Chinese crispy treats

More than 30 years ago, when my eldest sister and her family lived in Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, she introduced me to the taste of a range of popular Chinese crispy treats bought from a humble stall in this neighbourhood.

Wah Cai 3-in-1 Chinese Cake in
Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, Johor Baru

After my sister and her family had moved to live in another area, we often returned to visit their old haunts to eat and buy food that they had grown familiar with.

Back then, these deep-fried delicacies were among our favourite takeaways to snack on for afternoon tea.

It had been some years since we enjoyed these tasty treats so when I read a recent post about it on Facebook, I had a flashback to those days when we had to queue up for our turn to buy these freshly deep-fried items.

Last week while I was out for grocery shopping, I decided to include a stopover at Taman Ungku Tun Aminah just to see if I could find that stall again.

A slow drive with my eyes carefully scanning the shops along the route reaped the reward of spotting a stall that looked like they were serving deep-fried items.

I made a safe U-Turn for a return drive on that same route to take a closer look at that stall and was delighted to read the words: 3-in-1 Chinese Cake emblazoned on the sign written in Chinese.

We may be familiar with the phrase 3-in-1, often used to describe instant hot beverages in a pre-mix of white coffee with sugar.

Look at those plump curry puffs!

This popular 3-in-1 Chinese cake was likewise, made up of three layers of ingredients, slices of yam, sweet potato and nian gao, a Chinese New Year sweet cake known locally as kueh bakul.

The young lady who was taking orders explained in Mandarin, the “buy-two-get-one-free” deal for selected items but because I was slow to grasp the meaning of what she was saying, she patiently repeated it to me.

By this time, several people had joined the queue behind me so I quickly picked my choices for fried whole bananas, their signature 3-in-1 Chinese Cake and of course, their famous Skudai Fried Durian.

In addition to banana and durian, their menu also offered fried tapioca, cempedak, patties of green beans and also plump-looking curry puffs.

Check out the three layers in their
signature 3-in-1 Chinse cake

Using split open brown paper bags that (to me!) resembled boats, the young lady neatly arranged my snack orders in separate boats for the fried bananas, 3-in-1 Chinese Cake and the blocks of fried durian.

Packed in these open boats for takeaways, the freshly fried items stayed warm and crispy when we savoured them for afternoon tea.

“Crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside,” aptly described the taste of real durian oozing out from the block of deep-fried durian, wrapped within crispy batter.

Generous portion of real durian oozing out!

It was not just the King of Fruits that keeps regulars going back for more but also their fried bananas which feature Pisang Rajah, ripe, sweet and tender King of Bananas.

The portions were generous and appropriate for the price, and I must admit that it was pure pleasure to reminisce about this familiar flavour and taste real ingredients with each crunchy bite.

Chinese crispy treats by Wah Cai 3-in-1 (Non-Halal) is at No. 86 Jalan Pahlawan 2, Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, 81300 Skudai, Johor. Open daily until 4.30pm.