Feasts in Penang

Penang, widely known as the Pearl of the Orient, is one of Asia's most famous islands. A place of mysterious temples and palm-shrouded beaches"!

Penang today is very much an amalgam of the old and the new - a bustling port, a heritage city and an industrial base. For sheer variety of locales, cultures, food and entertainment centres, Penang is hard to beat. In it's capital Georgetown, modern skyscrapers rise from one of the Southeast Asia's largest collections of intact prewar buildings. The popular one is the Penang bridge, and now, they are widening it to cope with the heavy traffics....

With Yuen, Rainbow & his girlfriend (丽芳) around with us, our food-visits to Penang was so enjoyable!

Our program started on Wed, 28th night and ended on Sat, 31st morning.

(We stayed at Yuen's house throughout the trip...)

Most of the hawker stalls were closed for CNY, so the following stalls were those found opened.

Wed, 28th Feb - had dinner e.g. fried balitong (a kind of clam, normally fried with chilli paste) and grilled fish (ikan bakar) near Esplanade / Ku-Huan-Na-Kak (旧関仔角, in hokkien) which is not far away from old ferry terminal. The food is so-so.... After dinner, we went to Oriental KTV in Anson Road to meet friends & singing...happy happy!!

balitong

Thur, 29th Feb - had breakfast e.g. kari mee (curry noodle), harr mee (prawn noodle), lobak (five-spice roll) and eggs & ham breakfast set, near Honda showroom @ Penang Road (I remembered it is next a Japanese primary school). The harr mee and ang moh breakfast is very tasty, the rest is so-so only....

Had lunch @ Lorong Keramat - e.g. char kuey teow (fried kuey teow), harr mee and ang tau sheng (ice kacang or ABC). Wow! the char kuey teow is so popular, have to wait 1.5 hour! We can't wait so we moved to less popular stall but that will also takes us an hour, oh no!! So, we ended up eating hokkien mee only, but the ang tau sheng/ice kacang is the best!!

I went back to Ji-Lo-Tong 日落洞 or Jelutong to visit my Dad and gave him "ang pow" :D

After that, Yuen toured us around Air Hitam, thought of bringing us to Kek Lok Si Temple 吉乐寺 but it was terribly jammed! Changed of plan, ended up buying liquorice nutmegs 荳蔻, belacan, peanut crisps 贡糖 and dried specialties @ Cheong Kim Chuan 钟金泉 shop in Balik Pulau.

After visited a car workshop, we drove out to mainland (Butterworth/Prai) to visit friends (near Tambun) and had seafood dinner @ Batu Kawan Restaurant, Bkt Tambun. It's about 35 minutes drive off Penang bridge. There are 8 of us. Wow! the food is good.... yummy yummy!

Sky & Rainbow
Balitong w sweet potatoes

Ice-cream w bread

After dinner, we went to Oriental KTV in Anson Road for happy hour till 3 am....

Fri, 30th Feb - we woke up late (about 10+am), had dim sum breakfast at Farlim, Air Hitam first then proceeded to Jabatan Pengangkutan (JPJ, Road Traffic HQ) to make enquiry. At the same time, we had made an appointment to meet up Rainbow and his girlfriend at Komtar Shopping Mall for lunch.

Delicious lunch e.g. asam laksa, harr mee, icey cendol and char kway teow near Komtar (after crossing the overhead bridge 在桥底下的巷口)... best, best!

Asam laksa & the stall

Cendol, harr mee & char kway teow

After lunch, we adjourned to 丽芳家 in Gor-Tiaw-Lor (五条路 in hokkien), to workshop and Rainbow's sister house in Penang Road (Tai-Du-Loong 杀猪厂, in hokkien).

Dinner tonight was near Bdr Baru Air Hitam e.g. otak-otak, kueh chap (duck noodle), curry fish head, ikan bakar, hor chien (fried oysters), fried vegetables (square beans) and apum-balik (made of flour, it has peanut & corn flavour). Thinking that after dinner, we can move on to Kek Lok Si Temple 吉乐寺 which is not far away from here...

Most interestingly - every stalls that we have visited, either Yuen or Rainbow brought us, Sky will rate them based on number of star - to make both of them happy ha ha:-D Even though myself, Yuen and Rainbow was born in Penang but the eating places we have been were vast variances in tastes and venues, unbelievable!