Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Maaf Zahir & Batin to all Malaysians! Apart from food, another blessing to be born in Malaysia is that there are just too many holidays~! Woohoo~! We celebrate Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas, our King and Sultans' birthdays and countless others, all as one! The spirit of 1 Malaysia! Hahaha...
Went hunting for food in Penang with my 3-8 gang from Sept 6th to 8th. It's just the beginning of holiday and we're already desperately in need of a getaway! So 6 of us packed our bags and marched all the way to the LRT station as early as 7.00 am on Monday. Our mission this time: a budget yet fulfilling (in terms of tummy) trip!
Took a few wrong turns and finally on the gravel path to Asia Jaya. Reminded me a lot of the Amazing Race last year!
From there, we took a train to Masjid Jamek. It was jam-packed with working adults! And we're ever grateful that we were heading to a more pleasant destination. Hahaha... Changed to Star LRT after that and boarded the wrong train which was heading towards Ampang... Argghh.. chaos! Then took another train back to Chan Sow Lin and finally after much blood and sweat reached Bukit Jalil... And we're ready to fly! Go, I mean.
After hours of dozing off, we're on the Penang Bridge finally! See Georgetown? ^^ I think it had been too long since I last came. Suddenly felt like the bridge became shorter this time.
Finally reaching the bus station at Sg. Nibong and waiting for Encik Rahman. '?? Who's that??!'
He's the uncle who rented the car to us. Hahah.. We changed the Wira to a Waja at the last minute. An additional RM10 per day was worth the $$. ^^ *PSfJ*
The first thing to do was to check in at our hotel. So with our Google maps and everything (really did our homework ya) we found PP Island Hotel finally! Oh yes, with the help of Caryn the living GPS! It's free but very helpful, but sometimes it went blur-blur too. :P
PP Island Hotel was having its promotion now. So we got it for RM88 per night. I think it's kind of like a budget hotel coz they still utilised keys and not the usual key cards. The appearance was comparable to those of 3 or 4 stars, but the facilities were not as complete as the usual hotels, of course. No water kettle and coffee and sugar and hairdryer. We actually slept in wet hair! T.T Overall, it's real clean and spotless. Maybe they just renovated or sth. Ooh, btw, their car park had this hydraulic car-lift system! Quite cool for such a small hotel. Hahahah... So if you're looking for a good, simple and cheap place to stay for a night, I'd still recommend this place. ^^
*PSfJ* Our Deluxe Room. I think if I were to come to Penang again in the future, I want to try out some of the home-stays. We passed by a few and they looked real nice! For instance, the Penang Heritage House or something..
So we dropped our luggage and bags, changed into more comfy attire and were more than ready for our food hunt!
After driving a few rounds and could not seem to decide on where to eat, our groaning tummies forced us to stop at a coffee shop. But I couldn't remember its name. :P Our key terms of the day were 'food' and 'variety'. So here we go... (food not listed in any specific order)
Dish #1: Curry Chee Cheong Fun
The curry actually tasted a lil' like Sarawak laksa! Hahaha... or maybe it's just me missing it too much that I'm starting to imagine it's everywhere! The thickness of the curry was just nice and not at all hot. We left the blood puddings untouched though. They looked yucky. :P and since Deut 12:23 says we shouldn't eat blood coz it's the life, so the black puddings were safe from our big mouths. ^^
Dish #2: Prawn Mee
I simply *heart* this one. The prawn soup was first-class!
Dish #3: Hokkien Mee
If you're a Penangite, I guess you might be wondering, 'Aren't the 3rd & the 4th the same?' Yes they are! Hahaha... Coz I didn't know that, and I thought the auntie must have made a mistake. We went around ordering a Hokkien Mee and a Prawn Mee, completely unaware that Penang Hokkien Mee IS Prawn Mee, coz Sarawak Hokkien Mee is thick noodles in thick, black soy sauce that looks something like this...
.jpg)
Looks like Mee Mamak in thicker sauce... Anyway, lesson learnt: Penang Hokkien Mee = Prawn Mee. I sure won't be mistaken anymore. :)
Dish #4: Fried Osyter with Egg
A famous must-try in Penang. But Jong and I thought Kuching has yummier O-Jien (fried oyster). I think it's a taste-varies-according-to-places matter. Kuching's O-Jien is drier, I think. And I learnt lesson no.2 here: oysters are different from clams! Sua-ku me. I never knew that until that day. :P Oysters seemed to be more slimy and the 'juice' that went 'pssst' in your mouth... Ugh I XXX like. So I had decided that I prefer clams to oysters though I don't really like them both. Ooh but I like oyster sauce though! Hahah...
Discovery Channel Mode: On
By the way, a lil' interesting fact about how oysters are different from clams that I saw on the net: An oyster stays in a spot for its whole life, while a clam moves from a place to another with a muscle protruding from its shell which acts like its foot. An oyster has that kind of foot when it's young too but it disappears when it has found a place to settle kinda thing. Interesting kan, kan??
Dish #5: Char Kueh Tiaw
Ah lovely! Simply scrumplicious~~!! I think this is the one particular dish that we ordered wherever we went. It was like a search for the ultimate char kueh tiaw king! And dear & I found our favourite, at SS2 Wai Sek Kai! Hahaha... Penang CKT was nice too, but I guess we're too used to KL food which are loaded with MSG and Ajinomoto that the authentic Penang CKT tasted a lil' bland to us. Still, we *heart* char kueh tiaw~!!! In fact, we're still ordering the same thing after coming back to PJ. Addicted! :P
Dish #6: PoPiah
Not too bad. But I personally think that we have yet to find the PoPiah King. :D
After the satisfactory lunch, we headed back to the car. And on the way... jeng jeng...
We saw You Tiao! What a... sinful... dessert! Every bite you take you could feel the oil oozing out! But we're such gluttons that we didn't care too much. Hahahaha... Too bad it's not steaming hot. :( *PSfJ*
Next up, off to Jalan Penang for the cendol that we've missed for... urm... 3 years...?! Since we last came for Penang camp! This small stall by a narrow lane seemed to be super-duper well-known among tourists. And Phua Chu Kang and Rosie came here to eat before also, don't play-play ok!
Glutton *slurrrpp*
The gluttonesses... d^^b
For RM1.50, it's really worth your money. And their ice-kacang was more terrific than their cendol I think! Behind the stall was a coffee shop which was famous for its asam laksa, but that day we went too late, so they were all sold out. :( But we resolved to come back again no matter what~! The spirit of the makan-gang shall prevail!
But I think there's a bit of... err misunderstanding (or mere rivalry?) between the stall and the shop owners. According to the cendol aunties, if we ate our cendol in the coffee shop, they would charge us a commission of 50 to 80 sen per bowl, so we'd better stand there and eat. Woww, there wasn't such a thing 3 years ago! People nowadays really know how to earn extra income ya..
After cendol we're given ice to wash our hands. Hahaha cute!
And by then we really needed a break from stuffing our tummy. But temptations were everywhere! We couldn't resist it. I got some bananas and a papaya slice (for anti-constipation purposes) and later some kacang kuda! *love love love* But they said the kacang was a bit too 'mi-mi' (mashed).
*PSfJ* Alright, the reason why my face looked so big was because my mouth was filled with papaya k. I don't really have a big face k...
Dear bought corn to nibble on all the way back to the car park. It was shweeet~! I wonder if they soaked it in sugar syrup. :P
So everyone climbed into the car... and soon we're heading to Gurney Drive! For more food... *oh no!!* Parked at a place far, far away from Gurney Plaza coz we're cheated by the MPPP uncle. Sigh... nvm, we really needed some walk!
I just took this picture coz of my name on the signboard. See 'Choo Char'? Hahaha.. Lameness.
The evening view along the walk...
Explored Gurney Plaza for ourselves after hearing the name for so many times... It was a lil' like MidValley... but perhaps Queensbay was more like it.
The hawker centre at Gurney Drive. Ahh madness... too spoiled for choice! And yet we're not hungry!!
Nevertheless, dear & I queued at a Char Kueh Tiaw stall which had a long Q, making the Q even longer. Hmmm... and we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.... my patience of typing so many 'and waited' was the result of training of patience by waiting at that stall. I don't remember how long we'd waited... 30 minutes? Or more? There were just so many customers! We both thought to ourselves, let's see how special the CKT is!!
And finally we're the second nearest to the stall! See the sifu in action!
And this was the reward of our sweat and blood waiting there for ages! The verdict? It was less oily than what we had been eating. Caryn said the flat rice noodle tasted more 'Q' (please ask her for clarification of meaning)... but to me it was still bland. Hahahaha...
We didn't just eat CKT lah. Doreen ordered some very fattening fried stuff... Not bad. I didn't know chicken skin could be eaten that way... Some ppl must be thinking: Chinese are so awful. They eat everything.
And finally some satays to fill dear's tummy coz I think he was not satisfied with the CKT. Hahaha... I love the peanut sauce! Two thumbs up! There're actually other stuff which I didn't take any pictures but ya let's just be happy with the existing pics.
And there goes our Day 1 food hunt. Ahhh... *relieved* finally... writing one post also takes up so much of my time... sigh... hahaha... stay tuned for Day 2...
Note:
PSfJ = Picture Stolen from Jong :DDD
No comments:
Post a Comment