Penang Street Foods

I have seen the signboard for a long time already but the name Mangrove just doesn’t appeal to me. I moved here for two months and am still looking for the perfect hawker centre near my area, Tanjong Bungah. Yet, I have found none to rave about.

Anyway, if I have no fish, prawn also can do (a Hokkien saying that we grab the second best if the best is not available). All the photos are taken with my Nokia N97. Quality is not up to my standard but I don’t have a point and shoot camera and am too lazy to cart the DSLR for meals around the neighbourhood.

(Hokkien mee with pig’s skin, gelatinous….taste so-so lah)

So, one late Sunday afternoon, all six of us got into the family car. None of us had breakfast nor lunch yet and it was almost 4 pm. Ok, my little boy did had his lunch but not the rest of my sons and I. We are one hungry family.

My #3 son had some Simon’s pizza. Not sure how it tastes cos he ate it all. RM7.

I had the oyster mee. Not too bad. The stall also sells tai lok meen, char hor fun and hokkien char.

Kampung Malabar Lor Bak. Actually…I have never even heard or try the original stuffs so I cannot comment. But the heh-chee must be nice because my sons ate all four and I didn’t get to sample.

Taman Kuda poh piah. I am not sure if it is the Taman Lumba Kuda one which is the Shangwu school afternoon hawker. But the taste is too plain for me. No crab meat flavour at all.

My eldest son ordered the char koay teow. Three of us ate one plate and we kept saying, ‘Not salty enough’ and yet no one wants to walk to the hawker to bring the soy sauce. So, yeah, so-so as well.

And that concludes the not so nice but ok lah Mangrove Food Court review. It is hidden in Prima Tanjung block of buildings so you are not likely to find it unless you stay there. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to make a trip there but if you are in the neighbourhood and looking for a nicely ventilated, clean and quiet coffeeshop, this is the place. The Thai food sucks. My son ordered pineapple fried rice that he said tastes like cake icing??? WTF?

We had breakfast at the Penang Beach Street Beef Koay Teow coffee shop across the Bomba station two days ago. Funnily enough, we haven’t notice this or-chien or oyster omelette uncle before in our previous visits.

Though it was quite early, around 11 am and we really were not in the mood to have greasy or-chien, we ordered nevertheless because that’s what food bloggers do. I cannot be blogging about the gubak koay teow again since I had one so. So, or-chien will be my topic.

At first, I was like OMG, the flour and egg are swimming in oil! The uncle was scooping out the oil back into the container. I was wondering, “Why lah uncle you put so much oil and now, you have to susah-susah scoop them out again? Aiyor!”

But when the oyster omelette was delivered to us, I know why. This or-chien is like no others because the tapioca flour is fried till very, very crispy. The egg part is in the middle and the oysters flavoured with some spices (I think it is ketumbar) are piled on the top.

The oysters are rather small but the crispy tapioca flour made up for that. It is rather nice to chew on crispy batter mixed with the lemak oysters and egg part. Try it, it is worth a visit to the gubak koay teow shop. Also try their sweet bun toast. I never tried before because each time I go, I was too full. But they advertise it on their wall like it is their speciality.

I heard about Hammer Bay from the blog of my son’s friend, Suithong. My son usually doesn’t chat with me about things like these so I usually read his friend’s blog to find out where to eat.

So, there was this one evening after our shopping at Queensbay, when we don’t feel particularly hungry and yet, feel like having a little bite. So, I suggested going to Hammer Bay.

I got down from the car, head for the pile of seafoods at the entrance. The Malay lady immediately recommended their signature dishes to me. I picked up five large prawns and she told me I must get it fried with dried chillies. She said, “Sayang kalau tak masak cili kering.” I was reluctant because the prawns are huge and fresh so they don’t need such flavourful preparation. But she insisted…

Next is the lala. She said it will be nice cooked this way. Looking at the photos, I think the prawns and the lala look almost the same. But taste wise, both are not bad.

I also ordered a small piece of stingray, grilled in banana leaves. They are also known for their fried squids.

My two older sons talked me into trying out shisha. It is the first time I try it and I must say, it is fun inhaling the funny tasting concoction and blow out lots of smoke after that. I love the bubbling of the water in the glass container.

My eldest son ordered the special, strong one which costs RM15. It does give me a heady feel which is nice.

Luckily his friends dropped by, including suithong. So, I gladly pass the shisha to me to save me from further tipsi-ness.

And where is Hammer Bay? Read suilthong’s blog to find out because I am bad with directions.

The place is packed with a lot of Malay families and also several Chinese groups. It is not a bad place to have some Malay style seafood. However, I still prefer Telok Tempoyak in Batu Maung. Then again, you don’t get to puff smoke.

Once in a while, my family and I brave the crowd, traffic, grime, grease, exhaust fumes, vrooming vehicles and long wait to have some foods from Chulia Street hawkers. I have blogged about the place the other day.

Today, I found a stall selling deep fried stuffs like wu-kok or deep fried yam fritter filled with char siew, radish cake, sesame balls and a thin, crispy thing filled with char siew.

Everything is freshly made. This old gentleman would form and shape the wu-kok, sesame balls and etc on the spot, throw them into the hot boiling oil and fry them. The moment they are cooked, customers snapped them up, like hot cakes. Ohhh…they are HOT cakes.

I bought one of each to sample and found them good. So, we ended up getting extra pieces of the thin, crispy char siew thingie.

The above is actually the normal sesame balls but this is made into oblong, like bananas. The skin is made of glutinous rice flour, filled with red bean paste and rolled in sesame seeds and deep fried.

Overall, these fried things are much tastier than most dim sum places because they are freshly made. I like the char siew with its sweetish flavour without the overpowering five spice powder.

This hawker stall is situated next to a newspaper vendor stall and available only at nights. Along Chulia Street where Regent Furniture is.

I have really, really neglected this blog for a long time. Let me see if I can go back to food blogging again.

One needs passion to write a food blog or else it comes out dry and stale like a piece of overnight roti canai. You just do not want to chew on that, do you?

Before I go on, let me tell you about some scam going on. Apparently, some folks are going around telling innocent, gullible people that they can make tonnes of up money by putting food blogs. These people were conned and had to part with their hard earned money costing up to RM1K and above for a stupid site.

People asked me about my opinion on their supposedly to get rich very quickly food blog. I do not have the heart to tell them that they had been conned. I do not make money from my food blogs simply because I have nice photos or nice recipes. I put in a lot of hard work, skills, passion and time. I invest in good camera, cooking utensils and also eat a lot at my own expenses. One cannot have a food blog by buying a recipe book, modify a bit of the recipe and post it.

Anyway…..today I had Penang Road famous Teochew cendol and I must say that the quality has dropped. I like red beans in my cendol, not large kidney beans.

Nowadays, the hawkers are getting lazy. They do not boil their own tiny red beans anymore. They buy those canned kidney beans and hope to pass it off as traditional cendol. It is not the same at all.

The other thing that I hate about some cendol is how those tiny green mungbean strips hardened when it is soaked in ice. Come on, how can…..cendol is supposed to be soft, not frozen. I don’t know what they put in the greenish wormish strips.

So, yeah, the cendol is not so nice anymore. In fact, I cannot find a cendol stall selling cendol with tiny red beans. The only one left at Swatow Lane (the old coffee shop which didn’t move to New World Park) also converted to kidney beans. Blek.