Penang, Malaysia: Huge Food Post

I promised Python a HUGE food post as soon as I obtained internet access. Penang has of course (at least in my opinion) the best food in the world.

Let's start at the beginning. Australian Charddy.

This is an odd beginning, but Python knows I love Charddy, especially with Asian food. When I arrived in Penang at the Better Half's family ancestral home, there was a bar fridge in my room with a dozen Aussie Charddys just for me. What a great start! Interestingly, some are 2012 and some are 2014.

Breakfast comes in mysterious little packages.

Inside each package is Char Koay Teow, a Penang hawker classic and my all time favourite noodles. While there are some good versions in Sydney, they don't match the Malaysian original. I had this for my first 3 breakfasts, before venturing on to different noodles. The dish is fried flat rice noodles with dark soy sauce, eggs, prawns, cockles and Chinese sausage.

Another breakfast classic, to go with the noodles, is Chinese crumpets, also called Ban Cheng Kueh. This is a Malaysian crumpet made from flour and egg, with a filling of chopped peanuts and brown sugar. It's great. I think I'm going to have to say (to save typing) that all food and drinks in this post are awesome and delicious unless I say otherwise.

On our first restaurant dinner we went to a well known Chinese restaurant where the chef is famous for various original dishes of his own creation The restaurant was Foong Wei Heong Restaurant in Jalan Sri Bahari and my favourite dish was chicken and mangoes. This was fried battered chicken, with thin strips of green mango which was crunchy like apples, in a sticky sauce which also included honey or syrup. The dish was an amazing combination of sweet and sour in the one hit.

Another masterpiece at this restaurant was what I call a de-constructed pork bun. We actually had pork buns with breakfast on the same day (below).

The de-constructed version was pork belly in a wonderful sauce, served with plain dumplings similar to the pork bun dough.

Many of our lunches have been 'on the run' while out and about, but if at home we have been called to the kitchen to happily confront Chinese feasts. In this lunch there was an amazing array of food including BBQ pork, roast pork, soy chicken, roast duck, fried chinese sausages and other delights. The rice was chicken rice, which means the rice was cooked in a chicken broth rather than water.

Christmas dinner was another feast, and well over 25 relatives joined the festivities. I was particular impressed by the satay man, who was hired to come and set up his satay making kit, and he then proceeded to cook 500 chicken satays which we ate literally straight off the grill.

Other delights included garlic bread (yes - a western contribution which is really popular here. Qantas even served garlic bread on the flight to Singapore), Malaysian Chicken curry, roti canai and plenty more BBQ pork. In both of the photos below, there is a dish just above-right to the garlic bread and the chicken curry. This dish looks like rice with fried eggs on top. It is actually mashed potato that looks exactly like rice.

Christmas also included prawn crackers which were delivered to the house. I should say giant prawn crackers, and in quantity.

Out and about lunches have included Lor Bak, which is strips of pork, onion, garlic and water chestnuts deep fried in a beancurd skin. It is often served with fried beancurd or tau kwa chien which is also in the photo. I loved the Lor Bak and also a fried fish cake at the top of the plate.

Another lunch meal: claypot chicken rice, where the rice has bits of chinese sausage, chicken, soy sauce and a fried egg. The egg yolk breaks and oozes into the rice for added yumminess.

I never realized before that Penang is famous for nutmeg which is grown on the island. A really refreshing drink is nutmeg syrup which is added to iced water. I have drunk a lot of this, when I'm not drinking Charddy or the local Tiger beer from Singapore. Tiger beer is everywhere, and because of the humidity on the equator it seems like you can drink litres of the beer with no apparent adverse affects.

One evening we tried KFC just for comparative purposes. Two main differences: KFC includes prawns, and the pieces are all huge chunks of breast meat with no legs or wings like in Australia. We decided Aussie KFC was better, but the Asian food was way better than any KFC.

There are green tea Kit Kats. I like green tea, and Kit Kats, but I'm not a fan of this combination.

Time to leave KFC and Kit Kats, and return to more Penang delights.

More breakfast noodles. Wan Tan Mee, which is thin noodles served with pork wantans and BBQ pork (char siu) in a dark oyster sauce. I had this for breakfast this morning. Several helpings in fact.

For those on a tight budget, there are economy noodles, a vegetarian dish which is basically two kinds of fried noodles with soy sauce and a tiny bit of fried bean curd. It's very nice, although I prefer the other noodles.

More of a lunch noodle, Char Hor Fun, which is broad rice noodles mixed with thin rice noodles, in a starchy gravy of egg, meat, prawns and vegetables.

There is even Yum Cha here (which is really a Hong Kong speciality) but it was delicious with subtle flavour differences to Yum Cha in Sydney.

I think this is a big enough food post to keep Python happy. I'll finish with Teh Tarik, which means "pulled tea" in Malay, and is hot black tea and condensed milk poured back and forth between two containers. There is also a coffee version. Both are absolutely delicious.

 

Comments

[Paul]

The relies are really good and don't mind me taking photos. They keep asking if we want Western food and we keep saying the local Penang food is nicer.

[PythonMagus]

Nice looking food shots. Did your relies think you were crazy snapping all the dishes? (I get a shake of the head from mine when I do it.)

The noodles all look awesome, and the Yum Cha enticing, and the pork belly dangerous, but I think the idea of a satay man cooking skewers in your back yard is totally awesome. I hope he was offered a Tiger too!