Char Koay Teow, the inadvertent revival of "Not many, if any!"

Chinese New Year. Not the sickly hot and tedious affair that I had dreaded.

Earlier plan to abandon the festivities in hometown Penang this year and hibernate in foetal position in KL until the last of the fireworks went poof got upended last-minute. Mag and precious Ollie decided to come home after all!

And who says no to Ollie? To quote this (admittedly catchy in retrospect) one-time NZ hip-hop flash in the pan, "Not many, if any!"

The same quote, also applies as standard response by any person worth his or her weight on the island to my biggest beef during Chinese New Year - the question on the streets, "what to eat ah??"

But this one time, I was coaxed by Toto into the wild frontier of Penang CNY traffic to break fast with him at this cafe, end of Jalan Air Itam, almost at the foot of Penang Hill.

This industrious couple dished up plate after plate of authentic Char Koay Teow.

A decidedly small portion for RM5, as expected. But the smoky, heady plate of silky noodles, thoroughly coated with the goodness of egg and animal fat, topped with two pudgy, fresh prawns KILLED it.

"Uh, how many dudes you know roll like this,

how many dudes you know flow like this,

not many, if any,not many, if any,

How many dudes you know who got the skills to go in and rock,

a show like this,
uh uh, uh uh, I don't know any body."

The exception it seems, is here.

Now excuse me while I try restore my long-buried ambition to become a rapper, uh uh uh uh

Excellent Cafe (also "Xin Ya Zhou" or "New Asia" in Mandarin)
Jalan Air Itam
(last coffee shop on your left if you're coming from Georgetown, right before you hit the Penang Hill roundabout)
11400 Penang

Breakfast Technicolour while we wait

Been a little over a drab, dismal week since Ollie left Penang. And with his departure goes the immediate catalyst for me to head back to the island as often as the opportunity presents itself. It isn't entirely a warranted bias, considering the multiple other wonders each Penang trip packs in.

Tends to start off a little like this - we hit the highway by 5AM, he, eager as a beaver on acid and I, bleary-eyed and most certainly hungover. Engage in sardonic pre-dawn banter until we reach Penang, the sight of the ocean from the bridge crossing to the island drawing a sigh of brief contentment and a moment of silence.

And then, it's time for breakfast.

Ugly commercial monoliths juxtaposed with the agreeable facade of old Penang

This particular morning, he convinces me that I simply must try the famous Pitt Street Koay Teow Th'ng, relocated to Carnavon Street. I argue that I've never seen koay teow th'ng as food fit for the hale and hearty. But he wins this round.

There is something to be said about food this pale and uninviting in colour, but delivers the warmth and nourishment deemed necessary for rehabilitation WITHOUT tasting like it came from the hospital's cooking quarters. The fish balls are high-spirited characters, springing upon every dip and bite.

Requisite condiment of bird's eye chillies and chopped garlic swimming in soy sauce

OK, I couldn't get past the paleness of koay teow th'ng and sent him running for neighbourly atonement in the form of Penang Hokkien Mee from Kafe Ping Hooi down the road. Fire-engine red crustacean-laced broth screams "Welcome back!!!" like no other. The accompanying tender pork ribs are a legitimate rival to Hong Kong Street's version across the road.


The resident pastry vendor within Pitt St. koay teow th'ng's coffee shop also showcases a few tricks up their sleeves, one of which being the Coconut Tart. Crumbly, candied golden Penang charm.


The potent taste of old Penang deliver the dark, solemn crucial wake-up call to begin another colourful weekend from the island treasure chest.


So while Ollie packs on the year-end warm duds to counter the bitterly cold winter in the Kansai region of Japan, we await his return, drumming our grey fingers on the tabletop serving the sunny, vibrant spirit of Penang.


Famous Pitt St Koay Teow Th'ng
93 Carnavon Street
10300 Penang


Kafe Ping Hooi
Corner Carnavon Street & Lebuh Melayu
10300 Penang

The Wings Beneath My Wind

The latest wind from Japan brought not only dear Ollie to the shores of northern Malaysia, but also some very tasty chicken wings, a.k.a. Tebasaki deep fried chicken wings, specialty of Nagoya.

We're no fans of frozen, pre-cooked food but hang on, no one does frozen food like the Japs.


Our little family reunion, starring Ollie and his happy dance gets a boost from frozen wings that Mag had thoughtfully carted back in her luggage. Off into a boiling vat of oil they go!

The already-seasoned juicy wings get Mama Chow's loving treatment with the soy, sake, sugar and mirin mix that comes in the package.

There is nothing quite like chomping these juicy babies down while playing hide-and-seek with Ollie and wondering if being childless is what life's programme is about.

Pick some up at the frozen food section of your local supermarket the next time you're in Japan!

A Great Deal (of Spice), Anna Thai Kitchen, Pulau Tikus

Apart from the ability to speak rapid-fire Hokkien and guerilla traffic dexterity, anyone Penang-born worthy of this unique birthmark must also possess the aptitude to sniff out a good deal in any condition.

A pretty good deal is what's been driving throngs of hungry, carb-starved locals to Anna Thai Kitchen in Pulau Tikus. We arrived slightly before noon and the place was packed to the brim, with a steady queue forming. I learned of this place first from CK Lam and I'd been counting down the days until my visit back to Penang to give it a go.

Anna Thai offers a decent selection of ready-cooked economy rice-style Thai dishes, as well as some staples ala carte. All very affordable, almost kopitiam prices! Warning: we found the spice factor in the dishes here tongue-numbing. Definitely not for chilli wimps!

I dove straight for the Thai Pork Leg Stew Rice (Khao Kha Moo) on the ala carte menu and it arrived a true picture of grace. The chilli sauce missing from the picture was startlingly, deliciously fiery. Much closer to the real thing sampled on the side streets of Bangkok than this inferior version on the other side of the island.

Dad and Mag both sampled the Chicken Rice (Khao Man Kai) with great enjoyment. The intrepid gourmand Ollie couldn't keep his chubby hands away and proclaimed it "Oishiiiii!!"

The Kerabu Rice was a deceptively delightful and kaleidoscopic mix of texture and taste. Shortly after the first swallow, the finely chopped bird's eye chilli and ground chilli powder sneak up on you with alarming speed. Make sure you have a tall icy glass or four handy!

The dishes from the fast disappearing trays outside, while unassuming, would appease even the stickiest tastebuds. The Thai Red Chicken Curry with Bamboo (Kaeng Phet) was creamy and robust, driving us mad for even more rice.

More spice in the Curry Chicken. We were sweating buckets at this point.

The Otak-Otak, a touch more moist than I like but flavour-wise, full marks.

The requisite plate of greens (featuring yet more chillies) rounded off a meal VERY heavy on the girth and our gastrointestinal system but VERY light on the pocket.

A Penang deal-maker? You bet you bottom ringgit it is!

Anna Thai Kitchen

26, Jalan Moulmein

Pulau Tikus

10350 Penang

You Shall Eat Well in Penang

Who ever gets tired of Penang food porn? Not me!

So while I try to sift through the massive collection of random food photographs amassed in the camera and figure out what the hell to do with them (how do food bloggers do it? Do you guys make notes? Impose a post deadline?), here's another edition of more friendly food finds on sunny island.

Penang Curry Mee arrived at the perpetually packed New Cathay Coffee Shop, Pulau Tikus. I like this version because the curry is a notch thicker than average but not as loaded as the curry laksas down south. Cloud Nine mornings are made of this.

We also visited the poorly ventilated Sin Kim San Coffee Shop on Macalister Road. The Curry Chee Cheong Fun gets top marks with the olds because of the healthy chunks of chicken on smooth silken rice rolls. Didn't fancy the plasticware it came in, but I could definitely appreciate the robust gravy.

Also at Sin Kim San was Koay Chiap, a craft that is slowly but surely dying. The stall here serves up a perfectly worthy bowl of this herbal and somber delicacy, the handmade rice noodles springier to the spoon compared to the famed Kimberly Street's version.

To round off this day of eating well in Penang was a serving of Stewed Pork Leg, served with rice. The pork was fatty and invoked varying levels of lust. While not the best around, it was still very satisfying.

New Cathay
425E Jalan Burma
10350 Penang

Sin Kim San
Corner of Macalister Road & Rangoon Road
10400 Penang

An Almost Ex-Convict and a Cop at Penang's First Nasi Kandar, Jelutong

Dogged by alcoholic wakefulness over the recent break in Penang, I would invoke the most random food cravings at odd hours of the night. However, eating out at my usual favourite kopitiams in the thick of Chinese New Year celebrations is strictly off-limits, given the certainty of decline in standards and jaw-dropping price hikes.

One such morning, after a fitful night's sleep haunted by unprecedented hunger, I was fortunate to have the company of an acquaintance, who suggested early breakfast, at the first and oldest nasi kandar stall in Penang, no less. He had read about this here, amidst the abundance of content online celebrating the ever more popular Line Clear Nasi Kandar in town.

This Nasi Kandar stall is without a name, though it sits squarely next to Kedai Kopi Tai Min, in a dilapidated annex, along Jalan Jelutong, right opposite the Jelutong police station. Now, my friend had some choice stories to share about the men in blue who worked opposite, for he happened to have been arrested and thrown into lock-up there many years ago (for an allegation that was laughably trivial, mind you).

The Nasi Kandar here attracts folks from all walks of life, of varying colour, creed and disposition. While we took our place in the snaking queue in front of the stall, we spied pakciks and makciks at leisure, exercise bunnies in jogging shoes and workers clocking holiday overtime. My almost ex-convict friend even spied a cop from across the street, whom he recognised as part of his arrest those many years ago. On account of the less-than-pleasant one-time encounter, my friend decided to not say Hi, understandably.

The choices offered here are fairly limited, as nasi kandar of yesteryears were no doubt a much simpler affair compared to the Kayus and Pelitas of today. Choose from chicken, beef, squid, fish, fish eggs, lady fingers to top the signature drenched rice. What immediately stood out was how light and mild the gravy was, nothing like the laborious, plodding nasi kandar that we knew. Kinda like how a country's judicial system is when bogged down by modern-day gluttony and garbage.

Slightly traumatised by the reminder of his harrowing rendezvous with the Malaysian arms of law, my friend went on a protein binge, with fish AND fish eggs, hard boiled egg and ladyfingers.

The kopitiam itself was as colourful and intriguing a scene to consume as the Nasi Kandar, which has aged well. The horror stories of those imprisoned by corruption and abuse, however, is a different pot of rice altogether.

The Other Lorong Selamat (which does not involve CKT!)

While many have professed love for Lorong Selamat on account of its superstar Char Koay Teow resident, I remain firmly unconvinced of its merit and prefer to get my CKT fix elsewhere. However, there may be merit to this road's epicurean fame, beyond just that smug, goggled persona. On a recent trip, we stumbled upon not one but two noteworthy local bowls of finesse.

One was a hearty bowl of Fish Head noodles from Kedai Kopi Baru which sits isolated from the congregation of the food stalls on the Burma Road end.

A rather decent attempt at the less popular non-sour/milky variant of fish head noodles. Without the standard Chinese wine and preserved vegetables, it worked on the strength of fish stock alone and was overall a more subtle offering. Fish slices were so-so. Not mind-blowing but definitely commendable.

The next morning, we went back to Lorong Selamat, to the other end this time (Macalister Road end) to check out a shop we had passed by several times before, called T&T Prawn Mee Shop.

Ooh isn't that red car a gorgeous little machine?

We found out that it's actually the offspring of the old and beloved stall on Hong Kong Street, one that I had missed desperately so I was game to see if the younger generation made the cut. Choice toppings on offer included fish and meatballs, fresh prawns, spare ribs, pork knuckle and intestines.

My Prawn Mee with velvety, fall-of-the-bone spare ribs. Superb!! Obviously they'd stuck very close to the aged-old but not yet over-the-hill stock recipe. Drank it like beer at happy hour!

Fat Tulip's glorious mess of porcine love, starring a hefty pork knuckle and pork intestines. A beaut!

T&T also has Hokkien/Prawn mee steamboat with the delicious prawn stock, great for upcoming CNY season when your relatives gather to insinuate and interrogate. This stock could be the start of a different world for me altogether, one in which I don't abhor the concept of steamboat in what is arguably the hottest, stickiest month of the year.

Kedai Kopi Baru
6A Lorong Selamat
10400 Penang
Tel: 016-427 3717

T&T Prawn Mee Shop
127, Lorong Selamat
10400 Penang
Tel: 04-2263407/ 016 414 3369

Keep it Simple Stupid, Hai Onn Reminds

Hai Onn made it to the top of my to-eat list during my last Penang trip, after repeated reminders from the island quarters of its nostalgic charm, the way real old Penang used to be before it too became all about colossal malls and grotesque "beautification" projects.

We had been warned that service here was notoriously slow, on account of the kitchen & floor team of largely octogenarians, whose pace of life remained staunchly pre-war.

We arrived just a little after noon, hoping to beat the lunch crowd and hopefully keep the waiting time to under an hour. While we waited for the white-haired auntie to shuffle slowly to the back of the kitchen to shout out our orders, the resident Lor Bak stall, already fired up, kept the anxiety & hunger pangs away. The fried tofu cubes were remarkably silky and palatable. A very well-prepared plate of goodies.

To evade Mom's questions about my current love life at the table, I went around checking out the vintage nooks and crannies around the shop. Fittings like these historical electric switches practically commanded a kind of reverential salute.

After about 30 minutes, the Roti Babi arrived. Hai Onn's version was the real deal, packed full of the turnip-carrot-shrooms-and-pork filling heavily accented by five spice. None of the halal sort that you would find at Senior Citizens' or Chinese Recreation Club, the other two places in Penang that immediately came to mind.

Shortly after, the Chicken Chop arrived, the crunchy egg batter languishing in simmering gravy. The sight of this excited me to no end, but to be perfectly honest, the taste hardly justified the wait or the anticipation. This was rather colourless as a dish, the gravy plain starchy and paltry.

Same deal with the Pork Chop which featured tough, overcooked, underseasoned pork tenderloin and same monotonous gravy. We discussed our disappointment later and figured that the simple taste of yesteryears probably got hopelessly lost on our spoilt and over-fostered tastebuds, much like the haphazard development blueprints for the island. Either that or the octogenarians are losing it!

The Hokkien Char looked handsome, but again tasted as dull as hospital food. Struggled to finish this and eventually gave up.

The Sambal Kangkung was the only dish that arrived with too much flavouring. In fact, it was wayyyy too spicy and salty that it ended up a nice pairing to the weak noodles.

Despite being a generally mediocre meal, I was glad to have paid a visit. I hope it sticks around for generations to come, if only to remind Penang what potential it once had, as the rest of the island sinks into utter disrepair playing catch-up.

My Tasty Hall of Shame in Penang!

Just a quick one to showcase my personal Hall of Shame over the weekend in my lovely hometown Penang - after copious amount of alcohol with some lovely folks, we proceeded to do what inebriated souls do best apart from drunk-dialling/texting/tweeting and emotional outbursts... eating!!

We headed to Green House ("Cheh Chu"), perennial favourite supper stop along Burmah Road. I don't recall having been back here since C&C Music Factory was the biggest act on the charts ("Everybodddy Dance Now!")! Mei Shean, having just consumed pasta at watering hole earlier, ordered an extra-lite serving of beancurd, shrooms and pork balls from Beng Kee Bak Kut Teh. She struggled, understandably, and my barmy appetite, released inevitably by Penang, dove in to lend a helping hand.

My Hokkien Mee from the stately stall parked on the shopfront arrived with my slurred orders to add fishballs (fishballs?? I don't even LIKE fishballs) and pork ribs! Fiery, porky and powerful! I was wide awake once this bowl went down, fish balls and every last drop of the lovely broth.

Got my second wind for the night so after bidding my earlier companions goodbye, I raced over to Chulia Street to meet Jenny and Mel having a chinwag at Banana, one of the numerous backpacker joints over some beer. I didn't want to drink anymore and in my intoxicated wide-eyed restlessness, immediately eyeballed the Ramly burger stall parked outside. Rallied the other two to join me in approaching the rather stoic-looking guy working the grill and although rather full at this point, I ordered the Double Chicken Burger with Egg. This was a glorious mess, overflowing with mayo and ketchup but regret set in only after I finished every last crumb.

I paid for this binge dearly, kept up by indigestion all night! Reminder of why I had forsaken the post-drinking munchies for so long... they're deadly!!

In Thai We Trust, Sirarom, Gottlieb Road Penang

Going back to Penang over a long weekend can be a highly stressful affair. The mob of out-of-towners is inevitable, as are the traffic chaos and wreckage to one's overall sanity. I was intent on staying within the compounds of home throughout my trip, where my lovely folks and the cat reigned serenely.

However, inundated by guilt and remorse from unceremoniously passing out on a gathering the night before, I found myself out and about, cursing at foreign car plates on the road, heading to lunch with Hui and Nessie for a overdue catch up sesh. We were in the mood for Thai and Hui had sharply spotted the new joint, Sirarom on Gottlieb Road, opposite Phor Tay High School.

The interior was calm and unruffled, as tranquil as Dad's koi pond, when I entered and I was immediately placated.

We start with the requisite Som Tam (Papaya Salad). The version here featured raw preserved crab (also known as pu kai dong) which took a bit of getting used to. I felt they could've upped the spice easily by another notch but the freshness and crunch got us started on a good note.

The Tom Yam Talay (Seafood) induced much joy but again, I think they played it safe in terms of both the sour & spice notes. The fresh seafood was generous enough and we lapped it up with gusto.

The Kung Op Woon Sen (Claypot Vermicelli with Shrimps) was a radiant centrepiece - well-flavoured and moist vermicelli coating four huge-ass prawns... not sure why they underplayed the crustacean size but shrimps these are not!

Our next salad Yam Sam Krob (Crispy 3 salad) arrived next featuring a bevvy of crunchy beauties. The cashew nuts, dried fish maw (which replaced the dried cuttlefish that the menu had listed) and dried shrimps were mixed in a citrusy dressing. Refreshing, but not exactly remarkable.

We went a bit overboard with our orders, thinking Small meant we could sample more. The Small portions come enough to feed four, and between the three of us, we had to marshal the last vestiges of gluttony to sweep the table clean. The final dish of Tomyam petai with shrimps satisfied with plenty of those stinkin' beans and fresh shrimps.

We stumbled out into the pleasant Penang sunshine, happy and fulfilled. A great Thai meal, all in all, with the bill coming to about RM85 in total. Located next to Bagan, Sirarom offers plenty of parking. I foresee that if they keep their game of unstinting ingredients up, it's only a matter of time before this place draws in the crowds who will leave with their thumbs up.