GEORGE TOWN: The famous Penang sisters who run a 73-year-old business selling Curry Mee and Fried Been Hoon, prove that age is just a number.
The octogenarians operate from a small shed in an alley in Ayer Itam, Penang, and serve customers with a smile.
When Bernama dropped in on Monday morning, the older sister, Lim Kooi Heang, 87, was portioning out noodles and other ingredients – all within arm’s length – into bowls, ready for the piping hot curry soup, while Lim Kooi Lye, 85, was taking orders from customers from a chair and enjoying a catch-up with regulars.
Kooi Heang said their day begins at 4.30am with the boiling of water for their cooking and washing of ingredients like noodles, beansprouts and cuttlefish before business begins at 7am sharp.
They sell around 200 bowls of noodles per day before business ends at 1pm, but during the Chinese New Year weekend recently, the quantity doubled.
“We even received a number of ang pow from customers during those couple of days,” she said, chuckling.
Kooi Lye reminisced about the Curry Mee sold in 1946 and how it was priced at a mere five to 10 sen per bowl, compared to RM5 today.
She said she used to be in charge of ladling out the soup, but passed the ladle to her 28-year-old grandniece in 2017.
“Our grandniece is in charge of the heavy lifting, but we still find and do tasks to help keep the business running,” she said, adding it keeps them active.
Ong May May, who is now in charge of the stall which opens six days a week, said she would love to inherit the culinary tradition of her spinster aunts.
She is sad that no one in the Lim family wants to take over the food business and that many good traditional food stall owners are slowly disappearing.
“I used to work as an office lady but quit my job to be fully-dedicated to their business,” she said. — Bernama
