Penang Trip 2008

Penang, a food paradise for all. Be it you're looking for fresh seafood or local delicacies, I'm sure you can find whatever that satisfy your taste buds. ;) So if you happen to be in Malaysia, don't miss the opportunity of dropping by there. Below shows the Penang Bridge.

Before I start to sound like a local tour guide....let me blog about a couple of places we visited. Wait a minute...only a couple?? Okay, let me explain. I'm sure you know how it is...there are occasions, you waited soooo long for tables, everyone's hungry, your kids are asking where's the food?? When it finally comes, everyone starts to pick up their utensils and.....well, let's just say I didn't have the heart to ask everyone to wait for me to snap some pictures! Anyway, just read on...

Our first stop was Bali Hai Seafood Restaurant along Gurney Persian for dinner after a long tiring drive.

Frankly speaking the main purpose to bring our family to a seafood restaurant was to let them taste Mantis Crab. I know, that name makes you shudder, but in fact the taste of this shell fish is pretty close to lobster and tiger prawn. Mantis crabs are very rare in Singapore, and hence this will be a brand new tasting experience for the family. ;)

We chose to have 2 different of cooking methods for the Mantis crabs, one steam while the other coated with Nestum corn meal & deep fried. The steam method actually preserved the freshness and sweet taste of the crab, very good!

We ordered their special fried green beans. Very crisp and yet tender on the inside, easily down with some white rice.

The best dish that night to my opinion was the Salty Egg Crabs. The taste of the salty eggs was not over powering, it was just right to balance off the sweetness of the tender crab meat. The crabs were meaty and fresh, goes really well with steamy white rice or on it's own! I have to say it's much better then the one I tasted in Pantai seafood restaurant.

Most of us didn't want to eat rice, so we ordered 2 kinds of noodles, one is Hokkien noodle (don't know why got vermicelli inside), and the other is Seafood Ee-fu noodle. The Ee-fu noodle was a little on the dry side and overall the noodles were average.

Last but not least, a mistake I have to say is the "Hu-xu" whole steam chicken we ordered. "Hu-xu"?? What is that you say...well let me tell you about the taste of the chicken first. It's meat is tough and chewy even though it well cooked. What's up with that? It taste like an old chicken....."Hu Xu"?? Go figure...I guess we're better off ordering something that can swim in the sea from a seafood restaurant! ;)We also ordered deep fried fish fillet but it never showed up (the restaurant was packed BTW) , which was a blessing in disguise, 'cos we're all stuffed!!

The bill comes to a total of RM450 plus drinks and taxes & services. Overall the food was okay, but next time would choose the food more wisely.

The following morning we went to the all famous Him Heang Bakery store for their "Tao Sa" biscuits.

Each box has 32 biscuits and per box costs RM9.50. When it's first out of the oven, it crisp out the outside, very good! We bought like 8 boxes of different variety, even with Kaya filling too...but only remembered to take this picture below, haha.We continue our food venture to Kafe Heng Huat for the best Char Kuey Tieow in Penang. It is located at Lorong Selamat off Mcalister Road.The place was jam packed! No tables until 20 minutes of waiting. Below you can see the "chef" frying furiously away for the endless orders coming in.

When my FIL went to order 5 plates, she said "Have to wait 1 hour harr". My goodness! 1 hr for a plate of Char Kuey Tieow?? I guess even if it's not that fantastic, after all that waiting and watching other people eat, we will mentally feel it's the best Kuey Tieow around! Hahaha..Okay okay in all fairness, it is pretty good, you can sense the background taste of the charcoal in the noodle, the key difference from normal. While waiting for our CKT to arrive, we ordered some yummy "Oh-Chien" (fried oyster omelette). Taste really good with the chilli sauce. I like this dish because they serve smaller oysters, the taste is not over-powering. :)

We also ordered some Ice Kacang top with vanilla ice-cream to cool ourselves off.

We also went to Gurney Drive Hawker Center (seaview), but the lighting was poor (sun already set) and I was busy ordering and hence didn't get a chance to take the pictures of the delicious food we ordered there. We tried the Assam Laksa, Satay, Chilli fried Clams, Grilled Sting Ray, Otah, Prawn Noodles, CKT (again), Fish ball Noodles, Wan Tan Noodle, Fried Tofu, Fried Chicken Skin and dumplings etc. A delicious spread of food, but all gone in no time believe me, haha...

Anyway, let's hope this will not be my last trip to Penang. I wish there was more time to go around the island for sightseeing and trying more local food...well we'll see. ;) Okay, enough jabbering, this is already too long a post!!