More eats in Penang...Padang Brown

Padang Brown in Penang is an institution for foodies. A must visit place, for local Penangites or vistors alike. The place come alive from about 2pm in the afternoon, and for most of the stores featured here, the action is over by 4pm. Come early for your afternoon snack.

I used to live just a stone throw's away when I was a wee kid...and some of the hawkers doing their stuff there have been there since then...from about 40 years ago! I start with one of my favourite Penang dishes...char kway teow...variously spelled as char kueh teow.

The CKT is quite good...

Freshly fried each plate on its own...the noodle is flat rice noodles...kway teow...but the variant in Penang is somewhat thinner, more delicate in physical structure, but altogether a bit more robust in taste than the variety we get in Singapore. Fried without any sweet black sauce, but with seafood. Lovely. Not the best in Penang, but will best any Penang style CKT in Singapore. The wok hei is wonderfully fragrant, the ingredients super fresh...the prawns were sweet and crunchy. Lovely.

I normally would order a plate of Pasembur...a Chinese rojak, but that afternoon when we arrived, they had finished their stock and called it a day.

But one of our favourite popiah was still available

Seafood popiah like you never seen in Singapore

Vigrous, full flavoured. Breath of the sea. Appropriate words to describe this dish. But the special from this stall, not even found in other Penang popiah stalls is the super good, savoury gravy they pour over the popiah. And the skin of the popiah is so delicate, yet resistant to tear, even when soaked in the gravy. Within, fresh crab meat, prawns and divers vegetables. Excellent, and highly recommended.

One of my mom's favourites is the ohr kueh

This is a steamed yam cake, with bits of dried shrimp and deep fried shallots as garnishing...

Within is found huge chunks of very light, almost airy yam. The flour which holds it together is also light and delicate...imparting little flavour of its own, but rather letting the yam speak. The garnishing complements the yam...as does the rich, chilli sauce. Again highly recommended.

A must visit for the visitor...and indeed a regular haunt of locals looking for that afternoon snack.

Padang Brown
Penang Island

Feasting in Penang: Padang Brown

with family

Penang...foodie paradise...especially for hawker food. I grew up in Penang, and have fond memories of life in the idyllic city (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site!) and the wonderful hawker food. After some 5 years of not being back in the island, we decided to take a short break to visit my sister who is still lives in Penang.

Immediately on touch down, we headed for Padang Brown. We used to live across the road in Kebun Nyok road. Padang Brown is a large field almost smack in the middle of town. The field is large enough for two full sized football fields, and on some evenings turn into a kaleidoscope which is Penang's Pasar Malam (night market). But dear to many Penangite's heart is the Padang Brown (or just Padang) food stalls.



So, what's great about Padang food. First, the Pasembur:



Originally a version of the Indian rojak (in Penang, this dish is also known as Cheh Hoo...green or uncooked fish...it comprises of shredded cucumber, julienned bangkwang (chinese turnips), bean sprouts, bean curds (more than one variety), crackers and slices of cuttle fish and a wonderful orange hued sauce, with crushed peanuts and topped with sliced jelly fish. This particular stall in Padang is my absolute favourite, and incidentally done by Chinese hawkers instead of the usual Indian. Yummy and shiok!

From the stall next door, Penang style popiah.



Unlike those found in Singapore, these were filled to the brim with stewed tunips, carrots, bean sprouts, and crab meat. And generously served with a helping of stew gravy. The ingredients blend well, and the gravy gave the dish some more bite and zing than the dry variety found in Singapore. Again super delicious.

As the first stop in Penang, I had to have the Penang Char Koay Teow (not only is it spelt different from Singapore's Char Kway Teow, but the dish is totally different. No sweet black sauce. Instead, a ferocious fire, super hot wok, lard (plenty of it), koay teow, eggs (sometimes fresh duck egg for extra punch), cockles, sometimes slices of chinese sausage and huge prawns.



CKT is my all time favourite dish. The one served up at Padang was above average for Penang...which is saying a lot. Every coffee shop in Penang has its own CKT stall. So the average standard is pretty darn high. Padang's qualify as top 5 in my book. I will blog about my favourite and no.2 in the following days.

We also had kerabu bee hoon (or Tom Yam Bee hoon)



Bee hoon is fried lightly with a tom yam gravy infused into the noodles...and topped with grated coconut and dried prawns, onions, garlic. Another wonderful dish.

Hokkien Mee is another favourite:



I will feature HKM more than once in this Penang series, as it is a favourite of our family. The Penang HKM is more like Singapore's prawn mee than hokkien mee. It is served with soup, often made by boiling pork bones (a bit like the Japanese ramen soup), but with rock sugar added. Prawns are sliced, an de-shelled...often not large prawns, but smallish ones are used. The dish is typically served with some kangkong, half a boiled egg, and with both beehoon and yellow mee. While the Padang version is not the absolute best, it is also above average. I will blog about the best HKM in Penang separately.

Also interesting is a variety of Nyonya kuih, shown below the awesome kuih talam.



When I was growing up, Nyonya kuih was sold by an Indian peddler, carrying the kuih in two baskets balanced on a wooden pole, going from house to house on foot to sell his snacks. In those days, the kuih were sweeter...it was before the health craze...and were flavourful and often had a consistency which is best described as springy, bouncy...QQ as Singaporeans would say. This kuih talam was such...though the santan (coconut milk) topping was very tender and soft, the green kuih had that consistency.

Here is a picture of the Pasembur stall and the popiah stall next to it. Both these stalls are only open in the afternoon, and due to the popularity, feature waiting times as long as 45 mins to an hour (this is quite a fairly common occurance to have to wait 45 mins to an hour for famous Penang hawkers to cook up their magic...IMHO, if you can spare the time, totally worth it!)




Padang Brown Hawker Stalls
More info on how to get there

GPS: N 5.412779, E100.31953

A in the map marks the spot:


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Beef Ball Noodles and Popiah

with office makan kakis



A bowl of rice noodles, smothered in a rich black sauce, and decorated with beef slices, beef balls, tendons, and tripe. Sound like a delectable meal? How about adding a dollop of chin cha lok?

This interesting beef ball noodles is smack right in the HDB heartland...and serves up a storm - long queues almos perpetually adorn the store. The stall is manned by 3 rather senior citizens...and despite the long queues, they seem unhurried, and had time to have a smile and nice word for each customer. This was excellent service, which is apt to be overlooked, especially when the shop is popular and busy.



The ingredients used were superb. The beef slices were tasty and tender. The tendons sublime - so well cooked, it almost disintegrates in the mouth, giving the wonderful mouth-feel. The tripe....um, I don't realy fancy them, but they tasted fine. The rich sauce was a great complement to the beef. The beef balls are factory made, so while reasonably tasty, I would have preferred home made beef balls - more punch, crunchy, springy texture would be a great enhancement to the dish. The chinchalok, an unusual addition, was a masterful touch, and added another dimension of punch and taste. This made this beef ball noodles truly superior!

We also ordered some popiah from a very famous popiah stall just a couple of shops down.



The popiah skin was dry, which is the way I like it. I cannot stand the skins which are so wet, they practically fall apart. And the ingredients were very nice. A sprinkling of crystal sugar provided the sweetness and crunch.



But popiah in many hawkers lack the punch afforded by home made popiah. Premium ingredients like fresh crab meat, prawns, deep fried shallots provide a much better popiah. Also the communal act of wrapping, and eating together appeals to some ancient need within to bond. As hawker popiahs go, the one served up by Old LongHouse is above average. But I'd rather make my own popiah at home.



Nan Xing Zhou Beef Noodles AND
Old Long House Popiah
Block 22 Toa Payoh Lorong 7
(p.s. while the stores are near each other, they are not next to one another as the picture suggests...the photograph is an amalgam of two shots)