I went to the main market downtown after the dawn prayer today, I think I left the house at 6:30 am. I put my rubber boots on, and rode my motorcycle in the dark. The best seafood is always early. The seafood around here used to be the best in the world, and cheap too. Then all these people migrated here, the demand went up, and so did the prices, while the selection went down. Quality is still the good because Perlis is so small, the seafood doesn't spend a lot of time in transit. There's a fish farm in Langkawi now, and there were these huge snapper at the market. I can't afford it! It was either one fish or 10 times as much other food. But the cockles looked good. I had a craving for "keow teow kerang" (fried flat rice noodles with cockles) which is a local delicacy here, so I bought 2 kilos. My goal is to make the best version, simple in ingredients but perfect in flavor. I almost succeeded. The flavor was perfect, but I overcooked the noodles. I think my mistake is that I should have bought only one kilo of cockles. Whoa, this gets deep....
