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: Hawker food...

Seafood in Penang is one of the delights. And Hawker Centres are still to be found in many enclaves throughout the island. Today, I feature a hawker center in Tanjong Bungah...right near the beautiful beaches of Tanjung Bungah and Telok Bahang.

This hawker center, with stalls selling a variety of delights...most of the Penang favourites and usual suspects can be found. When we were there on a Monday evening, the open air dining area was rather crowded with patrons. The main seafood stall - the place's namesake Viva, was not open that evening. But there were plenty of options.

We started with the usual...Penang Hokkien Prawn Mee

De rigeur, I say. Which means...very good. One comes to expect the level of standard fare like this to be rather very good when in Penang. And this was no different. The tiny little prawns pack more a flavour than it would seem from its size. The broth was flavourful. The chilli, a bit weak, but added a nice punch.

We also had the standard offering of lorbak.

Again, de rigeur. Meets the requirements. Very good, but not excellent or mind blowing. Next week, I will feature a mind blowing lorbak from Penang. But that evening's was only good.

Somewhat breaking the de rigeur mold, is the very excellent oyster omelette

The oyster was excellent...fresh, large, fat, succulent, rich tasting. Luxurious in the palate, ably assisted by the magnificently fried eggs.

Hokkien Char

A noodle dish, with a dark sauce...not quite as dark as the Black KL Hokkien Mee, but a more enigmatic, aromatic sauce. Fried with mee and beehoon. Seafood, and pork. Nice.

Pasembur, a kind of Chinese rojak was also ordered...

Not comparable to the best in Penang...which is to be found in Padang Brown. But again a high level of compentency. The crisp bits were nicely done. The vegetables were nice and crisp. The sauce lacked a bit when compared to the Padang's, but still quite delicious.

And for dessert...an Indian pancake

A special dough poured and cooked over a clay pot...sometimes with bits of ripe banana cut and mixed within. Delicious.

Viva Hawker Center
Tanjong Bungah
Penang

Penang delights: Kueh Kak

The Anson Road market in Penang is one of the old favourites of my family. We used to live just about 1km away, and my mother would buy our daily groceries from there. There are a couple of iconic hawker food there. And Kueh Kak...today's feature is one of them.

I used to love the Char Kway Teow at the corner coffee shop...the uncle who fries the special dish uses a charcoal fire. Slow, super hot. Wonderful wok hei. The same coffee shop also has a wantan mee stall who have been run by the same fellow since I was in Kindergarten. And in the market proper, the Chee Cheong Chok...a congee dish with deep fried, crispy pig intestine dish is wonderful. But except for the wantan mee fellow (who sold out at about 9:30 when I arrived), sadly they are no more. CKT uncle passed away years ago, and CCC stall disappeared.

I was, however delighted to see that the Kueh Kak stall is still there. The uncle who does the frying...a talkative and jolly fellow who has been running the stall for the last 40 years, was game to dispense life advice as well as a mean kueh kak...a variant of our fried carrot cake.

The rice cake used as a base is somewhat smoother in texture and firmer than the ones used by Singapore's carrot cake. And the radish...the name carrot cake is a misnomer...for there is no carrot used in the ingredients, but rather preserved radish.

Deep smokey flavours, excellent wok hei. The egg was nicely fried and fragrant...and the radish is flavourful, permeating throughout the dish. The taugeh and koo chye providing counterpoint in the form of nice crunch. Very nice. Recommended.

Kueh Kak Stall
Anson Road Market
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

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

Ban Chang Kueh: simple pancake or not?

Ban Chang Kueh...or ming chiang kuih as it is variously called, is basically a pancake...fried over butter or margerin on a cast iron wok. The flour is cooked till crisp on the outside, and features a very crispy edge, and filled with peanut paste and sometimes sweet corn.



Pretty simple dish...or so we think.



The secret is in getting it just right....just the right mixture of batter, with just the right balance of sweet, savoury...just the right thickness of batter, so the outside is crisp, crusty, but a thin...just right layer of soft, slightly mushy risen flour pampers the palate by providing contrast and counterpoint.



The rich peanut filling...itself providing a counterpoint on its own...the crunchy crushed peanuts dissolve into a rich, creamy concoction as one chews. The addition of the sweet, and slightly acidic sweet corn lifts the flavour a few notches. Providing yet another counterpoint. Magic...when it comes together.

This tiny little stall shows mastery of the art. Not many in Penang or elsewhere do with such success.




Pushcart outside Swee Hong Cafe
Corner of Burma Road and Jalan Pasar
Penang



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Satay in Penang: Satay Hut

Satay is one of the comfort foods. Originally Malay in origin...though, I think if we trace back eons...it probably converge with other cuisines in pre-history...the tradition of barbecuing meat on a skewer is found almost in all old cultures. But the uniqueness of the Malay/Indonesian satay is the peanut sauce.



Typically, satay stores are roadside carts...barbecuing their meats on a charcoal fire...with the pakcik fanning the coals to cook the skewered meat. But this was a real cafe style store within a large hypermarket.

We ordered the chicken and the beef...



The beef was a bit on the tough side...but chalk that up to lack of fat in the meat. But the sauce was gorgeous. Truly gorgeous. Very rich, creamy, with aromatic crunchy peanuts. Beautiful. Reminded me of a shop in Centerpoint some 20 years ago, called Satay Anika which served the most marvellous satay I have tasted. Satay Anika's meats were chunky, fat and tender. But they are no more. Alas.

The chicken was a bit more tender, but flavourful. And the same power sauce...



BTW, the sauce looks different in hue, but tasted more or the same. I am not sure if they take the trouble to make two different sauces for beef and chicken. But looking through my photographs (I forget how they looked then), the GH2 saw the colours as different.

They also served a rather nice roti jala



A pancake of sorts, but made by dripping flour onto a hot flat pan by allowing the flour mix to drip on the pan through small holes in the can containing the mix. Resulting in a pancake which looks like a net...the Malay word for net is jala, hence the name. The beef rendang we had was very good. The meat was still a bit chewy, but totally in character with the rendang. The sauce, rich, smothering and wonderfully aromatic.

Disclaimer: The shop is owned by my sister's friend...though when we visited, we did not inform the owner, and she was not at the store. My sister is not known to her staff, so we believe we did not get any preferential treatment.


Satay Hut
Tesco (Tg. Pinang) Tanjung Tokong, Penang 10470

Where else but Lorong Selamat Penang

Returned to Lorong Selamat. Last time I featured the famous Char Kway Teow goggle lady, and this time, the older coffee shop, just a few doors away.

The goggle lady used to operate her push cart just a few meters from this shop, before she got rich from her takings and moved to her own shop a few doors away. Some say that the current CKT stall man taught her how to fry CKT. But all we know that he offers a mean CKT, and also is equipped with his own goggles



The wait was about 30 minutes...a bit less than the other, now more famous stall. And one does not have to deal with the antics of the lady and her assistants. The CKT looks beautiful. But the question is how does it taste? And more importantly, is his better than the lady's?



Well, not quite. My ultimate CKT is still Ah Leng's, with the duck egg and addition of mantis prawns. But coming in a close second is the goggle lady's...the way it is fried, the wok hei is just superior. The goggle man's version is very good, to be sure, but lacks the last bit of...shall I say je ne sais quoi.

The shop also have the usual evils...

The Hokkien Mee is quite good:



In fact, I still remember my school days, when I used to drop by in this very same coffee shop after a movie, and eat both the CKT and the HKM. In those days, some 30 years ago, the only CKT stall by this shop was the goggle lady's. And we also used to cool down with the ice kachang:



And if the occassion is right, and we have a bit of money in our pockets, some lor bak and heh chiee..



Note the bowl of lor...or gravy...which is the identity fo lor bak...meaning gravy meat...translated from Hokkien...not the variety of lorbak served in Penang restaurants in Singapore...which is sans lor. The heh chiee...prawn fritters are a speciality...crispy, and beautifully aromatic of fresh prawns.

This visit, there was also a jew her eng chye stall...which did not used to be there.



The most famous JHEC stall in Penang used to be by a corner at Gurney Drive...but that disappeared probably some 20 years ago. This one served at Lorong Selamat was all right, passes the mark, but does not really hit the spot for me...well maybe I was reminiscing of the good old days.

Anyway, this coffee shop at Lorong Selamat is still worth a visit for Singaporeans vacationing in Penang. As is the CKT at the Goggle Lady's shop...so visit both. Highly recommended.



Chuan Kee Cafe
82, Lorong Selamat,
10400 Pulau Pinang




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Seafood in Penang: Bali Hai

Penang is truly famous for its wonderfully tasty street food...but it has its share of excellent restaurants as well. And being a small island...by implication, the seafood must be wonderful...and indeed it is.

Lining the street of the famous Gurney Drive, are rows upon rows of seafood restaurants. But curiously most of them are rather empty...except for one. Bali Hai seems to be doing a roaring business when we dropped in on a Friday evening. Bustling. A display of live seafood lined one wall...



Diners can pick their dinner while the seafood is still alive...and indeed we did. First we started with this little fellow...



Flown all the way from Boston, this lobster was kept nicely chilled...and was rather confrontational when he was being weighed...look at the stance. I guess, if his claws were not banded, he would have attacked me and chopped off a bit of my lens hood. BTW, he was not so little, weighing in at some 1.3kg.

And same fellow...



Boiled, chopped, and with a beautiful soy based sauce, spring onions for garnishing. The lobster was firm, but the meat was sweet and tasty. Very nice.

We also opted for some scallops, baked in cheese



Also beautiful. The scallops were fresh...whaddaya expect...they were live just moments before. The meat tender, smooth, rich, creamy. The cheese added layers of flavour and more creaminess and richness. Delightful.

Bamboo clams



Variously called razor clams, bamboo clams, cigar/cigarette clams...these are curious fellows. Within the thin shell, lies a tough, but incredibly sweet, tasty meat. Coupled with tons of crisp fried garlic with blanched tang hoon and chinese parsley, and a light soy based sauce, this was a recipe for a little slice of heaven.

Certainly an excellent seafood meal. Rivalling any, including the magnificent one I had in Hong Kong at Lei Yue Mun



90, 90A, 90B, 90C & 90D, Persiaran Gurney
Georgetown
10250, Penang
Malaysia
10150
+604-2288272 / 2281272




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More Feasting in Penang: Bangkok Lane Mee Goreng

Mee Goreng is a simple dish...noodles, oil, egg are the main ingredients. But a masterful chef (and these hawkers are true chefs) can cook up a wonderful dish...full of aroma, beautiful wok hei, excellent tasting and oh, so shiok...with just these ingredients, and a few more.



The Bangkok Lane Mee Goreng is one of the famous Penang hawkers. And adaptation of the Chinese kee mee...yellow egg noodles preserved with boric acid (kee) to give it a characteristic taste. The chef is an Indian fellow, spewing fluent Penang Hokkien, and doing his dance with his well used wok...makes an amazing mee goreng.



My personal favourite was made by a nice Malay gentleman who used to have his stall behind my family home...but he is no more, having passed away peacefully, though his wife continues to run his stall, its not the same.

The Bangkok Lane stall is even more famous...the noodles can be ordered in two styles...dry and wet.

I had mine dry.



Nice and well fried, with a good wok hei. I can taste the kee in the noodles, luxurating in the richness of the egg, and crispy croutons. Very nice, fragrant plate of mee goreng.



The noodles can also be ordered wet...with a dollop of specially prepared gravy unceremoneously dumped on top of the fried noodles. This gives the noodles a bit more richness...as the gravy provides the body, and supplements the flavour. I prefer the dry style.


Bangkok Lane Mee Goreng
270, Jalan Burmah,
Penang, Malaysia.
Telephone : 6016-485 7859
Business hours : 8.00am – 6.30pm.
Closed on Mondays.

Ching Huat:: Seafood under the coconut trees

A long time ago...probably about 10 years or even more, I was introduced to this little eatery under the coconut trees in Prai. I remembered the seafood was fresh and delicious, and they had a peculiar drink - known locally as tuak, or toddy...it is the fermented juice from the coconut palm.



So this time round, I went looking for this elixir and to see if the food was still as good. Tucked away somewhere in the little villages in Prai, te little place has grown to quite a large restaurant. Now they have a cemented floor where a dirt floor and a real roof in place of attap leaves for shade. Now they also seem to have real cooks...each one specializing in his/her own dish, so in rapidfire fashion, the eatery can serve a hundred diners at one go.

The tuak looked the same as it did...



But the sweetness and freshness seemed to have gone. The tuak of old had a slight efferverscence, indicating some kind of fermentation, not unlike the methode champegnoise used in the making of champagne. The sweetness of the palm juice, fresh-ness of the drink, well chilled made a refreshing drink. It still is a refreshing drink, but less delicious, methot. It was still mildly intoxicating...due to the 4% alcohol content...roughly that of beer, but sweet and fresh.

Anyway, we started the lunch. with octopus.



A speciality of the restaurant, it is small baby octopus (gotta be careful these days, just post the 2010 World Cup when talking about octopus as food...lest one might be accused of feasting on the famous Paul of Germany). The dish was simply cooked...the sliced up octopus was probably stir fried. The meat was tough-ish, but crunchy, and slightly chewy...and rather tasteless...until one dips it into the rather potent chilli. Kapow, it hits the palate. Rather nice.

We also had the kerabu:



Kerabu is a salad...typical in peranakan cuisine. I guess, in cuisine terms, in the same genre as Som Tam in Thailand. Made from juliened cucumber, papaya, mango, and tossed in a salty, sour, spicy sauce with lemongrass and deep fried shallots, this was an appetite opener. The burst of all the ingredients assualt the senses...sweet, spicy, salty, sour, fragrant, pungent.

Initially famous for its seafood, though situated nowhere near the sea...we tried some of hte seafood:



Fish steamed...just plain fresh fish, simply steamed can sometimes make a nice meal. This was no exception. The simplicity of the cooking method is one, but the control of the heat to ensure that the fish is done just right...10 seconds too long, and it is ruined - overcooked...the fish flesh will be rendered flaky, and tasteless. 10 seconds too little will result in an undercooked fish. The French, being a great gastronomic nation, has a term for this - mi cuit...half cooked, but intentionally so is the special term for fish and foie gras. This was done almost just right...mi cuit...nice, succulent flesh, just starting to flake, but still with sufficient integrity to hold together. Nice.

The flower crabs were next:



Normally sweeter than regular mud crabs, the flower crabs are a favourite of my mom. This particular tasting proved to be not as good as earlier samplings. Perhaps the crabs were not as fresh. But the meat was not as tasty or as sweet. Average at best.

The clams were also simply stir fried with the usual ingredients of ginger, garlic and some herbs and spices.



The clams were reasonably fresh, and had a nice bite....a bit chewy, but nice and succulent.

The deep fried spring chickens were next



In my opinion, a bit over cooked. The skin was rendered golden (?), um, no...perhaps dark brown in the scalding oil. And the meat was a bit overcooked, resulting a rather dry interior to the slightly burnt skin. Not the best.

Interestingly, the starch fared rather well.



The beehoon was well fried, with good wok hei, and had absorbed the taste and flavours of the ingredients...fresh seafood...prawns, squids, and some pork slices. Nice.



The mee was not to be outdone. Bathed in a nice, almost creamy but with a piquant bite, the sauce was the star. It allowed the simply cooked noodle to shine. Infused with the fresh seafood, it was very tasty. Shiok.

Overall a quaint place to dine. It had lost some of its amateur, rustic roots, and gained little from sophistication it apparently now wants to boast of. I judge it to have been better years ago, but still not a bad place to have a meal.


Address: 2004, Bagan Lallang, 13400 Butterworth, Penang.
Tel: +604-3314782
Business Hours: 11am – 5pm
Closed on Monday




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