Penang Redux 19

We head over to a big hawker centre in Penang, called New World Park for lunch.

It's situated behind Tune Hotels and only open for lunch till about tea time. We made sure we ordered delicacies that they were famous for.

Ais Kacang. 

My dessert of fruit Ais Kacang. Seriously good. The sweetness and the different flavours of the fruit mixed excellently with the red beans, corn and other stuff they dumped in.

Lam Mee. It was a little bland to me, and needed chilly to spice it up a little. Excuse the pun.

Yong Tau Fu noodles. To me, this is simple fare that is available in KL.

Here comes the big guns. It was deliciously filled with the now familiar spices of curry noodles found in Penang.

The Char Kuay Teow is also another famous dish to try here. I had to agree. It was well fried, not too oily and divinely tasty.

Fruit rojak from the same place we got our Ais Kacang. Regular tasting.

Bak Chang. While it's not bad, I still prefer the one I bought from the van near Isaribi Tei.

Yam cake. Okay, this one is fabulous. Best I have had in Penang. Thick with huge pieces of yam and filled with that yammy taste. Must try.

Banana pancakes. By far the best thing I have had in New World Park. It's crispy, hot and sweet at the same time. We ordered a little too much of this but worth every bite!

Penang Redux 18

A very short one today but totally profound. Most people venture to Penang for the Char Kuay Teow but I can honestly tell you, I like it but I can go without it.

What I cannot go without in Penang, is their awesome Asam Laksa. The Colleague told me of a place opposite the Penang Chinese Girls' School that was totally famous.

It's on the road further up from Gurney Drive. Keep going straight and you will see this little coffee shop righ at the corner.

Right in front is the famous laksa shop. It opens around lunch and sells out by roughly around tea time. See the bags of packed noodles on the top.

Penang Redux 9

We are back to hawker fare. This time, we (well, I) went on a hunt for Loh Mee. There is something addictive about noodles drenched in dark sticky sauce.

This place is called Sar Tiau Lor (3rd Road) or Lebuh Pesgrave.

We saw this pile of deliciousness on our way into the coffee shop. The Or Chien was slightly spicy, as evident by the slightly reddish egg. Large oysters decorated the fluffy fried egg. Good.

And this was the reason we came. Loh Mee, dark, delicious and sticky. Hiding within the dark depths were pork ribs. Oh my God, to melt for.

It's odd that in Penang, wherever you have Loh Mee, you will have Prawn Mee. You can mix the two together but in this case, I preferred them separate. The soup was sweetened by prawn stock and the infusion of pork ribs. Very good.

Another time, we went to Penang's famous cendol. Years of history covered the walls of the small shop that sold Asam Laksa, though we didn't try it.

Walls and walls of pictures graced the shop, attesting to its long history.

And here come dessert. I am usually not a fan of Cendul. But this was surprisingly good. For a hot day, this went down cool and refreshing. While the actual stall is along Penang Road in an alley, we can have it in the coffee shop slightly further down. They had a newer restaurant near Komtar Building but I prefer to stand in the alley and sip it down.

Call me crazy.

Penang Redux 6

Since we are back in Penang, no way I would miss out on Genting at Island Glade. To date, for me, they still serve the best 'hae ko' chee cheong fun in Penang.

Look at this mass of delicious stickiness. I still drool at the memory of the sweet sauce, sticky hae ko and spicy chilly. Excellent.

Fried noodles. The Colleague said it wasn't that good. Wasn't bad but wasn't memorable.

Prawn noodles that I added some Loh Mee gravy to it. I realised I preferred either one on its own after I tried it.

This was a place the Foodie told us the Chee Cheong Fun was good. We had to try it to see if it was as good as Genting.

I prefer the Genting one but this one has full points for their chilly. It gave the dish a different kick. I would recommend this place to anyone. After Genting, of course.

Another must-try at Peace & Joy. Their curry noodles had the same Penang flavour of spices and only turns that rich red when adding the chilly paste. Good to the last drop.

This was called Roti Taiwan. I have no idea where the name came from but it's basically cheese and ham in toasted bread. It was interesting and gooey. I liked it overall.

Penang Redux 5

We lived in a hotel along Gurney Drive and it only makes sense in the long month we were stuck there to have at least one meal at Plaza Gurney.

Hungry and tired from shopping (surprise, surprise), we were browsing through restaurants outside when I saw something very interesting in one of the restaurant Menu.

Pork Ribs. Yes, you heard right, here there be pork ribs!! I found out later that Chicago Rib House is a sister company to Tony Roma's and licensed to serve pork. Needless to say, I grabbed the Friend and rushed in.

We ordered the platter of three types of appetisers. Here we have the deep fried battered mushrooms. Fresh mushrooms battered and fried to crispy juicy perfection with a side of two dipping sauces.

The other side of chicken tenders and potato skins. Juicy chicken and carby goodness filled with cheese. Oh my!

The star of the day. Half a rack of pork ribs cooked in spicy BBQ sauce with two sides of broccoli and mash. The ribs was soft and juicy and finger licking good. We sucked the meat around the bone dry.

Another lunch trip during work near the old Kuan Yim temple along Jalan Kapitan Keling. Immediately next to the temple is a very old shop that had been serving Loh Mee for over 20 years... I think. Should be more than that and it has an illustrious history. Two little squeeze bottles holding chilly and garlic paste for the noodles.

Here comes the Loh Mee. The sauce was thick and fragrant but not too thick that when the noodle suck up the sauce, there is nothing left. There were pieces of pork in it that added to the overall deliciousness of the dish.

Lobak. I liked the meat seasoned with five spice but the Colleagues found it too soft. It was overall a good lunch.

We are still not through with our Penang Trail with lots more to come.

Penang Redux 4

Still on the breakfast trail, we decided to ditch hotel food again and headed to Gurney Drive to Song River where we see quite a large group of people having little claypots of food.

One of the pots held this, fish head noodles. Sour and hot, clear and sweet. The noodles used were thick meehoon that absolutely soaked up the flavour of the soup. We ordered fish meat instead of fish head. In Penang, the soup is without evaporated milk as they do here in KL and I find I like this version more.

Ee Fu Mee. Tasty noodles filled with fish meat. The noodles were firm and fried to perfection.

This egg dish was my favourite. And until now, I drool thinking about it. The egg is cooked well, but still slightly undercooked and soft. Somehow the dreaded bitter gourd was an excellent complement to this. This is definitely a must try!

When you head down to Padang Kota Lama, or Esplanade, do stop by the food court there. Especially store number 8. They serve a really mean plate of fried rice, Malay style.

This was the reason it was the best Nasi Goreng, or fried rice I have taste in a long while. My lovely plate of spicy sambal. Four of us took twice this amount to basically drench our Nasi Goreng.

Sorry about the lack of quality in this picture but this is it. Nasi Goreng with fried chicken and a fried egg. The rice was fluffy and tasty. No unseeming clumps of rice sticking together. Each grain was by itself, showing the true skill of the cook.

We sat at the far end of the food court because we wanted to order drinks from this shop. What's good you ask?

Coconut shake. It's coconut juice topped with vanilla ice cream. There are pieces of coconut flesh swimming in the whole concoction as well.

This drink was refreshing and cooling after shoveling insane amounts of chilly into my system.

Penang Redux 3

I'm back again with more Penang food.

We walked towards the end of Beach Street, opposite the Fire Brigade. We were told that this beef noodle is very, very good. Of course, what we didn't know was, it was very, very, VERY expensive. RM7-8 a bowl!

Noodle in one bowl and soup in the other. While it looks pretty plain, it tasted very good with the chilly seen in the above picture. Dump, mix and slurp.

We each had a bowl of beef soup filled with beef balls and slices of meat. The soup was interesting as it had a slight herbal taste to it. The beef stock gave the soup an overall sweet taste to it. But worth RM7 a pop? I'm not too sure about that.

Or Chien ordered from a neighbouring stall. This was supposedly not the Penang style but the Taiwanese style. It was cooked until the egg was crispy while keeping the oysters still juicy. It was still very good in my estimation.

After days of hotel breakfast, we headed out to Pulau Tikus for some Kuay Teow Th'ng.

Small bowl of flat noodles with fish balls and some chicken meat cooked in a tasty soup. Not a bad way to start the day.

Our order of yam cake turned out to be more of a disappointment though. No sweet sauce was served, it only came with chilly sauce. Also it had more flour than it had yam. 

There's more Penang goodies to come!

Penang Redux 2

We had a few interesting dishes during lunch most days, thanks to our resident Penang Foodie specialist.

We brought to somewhere neat a Great Eastern building for Char Kuay Teow. While I am not really a fan, I do enjoy a good dish of this sometimes. This was fried with duck egg. I couldn't really taste the difference that much, only that the duck egg was much stiffer than normal chicken egg. Overall interesting but wouldn't say it's 'fantastic'. Then again, Char Kuay Teow has always been alright for me.

Same coffee shop serving mamak mee. It was no where near the Padang Kota Lama one. I preferred that one much more. This was a little too wet for me.

One of the colleagues 'tar pau'ed this Bak Chang for us. It was solid with ingredients of chestnuts, green beans, salted duck egg yolk and mushrooms. However, I like the taste of the one they were selling in front of Union School much more.

Yam cake. It was slightly on the soft side. I wished I could have tasted more yam in the mix.

Penang Redux will continue. Stay posted.