DATO' KERAMAT PADANG

ONE AFTERNOON I WAS DRIVING BACK FROM the other side of town and felt a bit peckish, so decided to do something I've been meaning to for a while: stop by the eating stalls at The Padang just off Jalan Dato' Keramat. It's a good place to pop into for hawker food in the afternoons, as not many hawker centres are open that time of day.

Floods of nostalgia swept through me as I approached: as a kid, it was the place to go for "Ch'neh Hoo" (Raw Fish), nowadays known as "Pasembor" - the lines between the two local salads have blurred so much they seem to be one and the same dish now; but please correct me if I am wrong (even older Penangites I spoke to seem to equate the two now). However, the CH my mother used to love was called that for a reason: the salad used to have bits of raw fish in it. I'm not sure, but there don't seem to be any now.

Anyway it hasn't changed much, if at all: there are still the two semi-circle of shops opposite each other; the Chinese one is open from lunchtime-ish through to early evening, and the Muslim cum Malay food from late afternoon through to night. There's a playground in the middle which I must have played in although I can't remember doing so! Some of the tables must date back to that time too, they seem so old and decrepit.

Some of the stallholders seem to have been there since then too: the Ice Kacang (delish and refreshing especially that hot sunny afternoon) seller apparently (although I think the woman who was in charge that day is a second or even third generation).

; the Hokkien Mee which was OK, the laksa and others. The Char Kuey Teow stall was doing a roaring trade, but I was a bit disappointed to see that to cope with the orders during peak times (weekends and public holidays) he fries up a large basic batch first then refries each plate as and when the order comes in. The Popiah Seller was something else: she is typical of those who have become very successful and made a name for themselves with people are queueing up for their food, so her attitude seemed to be, "You could take it or leave it". So I left it.

The nyonya kueh seller is also very popular.

Across the way the pasembur, mee goreng and mee rebus all seemed fairly authentic; cheerful 27-year old Mohd Ubai Ghani and his brother are the third generation of his family to sell there. My only slight concern is the colours: the reds seem slightly too vibrant to be all natural, not that they are claiming to be so of course.

As it was mid-afternoon, most of the other stalls were either not open or just preparing for their evening trade, many boiling up huge vats of Sup Kambing or Ayam (Mutton or Chicken Soup, a la Malay style).

Despite some negative aspects (but then which place hasn't) it really is worth paying a visit if you fancy some fairly authentic hawker or Mamak food.