comes with a thick shrimp paste sauce, which explains the pungent aroma that comes with it, but the mainland version comes with a slightly different mixture of sauces that are less pungent.
The fruits and vegetables are all similarly cut into small bite-size pieces but instead of mixing it all up into a platter of jumbled fruits and vegetables, these are skewered on bamboo sticks.
In the few stalls selling these unique morsels of delicious fruits and vegetables, the varieties available include guava, cucumber, turnips (locally known as mangkuang in Hokkien), mangoes, umbra (also known as kedondong) and water apples or jambu air in Bahasa Malaysia.
They also have non-fruit items such as cuttlefish, puffed tofu (tau pok) and fritters.
In these stalls, there will be stacks of these fruits on sticks while several containers full of thick, black, syrupy sauces covered with crushed groundnuts are placed next to them.
About three to four pieces of these tiny morsels are skewered on a stick and to eat it, one only needs to dip the whole stick of fruit into any one of the large containers of sauces.
There is an unspoken rule for all who eat at these stalls that you only dip your fruit stick into those large vat of sauces once and never dip it back in again after taking a bite. Yes, no double dipping.
These stalls usually offer two choices of sauces: spicy or mildly spicy.
However, the base ingredients for both sauces are the same which is a mixture of brown sugar, a small amount of fermented shrimp paste, some sweet dark soy sauce and just a tiny bit of tamarind juice.
The sauces are almost cloyingly sweet but are saved by the slightest bit of zest from the tamarind juice and the sharp hot flavour of chillies for the spicy option.
Be prepared for a whole lot of mess as the stalls do not provide plates so after dipping the fruits into the sauces, it will be dripping all over the floor as you don’t get to sit down since these places are just stalls by the roadside.
There are not many stalls selling these but we found four you can check out, each selling those fruits on sticks with a slightly different concoction of sweet and spicy shrimp paste sauces.
Try them out at:
Jalan Permatang Pauh, Permatang Pauh
GPS: 5.408531, 100.413841
Time: 4pm-6pm
Jalan Pantai, Butterworth (two stalls next to each other here)
GPS: 5.407289, 100.368032
Time: 4pm-6pm
Jalan Megat Harun, Batu Mertajam
GPS: 5.360416, 100.460855
Time: 3.30pm-6pm
