Spicy Lambikins

Growing up in Bangsar, I used to eat quite frequently at this small little stall in the nearby suburb of Lucky Garden. It was run by this gentlemanly Indian Muslim who came from India. He made one of the best soup kambing ever. The literal English translation of the dish, lamb soup, fails to do justice to what needs to be exactly right in order to serve up a great bowl of soup kambing. 

It is the mix of herbs and spices, roughly ground to a coarse paste, which is used to steep the pieces of mutton, bone, tongue, tripe and odds and ends in. The resultant dish should be fragrant, with the richness of mutton, but overlaid with the cleansing smell of the herbs. It should always be served boiling hot, with no trace of scum or fat on the top, garnished with fried shallots and a handful of parsley and coriander, both of which I hate and always requested to be omitted in my portion. 

The marrow was the best thing about this overly spicy soup.

Well, this ‘ayah’ (a friendly term for an older Indian man) has since returned to India, and turned over his stall to his son. My dad, out of the blue, decided to bring over a portion of lamb shank soup kambing from ayah's successor. 

At first I thought it was just me, but one look at Kit’s red, sweating face, and I knew that the soup base had gone way off kilter. There was an over abundance of pepper and chilli powder in the mix and it laced the soup with this unbearably hot taste which wiped out the soft melody of the other meeker spices. 

Kit's sandwich, made with the thick local bread which came with the soup.

This reminds me of the sandwiches I used to love at Riverbank in Central Market, when I was in college.

Needless to say dad was mucho offended that this blast from the past fell flat, but I truly have come to the point where I’d rather leave food than force myself to eat something not to my liking. 

Still, optimist that I am, and Kit, with his talent of making lemons into lemonade, made some great sandwiches out of the loaf of thick local bread which was supposed to accompany the soup. Talk about great saves!