George of Georgetown: new Penang restaurant in town!

A new Penang restaurant is always an interesting place to try...especially here in Singapore...

Penang has a well developed hawker cuisine. I have documented my favourites several times. And recently, a new Penang place opened up in West Coast Plaza

The menu seems extensive...almost all the interesting hawker foods from Penang is found here. From favourites like Penang Char Kway Teow, to less commonly found ones (in Singapore) like pasembur, inchicabin and jew her eng chye. Interesting.

I started with the Penang Char Kway Teow...a firm favourite

Excellent. One of the best and most authentic I have tasted in Singapore. Very authentic. Beautiful, almost charcoal wok hei...which I know is going to be difficult to get in a restaurant in a mall, so there wasn't the magnificent smoky flavour...as this was cooked in a gas stove. But one which puts out quite a lot of heat, and a cook who is able to control the wok. Very nice. Cooked with pork lard, with the crispy bits as well...so all the flavours are present and accounted for. A touch greasy, if that is my complaint...but with a taste as authentic as this, I am willing to overlook the grease...indulge infrequently.

Encouraged, we ordered the Sambal Fried Rice

Very nice too. Nice sambal with a firm flavour of the Penang belachan present. Nicely done. The prawn paste fried chicken which accompanies is also quite good.

We also tried the Penang Hokkien Prawn Mee

High scores again for taste, but not for authenticity. The soup base is not autentic. They use ground dried prawns to make the stock. Making it very savoury, and tasty, but not what is commonly served in Penang...whose best offers a clear soup, with rather clean taste.

The jew her eng chye was less successful

This is a dish made with dried cuttlefish, and a mix of julienned radish, carrots, and vegetables, eaten with lettuce and a dose of sambal belachan. The sambal is wonderful. Nice spicy, beautiful aroma. The rest of the dish is rather less nice. My mom's JHEC is much better. Verdict on this is that the dish is edible, but not great at all.

Their lorbak with prawn fritter was next

For the first time, lorbak served with lor in Singapore! Lor is a starcy, savoury dip common in lorbak from Penang...and somehow, even though many of the Penang restaurants do offer lorbak in Singapore, none I have seen served with lor...

And the lor in this case was rather nice and authentic. So was the lorbak. Very nice. Crisp skin, and nice meaty inside. The prawn fritters was not as good. Not crispy enough, a bit too heavy on the batter.

And for dessert, chendol

With a scoop of jackfruit ice cream. The ice cream is a bit pedestrian. The chendol...the green jelly like stuff, is authentic...looks hand made. Nice texture. Mix up the shaved ice, and within, the red beans within complete the chendol. With the very nice gula melaka...very nice. My only wish for this dish...a bit of attap seeds, and touch more gula melaka. A winning dish.

Promising restaurant. Very good CKT. Nice chendol. Good lorbak. Will be back to try out other dishes. Want to try the inchicabin, Penang Assam Laksa. And more of the fabulous CKT.

George of Georgetown
154 West Coast Road
#02-25/26
67779747

More Eats in Penang: Best lorbak and others

Last installment this Penang trip...covering the same 3 basic Penang Hawker essentials...Char Kway Teow, Hokkien Mee and Lorbak.

Today's main feature is the lor bak. We have come to the best that Penang has to offer...IMHO.

Perhaps not the healthiest dish...heck, none of the dishes I featured in this Penang route is healthy...all deep fried, with strong, powerful stock. But tastewise, these are the best on offer.

The essentials are the lor bak...literally translated from Hokkkien as gravy meat. It usually features a sliver of fillet pork, with spices...wrapped in a bean curd skin, deep fried. The best, like this one here have the pork still succulent, juicy, tasty, and the wrapping light and crisp. Yes, I did say light, despite the deep frying, the best lorbak somehow manages to give the impression of being relatively grease free.

Then there is the prawn fritters

Prawns, often with the shells still on, encased in a airy batter. The batter is special, rendered super crispy, but yet still manages to stay light and airy...a bit like tempura in this respect, but altogether different in all others. The flavour of the prawns permeate. And dipped in the gravy...the lor...and a little chilli...is quite heavenly.

This is for me the best lorbak in Penang. The gold standard.

The coffeeshop which houses this lorbak also sells the standard hawker staples...the Hokkien Prawn mee

Quite good. The broth is deep with prawn flavour, slightly sweet through the use of rock sugar. The tiny prawns which garnish the bowl with the deep fried shallots are powerpacked with flavour. The tinge of chilli completes the taste.

And the char kway teow

Not the best, when compared to Ah Leng or Google Lady, but still holds the flag high. Nice flavours, good wok hei. Fresh ingredients.

Another rather interesting aspect is that although the star of these shops are the various food offerings, almost always the shops are owned by the coffee vendor. Here, still plying the coffee trade the traditional way.

Certainly highly recommeded to stop here for the lorbak and prawn fritters. Best of breed.

Kafe Kheng Pin
Corner of Penang Road and Sri Bahari Road
Penang

More eats in Penang: Ah Leng CKT and other delights

Char Kway Teow, or spelled Char Kueh Teow in Penang is one of my favourite foods...call it comfort food..

Certainly it has all the vices of a comfort food...one plate easily clocks up some 800-900 calories. But eat one must, especially in Penang. One of my all time favourite places to eat CKT in Penang is at the famous Ah Leng.

The CKT is awesome...this plate is with everthing in...duck egg in place of a chicken egg...and mantis prawns.

The same fellow has been helming the wok for I guess the best part of the last 40 years...I remember eating as a small boy...but on to the description...the duck egg is alltogether a richer and more flavourful alternative to the regular chicken egg. We do not get fresh duck eggs here in Singapore...for some reason, it is banned by AVA, or so I understand.

The wok is super hot, and sears the ingredients. The wok hei is quite amazing. The prawns are large, succulent and super fresh. The mantis prawns are deep fried, and added as a garnishing on top. Makes a very fragrant savoury treat. Very good. Most of Ah Leng's clients are now tourists or visitors...as a plate as presented is RM11...a tad expensive for the locals. But converted to S$, this is approx S$4.80, a bit pricey, but not extraordinarily so. And for such a wonderful tasting dish...totally worth the entrance fee...including the calories, fat and cholesterol.

While waiting, we spied the Hokkien Prawn mee stall...then dishing out the last few bowls...we enquired...the cook said yes...I have one more!

I found the broth to be a tad too salty...perhaps this was because it had been boiling for hours...being the last bowl. The noodles were very soft...boiled, and the prawns were intensely flavoured. I don't remember ever eating prawns as intensely flavoured like this in Singapore. But this kind of prawns, small, but powerpacked is common amongst HKM stalls in Penang. Recommended, but for me, I reserve my best of breed laurel for Super HKM, which I featured earlier.

We also decided to add some lor bak, as the wait for the ckt was going to be 40 minutes.

This was de rigeur lor bak for Penang. Somewhat similar to ngor hiang in Singapore, but in a style only found in Penang.

The strips of loin pork marinated, and wrapped in a beancurd skin, deep fried, dipped in chilli and a dark sauce known as lor. Very good.

Also good is the heh chee...or prawn fritters

Prawns in batter, deep fried...till super crispy. Great flavour, dipped in lor and chilli.

Highly recommended.

Kafe Khoon Hiang
Jalan Dato Kramat/Jalan Dunlop (facing Honolulu Club)
Closed on Thursday

KL Black Hokkien Mee: Candidate 2

with Kin

I waxed lyrical about Wing Heng's black hokkien mee. I returned recently to an old favourite in PJ, which is almost as famous.



A powerful fire and the ability to control it is the critical component to the wok hei of a great hokkien mee. Fire fueled by compress air and kerosine is used in these huge stoves, so powerful, it will singe and burn food within seconds...and hence need a cook who is not only skilled at handling the heavy cast iron wok, but also strong enough to toss and turn the wok full of ingredents to make that wonderful concoctions that we call hokkien mee.

So on we go...first course, Black Hokkien Mee.



Black does not begin to describe it. Deep, dark...the noodles gleam in the light, and whiffs of fragrance rise to tease the nostrils as the plate is unceremoniously dumped on the table....this is no fine dining establishment...but a mere coffee shop somewhere in Petaling Jaya...but the food is heaven.

Unlike the one served in Jalan Imbi, this version had also thin bee hoon mixed into the mass of thick mee. But that is where the difference ends. Both had great mouthfeel...pork lard and crispy bits of lard pronounced itself on the palate as extreme pleasure. The slippery noodles, in the elegant...if I may describe the thick, black, slimy, smooth sauce as elegant...and the hot, spicy chilli belacan is wonderful. Excellent, excellent. I would be hard pressed to pick a winner, but if I must, I'd say the Imbi one is more fragrant, and edges the PJ one slightly. But both are excellent.

We also had the Kong Fu chao, but this was a disappointment...stay with Jalan Imbi for the wat tan konfu chao. There, the crispy beehoon is an pure inspiration with the soft, wok hei-ed flat rice noodles, and the beautiful sauce.

We also had a plate of Penang Lor Bak.



Somewhat similar to Singapore's Ngor Hiang (five flavours), the lor bak (literally translated as gravy meat) is sold semi-prepared and waiting. Take your pick from lor bak, heh chih (prawn fritters), tauhu, various sausages, fish fritters...and the stall owner will fry them up to a crisp and serve them.

The prawn fritters above are particularly beautiful. Super crispy batter smother about 2 mid-sized prawns. Lovely, lovely flavour...the prawns were fresh, the batter delicious.



And the lor bak itself was special. Meat, chopped and combined with spices, wrapped in a soy bean skin, and deep fried. Magic...eaten with the yin/yang sauce of lor (brown sauce with streaks of egg...this is a very special and beguilling sauce only to be found by hawkers who do Penang Lor Bak). Combined...this is absolutely umami heaven. The pork within the lor bak is both lean and fat meat, and packs the punch and flavour.

Even the coffee packs power...below the kopi-o...really black...and kopi with condensed milk. Thick, heavy mouthfeel, this makes one proud of the humble robusta bean used.



Excellent supper...except for the kongfu chao. Recommended to look it up.



Kedai Minuman dan Makanan Ah Fatt
Ah Hwa Restoran sells the Hokkien Mee.
Penang Lor Bak
# 66, Jalan 14/48 (directly behind the Shell station at Jalan 222),
Petaling Jaya.
GPS: Lat: 3.09743 Lon: 101.62938
Click here for a map