Penang Street Foods

Older generation people must eat birthday mee (or seh jit mee) on their birthday. If I am not mistaken, this is more of a Hokkien tradition as there is another type of Teochew birthday mee. This noodle has the Nyonya influence as it uses sambal belacan.

Why do people eat birthday mee? The noodle is long and hence, it signifies old age (long long time to live).

I haven’t had nice lam mee for a long time already because most stalls are very stingy with the prawns. Nowadays, they use a few slices of fish cakes or fake crabsticks. However, this stall, Ah Lim Birthday Mee garnished the noodle with two very firm and fresh prawns.

A plate costs RM3.00.

The soup is very sweet without the strong MSG flavour. They must have slow boiled pork bones to get that sweetness. I also like the authentic pinkish slivers of eggs. I could never get my eggs fried this thin and sliced so uniformly.

The sambal belacan is also very kickass. Beside this, they also put some soya sauce pork cooked with tong chai. I have never seen pork cooked this way before. Nice.

The coffee shop is located at the corner of Jalan Macalister and Jalan Krian. Jalan Krian is near the junction of Anson Road, where 8-row (the old heritage buildings turned into restaurants) is. The coffee shop does not have any other food stalls except a Pei Tan (century egg) porridge stall and roti bakar.

My little boy enjoyed his roti bakar and half boiled egg. I went to the kitchen to ‘inspect’ and didn’t see any toaster. I believe they must have used charcoal to toast the bread.

It was a cold, rainy afternoon and eating lam mee with lots of sambal belacan was so comforting. Just like olden times when my mother used to cook this noodle.

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Loh Mee is never my favourite. There are only a few Loh Mee stalls that make decent Loh Mee. This Hainanese Loh Mee at the corner coffee shop located at Jalan Jones and Jalan Burmah originally comes from the coffee shop next to the Kuan Yin Temple in Pitt Street. According to the sign, their Loh Mee has been around since 1957.

So you can bet that they are making the original Loh Mee.

They leave mugs of vinegared garlic and chilli paste on the table. So, I poured a large amount because I love the sourish garlic. These garlic, vinegar and chilli will give the very goey, sticky gravy of the noodle its’ taste.

Loh Mee is normally garnished with pig’s liver, skin, intestines, ears, tongues (have I made you puke yet?) and hard boiled eggs.

If the pig’s internal organs turn you off, you can always opt for simple stuffs like pork and hardboiled egg. I believe not many other states serve their loh mee the way Penangites do. So, give Loh Mee a try next time you are in Penang. The slurrpy gravy plus the sourish sauce are special.

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We overheard about this place from other people’s conversation. They mentioned the dim sum place behind Federal Theatre. Of course, Federal Theatre is no longer a cinema but some massage parlor or cafe. This old and humble dim sum place is nested in the flats behind the Federal, along Jalan Samak. (yeah, same name as the Thai PM whom they are trying to get rid off)

We went to the place on a cold, rainy morning and what better food to keep us warm than dongguai terrapin? A claypot costs RM12 and is enough for two person. The soup is clear, with a hint of donggua and is served with lots of young ginger and coriander leaves.

I believe the little tortoise is call a terrapin or ‘pik’ in Hokkien. It is one of those river terrapin which is reared as food. It is kinda cruel to whack dead a dumb terrapin for its jelly like skin and meat, isn’t it? They didn’t label a dumb person who is easily taken advantage off as a ’sui yee’ for nothing.

The terrapin has outer skin which is jelly like and the inner meat which is a bit like pork. The stall sells white rice with the soup. Beside this terrapin, they also have paddy chicken or frog or ‘theen kai’. The chillie sauce they gave for dipping tastes very hot and sweetish.

The coffee shop name is Tuck Sai and it is just a little hidden coffeeshop at the ground floor of one of the flats behind the Federal Theatre.

The main attraction is the dim sum but I will go for the soup because the dim sum is so-so, as can be expected from the economical cheap dim sum. The above is the Hongkong chee cheong fun. I just looked at my old post and noticed that I just ate HK chee cheong fun last week.

Part of the dim sum we ordered. There were just two of us so we cannot order much as the pot of soup is rather filling.

Check out the place the next time you wish to eat soup like frog soup or terrapin soup.

Thanks to all who alerted me about the broken feed. I also do not know why Feedburner cannot trace my blog feeds.

So, I upgraded to WP 2.6.1.

And I cannot get a validation.

So, I change theme.

And I get a validation now.

But Feedburner still said - The domain “www.penangfoods.com” does not seem to exist.

Sienz.

I really ran out of ideas why.

Anyway, I quite like this theme because it bright and sunny.