Penang Street Foods

I have been patronising this coffee shop for more than 20 years but only today, I know the name is call Yi Garden. Been there so often but I think I have never posted about this place before. The place is famous for its orh chien and sar hor fun. Recent years, there are some new stalls like venison pan mee and wantan mee.

Before I go on, do avoid the stuck up lady who sells seafood. The food is not nice and she is so lansi. Some (bloggers, I think) folks were taking photos of the seafood display and she scolded them! I wanted to order a plate of fried rice for my little boy and she said I have to wait for a long time. Bah, forget it. If I am her, I will squeeze a plate of fried rice in between orders just for a little boy, right?

My boy had the wantan mee. I like their wantan because it is really full of fillings. The wantan mee is not bad as well because their soup is like the Hongkong style.

It rains the whole day and the weather is so cold. So, I love the comfort of a bowl of steaming hot bee hoon sold by the bak moey stall. The bak moey stall is located outside the coffeeshop. I ordered the bee hoon with pig’s brains, kidney and liver.

My husband had the venison pan mee. You should try it the next time you go. The venison is actually deer meat. It is cooked in some herbs till very tender. They serve with pan mee or rather handmade wheat flour noodle. I enjoyed the soup and drank it all. A bowl only costs RM4.30 with lots of venison.

This coffee shop is famous for its oh chien. One plate is only RM5 with generous quantities of oysters.

The sar hor fun stall is call kou lou sar hor fun if I am not mistaken. We didn’t order the sar hor fun today. Instead, my son had the ee foo mee with egg.

All the foods are good. Except the lansi seafood tau keh soh’s food.

Yi Garden is the old coffee shop located at the corner of Lorong Selamat and Jalan Macalister, right across Sin Chew Daily’s office. Only available at night.

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Who needs English tea with scones and dainty cakes when you can have all these in Penang?

Chai kueh which is vegetables wrapped in a layer of low gluten flour, tang meen fun, steamed. The green one contains chives while the whitish one contains turnips.

Seafood pohpiah which is spring rolls. However there are lots of devilish good stuffs in them like crab meat, mantis prawns, shrimps and the fresh spring roll is doused with lots of soup to make it soft and yet, not soggy.

Cendol. Possibly the best dessert in the world.

And fondue or lok lok or hot pot, Malaysian style. Plenty of icky stuffs to dip into the hot, boiling water like liver, kidney, octopus, various types of shellfish, fishballs and more.

Fancy pig’s ear and pig’s snout plus pig’s cheeks for tea? Give a quick boil of the stick of gelatinous skin into the hot water and then, dip into the various types of chillies and satay sauce for a really memorable tea time, Penang style.

All the above photos are taken from Padang Brown’s hawkers. I have blogged about this place many times.

Lok lok

Kerabu beehoon

Lau keh boh or old hens are very good for making stocks. Their old bones and tough meat gives very sweet stock. Moreover, the meat will be too tough for eating and hence, they are normally used to make soup only.

When we slaughter these old hens, we will find egg yolks in their body. As a kid, I had slaughtered chicken and therefore, used to eat these un-laid eggs.

Nowadays, people hardly find old hens to make soup anymore. Most of the hawkers probably flavour their soups with MSG and not slow boil the old hens for stock. However, this koay teow thng stall at the corner of Church Street and Penang Street (not to be confused with Penang Road) still cook the soup of the koay teow the traditional method.

I cannot recall the name of the coffeeshop but it is very popular with the office and bank crowds.

For the sake of this blog, I intentionally asked for the un-laid egg. The yolk is not exactly like hard boiled egg as it is not ‘floury’ but firm. Some people, like my husband cannot stand this sort of yolk as he found it weird. Me? I eat anything and if I can blog it, I am even more daring!

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.

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.