Penang Street Foods

Yesterday night, we really ran out of ideas on where to have dinner. So, the whole family got into the car with no destination in mind. Our original idea was to go to the Air Itam area for dinner but the traffic jam told us it will be a bad idea to head to Farlim/Air Itam.

So, we drove towards Tesco, Jalan Udini with absolutely no idea what to eat. Then, we decided to turn in to Jalan Delima or rather, we Penangites call Genting. Genting is one of the earliest hawker centre in Penang and many decades ago, they used to have the evening wet market in the area. In fact, Genting was the buzz of the 70s because it was the only place with a cake shop call Yohun (because Yaohan was one of the famous and first few shopping centre), other than Eden.

However, the older coffeeshops are rather depressing nowadays because some of them did not renovate their coffeeshops so it is dark, oily, stuffy and packed. That’s how Cafe Mandarin caught our attention. I had been there for lunch only once and this is the second time I am there for dinner. If you want to know what’s good for lunch, go to PenangFoodGalore for the review.

The coffeeshop is clean, spacious, bright and all the tables have marble tops. None of those rickety tables or torn, aluminium table top sticky with grease. So, appearance wise, it is a comfortable place for dinner. They have tables outside and inside the coffeeshop and ventilation is good too.

I was hankering and salivating for some laksa and was so pleased to find a stall there selling assam laksa, Siam laksa (lemak style) and poh piah.

I ordered a bowl of ‘cham laksa’ which is Siam laksa and assam laksa soup mixed together. It is a great combination because it is not too sour and yet, the laksa oomph is still there. I do not like Siam laksa on its own because I find it too lemak and the smell of the herbs too strong. The laksa is not too bad and recommended by me. My hubby, eldest son and I shared a bowl.

I saw the char koay teow guy doing brisk business so I also ordered a plate of duck egg, yellow noodle mixed with kueh teow. The koay teow is fried till very fragrant. Not exactly very good but for only RM3.30 with two large prawns, it is worth eating.

Beside the above, my children ordered herbal pan mee (no idea of the taste), roti cheese telor (very cheesy), three-flavoured chicken rice (from the rice stall) and wan tan mee. The wan tan mee sold at night is definitely not the one PenangFoodGalore recommended for lunch. This old man’s wantan mee sucks, even my five years old told me, “Mommy, the wantan soup smells funny.” Remember not to order wantan mee at night.

I read from the review the beef koay teow is good. The stall is a push cart located outside Cafe Mandarin. I will go back another time and try that.

So, if you are looking for a nice, clean coffeeshop with lots of food choices, head over to Cafe Mandarin. Over dinner, we met several familiar faces so I guess it is a favourite place for people living around the area.

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