Yut Kee's kaya

This is the egg kaya that's sold at the Yut Kee coffee shop in Campbell Road, Kuala Lumpur. It's how kaya should be made, just like the way my mother and before her, my grandmother, used to make it: with eggs, sugar and coconut milk, and steamed for hours over an open fire. Not the weak stuff made from flour and questionable colour additives that you'll find in most sundry shops.

This is the REAL taste of kaya. Since my family doesn't make it nowadays, I resort to buying them from Yut Kee when I'm down in KL. During my last trip there last month, I asked the chap at the counter (he's the proprietor's son) for a tub of kaya.

It was still fresh and warm when his worker brought it out. "Keep it properly and it should last you two weeks," the boss's son told me. I think he tells that to all his customers. But I replied: "I still have a tub of your kaya in my refrigerator since last March and it still keeps very well." Momentarily, he looked at me with wide, open eyes. He positively looked shocked. Then he said: "Oh, my God!"