the penang eating scene

"what should we eat?"
"are you hungry?"
"does it matter?"

in penang, no.  it's such an insanely incredible mix of chinese and malaysian and indian foods, all hanging out together and intermingling ... i have become entirely mouth-driven -- but, fortunately, everyone else around here, especially the locals, appears to be wired similarly, so my food-enthusiasm is encouraged.  yet another one of those situations where i wish i could magically transform into a male NCAA freshman swimmer, and eat my bodyweight in noodles. 

 here is eng lon, one of penang's ubiquitous kedai kopi (coffeeshops), basically a room filled with plastic tables and chairs, surrounded by hawker wagons.  order what you want, sit down, and someone brings it to you when its ready.  this could take as much as an hour, if you order from a popular stall during the lunch rush! 

nasi ayam (chicken rice) for tom, with a lovely subtle clear soup on the side. 

for me, hokkien mee: noodles and egg and salty prawn and garlic in spicy broth, with a little lean pork on the side (donated to tom). 

perfect to combat the heat of the day: ais kacang (which i think translates into "iced beans").  shaved rose-syrup ice with salty canned sweetcorn, sweet black beans in coconut syrup,a reese's-peanut-butter-cup-shaped yet oddly tasteless jelly thingy, and chocolate and durian-flavored ice creams. 

but really, the place that stole the heart right out of my mouth is gurney plaza which, thanks to the wonder of motorbikes, we managed to eat at twice.

we were not the only ones there. 

this is char koay teow, fried noodles in dark soya sauce with chili and prawn.  tasty, a lot like pad see ew, but my fried-noodle tastebuds are still thai-trained, and i wanted something a little less subtle, a little more umami.

these fried oysters were exactly as delicious as you would want them to be.  

wan tan mee stand no. 85.

wan tan mee: noodle soup with soft-skinned, pork-filled wontons, shredded chicken, and chives.  

 hmmm .... what can i eat next?

the yung tao foo stand was, at first, completely incomprehensible, so of course i was irresistibly drawn to it.  the way it works is: either the hawker picks a set number of items for you, or you can DIY; i think (but am not sure) that only the first option is technically "yung tao foo."  choices range from fried soy crisp to various types of noodle, mushrooms, okra, pig intestines, salted and fresh vegetables, preserved bitter melon, various types of fish balls and squares and rolls stuffed with other fish, seaweeds, etc.  and then the hawker makes a sizzling hotpot of your choices in a fresh clear broth. 

this one has fish ball, fish roll (with seaweed and crab inside), bitter melon, salted cabbage, bokchoy, beehoon noodles, fried garlic, fish-stuffed okra, and eggplant.  wonderful, but massively unfinishable. 

do they really have the best rojak?  let's find out ...

rojak is like a fruit salad, except one where you've never eaten any of the fruits before and they're all covered with sticky, salty-sweet fermented prawn paste.  i'm pretty sure i identified starfruit, green and yellow mangoes, cashew fruit (yeah, i was surprised that cashews have a fruit, which i guess i shouldn't be, since they've got a nut ... it looks like a small pink bell pepper and it rocks), some kind of asian pear ... some kind of non-fruit eggy thing.  yum.  further testing definitely required. 

penang is famous for its distinctive laksa, a sour fish soup.  hard to describe.  sour, yes, but not the kind of sour i was expecting.  actually, i don't think i knew that this particular type of sour existed before i tried laksa. 

or koay is sort of a salty creamy taro paste, formed into squares, and topped with fried crispy things and chilis.  i had thought that the taro itself would be fried -- sort of like those awesome turnip pancakes that you get at dimsum sometimes -- but it was not so.  slightly more towards the interesting side on the interesting -- good spectrum. 

now, these little guys are definitely snack stars.  take a few warm noodle-cylinders -- made from steamed rolled-up layers of thin rice dough -- chop them into bite-sized pieces, drizzle them in darkly sweet prawn sauce, top with tiny bits of fried fish and toasted sesame seeds, and add a dollop of deep-red spice paste.  chee cheong fun, we shall meet again. 

ok, and of course we need dessert.  this one is nonya kuih, not sure what its made of but seems to include coconut and rice and, in the middle, some sort of bean paste.  a subtle taste, not too sweet or even overtly rice-y or coconut-y, but with a fun chewy texture.  there are other rice-based desserts that i like better (like the one cooked with durian and coconut sugar, which is far less photogenic but eminently swoony).

o.  o.  i still don't know the name of this one.  i've been trying to find out.  the top layer is a slippery sweet-with-a-tiny-perfect-hint-of-salt coconut cream, the bottom two are water chestnut gelatin, with little chunks of water chestnut suspended in them for surprising crunch.  i brought one back so that the guys running the guesthouse could tell me the name, but although i had a rousing discussion with the no. 2 guy, about where to find the best laksa (he says on air item road, just near the kek lok si temple), he couldn't remember what this little darling was called. 

well, breakfast has to come sometime.  and it can come as much as it wants when breakfast is fresh roti canai with egg.  it's so cool to watch the guys make this kind of roti: while the dough is stretched, but uncooked, he throws a raw egg in the middle and folds the raw dough over it, then the whole thing is fried on a wide cast-iron griddle, and the egg is all fluffily-cooked on the inside, with the roti all crisp and perfect, hugging it.  

i have missed indian chai, but now there is teh tarik, made with condensed milk poured (technically, "pulled"; that's what "tarik" meas in bahasa malaysia) back and forth between the jar and the teamug.

it is frothy and creamy and i love anything made with condensed milk. this particular lady added a new dimension by putting a little scoop of chocolate milo (like quik, i think) into the teh.  

motorbiking around pulau penang (the island is really small), we came to balik pulau, famous for its distinctive laksa, made with slivers of pineapple and sprigs of mint.  

not as sour as the asam variety found in georgetown proper.  the no.2 guy at our guesthouse said that something was "just not right" about the way that the balik pulauans make their laksa.  he sounded just as particular as a couple of lawyers that i know, discussing the relative merits of a cappucino made at the embarcadero center peet's vs. elsewhere. 

but the real revelation for me here was fresh nutmeg juice with sour plum.  i love nutmeg but i guess i'd never really thought of it being a fruit before it turned into spices.  you can definitely taste what one thinks of as "nutmeg" flavor in the juice, but there's something more ... a freshness, wildness, light-sweet-sour at the beginning, and a dryness, almost bitterness, right at the end of the sip.  and then the sour plums, suspended thumbnail-sized bombs amidst the ice cubes, turning the surrounding nutmegginess just a hint more sour than the rest.  

we even got to try some guinness special foreign extra, which is only sold in malaysia.  big time score.  (although, regular guinness is better.)

our local night market, just a few blocks from the guesthouse, had more than food and guinness to recommend it  specifically, it has karaoke: songs like "moon river" and the one that has "babylon" in it alot, performed by a woman draped in a miss-universe-style sash reading "red market RM 100" and accompanied by two middle-aged dancers, both absurdly bewigged, the man sporting a luridly-patterned sateen shirt, gold spangled sash, and fu-manchu moustache and goatee.  

tom's duck rice did not compare, in terms of entertainment value. 


now excuse me, i think i need to go for a run!!!!