Penang Street Foods

Over here in Penang, we are experiencing heavy rain in the evenings. It is really God sent because almost all the green field have turned an ugly brown and roads are getting dusty. Now, I can almost feel the grass and the trees dancing in the rain and absorbing all the rain water they can get.

During the hot weather, we eat cooling foods. Now that it is cooler, it is time for boiling hot bak kut teh.

On cold, wet evening like these, boiling hot herbal soup is not enough. We Penangites who are used to hot stuffs love more zing in our foods. So, we gladly welcome the Klang Bak Kut Teh in Penang.

I have never been to Klang and certainly do not know if Klang dry bak kut teh is like this. Yet, I love the dry bak kut teh because it is a little bit like kung-po but this is packed with okra, dried squids (those worm like things you see are squids), soya bean skin and all kinds of pork.

Usually, if my whole family goes out, we will order a portion of dry bak kut teh and a portion of normal soup bak kut teh. You can actually cook bak kut teh at home. (recipe for bak kut teh and recipe for yam rice) However, it is much more convenient to have bak kut teh outside because you get unlimited soup.

Nowadays, most bak kut teh stalls sell other dishes. We ordered the mantis prawns stir fry with salted eggs. This stall cook it differently. They even put in the white part of the eggs. Initially we thought the whitish pieces are garlic but it is actually egg white.

My sons like this Guinness Stout chicken. It has a sweetish taste and absolutely no alcohol flavour. Just a flavourful, maybe malty taste.

What is bak kut teh without all the yau char kwai, chillies and garlic? Plus the dark soya sauce and light soya sauce. Some people like yam rice but I prefer white rice.

I think Klang Bak Kut Teh is one of those few rare foods that Penangites love. Most other hawker foods can’t equalize the tastiness of Penang foods but bak kut teh passed the test.

The above bak kut teh is from Xi Liu Xiang Klang Bak Kut Teh which is located along Jalan Gottlieb, opposite New Bob Centre. There are other bak kut teh stalls but most sell only the soup type. I had blogged about the Bak Kut Teh near Penang Hill. I think my favourite one is Keat Bak Kut Teh where Chung Ling School is.

Kedai Kopi Hai Beng at the corner of Burmah Road and Jones Road sells nice Nasi Melayu, steamed salted fish chicken, lor mee (nowadays not nice anymore though) during lunch hours. At night, the Malay rice stall is still open for business but the other hawkers aren’t.

However, there are two stalls worth mentioning. One is the Alrighty Western food which sells decent Western dishes like fish & chips, chicken chop, jumbo sausages and hearty oxtail soup.

Alrighty oxtail soup at RM7.50

The oxtail soup is full of potatoes and very thick. It has several pieces of tender oxtail and is worth a try.

Jumbo sausage

My boy told me the jumbo sausage is soft and nice, as compared to other Western foods restaurant whose sausage are too rubbery for him.

The above two are from Alrighty.

Meanwhile, another stall located outside, fronting Burmah Road (across Wisma Perkeso) sells pasta and fish or chicken.

My husband who loves pesto likes the above dish. It is RM11.50 and consist of a piece of fish and a portion of spaghetti with pesto. The pesto is done well and even surpassed some of the bigger restaurants quality. The basil leaves leave a nice, refreshing taste.

The stall selling pasta is call Simply Nutritious or is it Delicious? Their style of serving is – Pick either fish or chicken. Choose whether you want your chicken or fish to be charcoal grilled or pan fried. Then, select the type of sauce for your chicken/fish and the sauce for your pasta. There are many varieties and initially we were very confused with the selection. The above is some fish with some tomato concase sauce.

Meanwhile, another son had ham and cheese covered chicken with pasta.

The above is the Thai sauce chicken with creamy mushroom sauce. The chicken is good, the pasta sauce is so-so. But then, for RM11.50, we cannot expect them to prepare cream sauce with real cream as the ingredient is so expensive nowadays. So, overall, it is a nice hearty meal of meat and carbo.

You have to try their blended fresh lemon juice. It is only RM2.50 and I had two glasses because it is so tangy and fresh.

So, yeah, Penang Foods is not always about local foods but some tailored for local taste fusion, Western foods. Sometimes, if you find good Western foods, you may notice that the tastes is even better than some gawdy cafe with overpriced dishes.

I probably should have placed the blog post on Kang Beef House in Jelutong over on this blog. But sometimes, it is hard to categorise stuffs on my three food blogs so I added it over on my Malaysia Best recipe and food blog.

So, head over for the review of Kang Beef House. It is a place I would recommend if you enjoy beef steamboat. Not many places in Penang offers this. If there is, some of the stalls are really too hot and uncomfortable for steamboat.

Kang Beef House offers a cooler and cleaner restaurant for beef steamboat which I haven’t tried yet.

Kang Beef House is located at :

474, Jalan Jelutong, 11600 Penang
Tel : 04-281 0892
Business hours : 12 noon to 2.30 pm
and 4.30 pm to 10.00 pm
Close on Tuesday

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.