The Lok Lok Man

You wouldn't believe it if you looked at me now but I was a scrawny lil runt way back when.

Blame it on my particularly finicky tastes when it came to food in my schooldays. Not for me the grubby little roadside stalls creeping with rats and roaches frequented by my far more adventurous brother. He even went as far to visit the lok lok man almost daily! No doubt he had a cast-iron stomach back then. Oddly enough I seemed to have a marked predilection for tubers such as yams and potatoes. From mashed potatoes to yam rings, I had them all. Perhaps a failed past life as a disgruntled country farmer coming back to haunt?

Of course my appetites finally kicked in at the end of puberty. In fact if my medical history's clerked well, I'm sure there's a definite correlation between my voracious eating habits and my rising stress levels in medical school. Pseudovegetarianism with the occasional miserly dash of meat wasn't going to do it for me any longer.

Hence I ate.


Where's my lunch!
Certainly widened my culinary choices by a mile. Even the roach-infested eateries I eschewed vehemently in the past didn't seem quite as taboo anymore. Hell, it wasn't long before I was squatting on the rickety three-legged stools gorging on barely steamed cockles beside the other grungy commoners at the steaming drains of Melaka's infamous makan places. All dramatically lit by the unreliable flicker of the sole incandescent bulb.

Not for the faint-hearted.

So when I had the craving for a bite after attending an evening staging of Bottom Top ( great show by the way! ), I immediately thought of the lok lok man on the way back. Not sure where the name cropped up from but think of it as a communal cooking pot bubbling with unknown substances ( left behind by the previous patron ) surrounded by a wide range of fresh foods such as meat, seafood, fish balls, vegetables etc placed on little skewers ready to be dipped in.

Kinda like the stone soup story told to us as children.

And I haven't talked about the hidden treasures generously left behind at the bottom of the pot.

Been a while since I made a visit ( actually almost never lately! ) so it was to my surprise that they'd actually expanded their repertoire. In these trying times of late, even the lok lok man has decided to diversify his resources. Offering not only the usual run-of-the-mill boiler but also a barbecue and a fryer ( with a dubious oil slick bubbling suspiciously within ). Still I braved the evident flesh-eating bacteria and plunged the stick laden with cockles into the fire.

Only to find the lok lok man's choice of sauces had also expanded exponentially. Seriously. Wasabi sauce with braised pig's ears anyone?

I'm still alive. No stomach grumbles yet so I assume all's well.

Hey guess my friend's plan to cater lok lok for her party doesn't seem that bad after all.