Simply Penang

Simply Penang is tuck in a non-descript corner of the old wing in 1U. Good thing too, because I’d rather the place remain a closely guarded secret to true food lovers who want to stay away from glitz and faddish frenzies. Boasting all things Penang, I’ve got to say they really have got it all. Or almost all.

Let’s start with UMBRA.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The drink made from the fibrous hog plum (Spondias dulcis aka Ambarella or kedondong) and sour khana. A gravid woman’s delight and a real gustatory enhancer. A sip of this sharp, twangy, citrussy and refreshing drink will put you in the mood for everything else Penang to follow.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Char Kuay Teow, is of course, the benchmarking product. This is not bad. It does lack burn. But the generous servings of cockles and shrimp more than makes up for the absence of fury. A 7/10 for this.

There’s a long list of Nyonya rice combinations, the lobak-nyonya fried chicken being my favorite. Shown here is the soy-fried shrimp, shrimp sambal and curry chicken combo. Sambal belacan is free flow and very authentic.


Their prawn sambal plus ju-hu-char goes into the rice dishes and makes it very nyonya. Flavorful and lip-smacking.

Hokkien mee (aka prawn mee) here is amazing. The noodles are bouncy fresh. The meats are succulent. Extra (bottomless) sambal is provided for extra oomph. But try not to adulterate it with too much sambal. The crustacean stock that goes into this soup is like swimming in a shrimp juice. Nggggghhhh. You know what I mean.



Last, but not least is their winning curry mee. It comes coconut-milk white with a spoonful of lethal curry paste to be mixed in. And, in their usual generosity, more of the killer ground putty is provided for the steel-stomached or suicidal. The pre-curried soup is very fragrant, noodles are bouncy, as are the fresh meats. But it's the curry paste that takes you to Andromeda and back. It's so well integrated, I honestly can't make out what condiments of the gods go into it. But there's a unique touch of charring and barely detectible dried chillis. Beyond that, it's all just one massive taste-bud orgy that you wish would never end.

​The Lobak platter is good for a meal or a shared snack. Crisp and tasty. The taufu is fresh. The prawn crackers (cucur udang) is fragrant. And the lobak is wildly juicy with crisp wraps.

​And a journey through Penang delights can only be complete with its Ais Kachang and Chendol. I’m sorry to say this, but Swatow Lane has been beaten. The fruit & ice-cream topped ice kacang, with large chunks of red beans and cincau and crunchy peanuts makes one proud to be Malaysian.
​
The Chendol almost makes it to Penang Street level. But it’s good enough.

Complete your gustatory rendezvous with KOPI O KAU and you’ve got the whole of Penang under your belt. Simply.

Selamat Seething Sisters' Laser-Fried CKT

The recommendations for penang-style charred noodles abound. Penangites will swear on holy books for their 'best wan' - under the tree, by the fire hydrant, behind the petrol station.

Me, I don't have the luxury to muck around the island hunting down the perfect blazed noodles. So.. the safest bet is to head to to good old Lorong Selamat.

The angry sisters are still there. Spewing venom,. Calling down lightning. And dragon-breathing all their blazing fury into the hapless wok. I swear it's her laser stare that burns the edges of her koay teow into the perfect crisp. Don't be fooled. Her cyclops visors are more to keep you from vaporising than for eye care.

They've moved down the street 20 metres or so and their spot has been replaced by a wannabe. He's got his own visor and all (like he needs it) but he just doesn't have the rage. You've got to have burnishing rage. We CAN TASTE YOUR ANGER. We NEED to taste your anger! Wimpy, nice guy CKT doesn't cut it for me.

But then, hey, he's good for some photography at least.. He's got skill, no doubt. He's got showmanship and charisma too. His char spews aerosolised chilli and oil in holy smoke the right way. But most of all I'm too chicken to photographh Medussa. Visions of turning into a pillar of ash flashed briefly before I turned my camera to the more amenable subject on Lrg Selamat.So here's some CKT kung fu from the amicable photogenic shaolin master:

First things first: bean sprouts, eggs and shrimps
Then the koay teow and soy
Finally a power stir on high flame


Seen here is the laser-fired product of the Seething Sisters. Succulent prawns, juices insulated in by a micrometre-thin rapid-fire burnt layer of char. The fettucine is bouncy soft and the master mix of molten lard, semi-coagulated egg, soy, garlic and chilli makes for a truly delectable delight!

LOK-LOK gets a Grill

I'm crazy about LOK-LOK, the fondue of Malaysia that has me salivating come weekends when pasar malams stop traffic and bring out the hunter-gatherer in us. It's TGIF - Total Gluttony In Full-Force.

The thing I like about KL lok-lok is that it has evolved from the good 'ol dip-em and eat-em to a full range of batter-fry delicacies and charred-to-perfection barbeque meat-on-sticks.


A standard pig-out at the lok-loks would entail 2 sticks siham (shellfish), 1 stick foochow meatball, 1 stick beef-tendon ball and 1 stick fish ball. For the calorie-conscious quickie: 2 sticks siham + 1 stick foochow meatball. But to have lok-lok-seventh-heaven, you've got to go for the grill.

My grill chart toppers would be the chicken kebab with capsicum and dried pork (yok kon/long yok). Taiwan sausages would come in at number 3. A flash dip into a cauldron of bubbling oil starts off the process to seal flavors from the outside. They are then burnt slowly over embers of coal and intermittently basked with sweet soy sauce. The moment the corners turn crisp brown, the sticks are quickly coated with chilli powder before it's handed to you hot, piping, and oh so amazingly aromatic.


BBQ sticks are to be enjoyed slowly, letting the crunchy corners crackle in your mouth while the sweet meaty juices coat your tongue as you sink in your teeth. A bite into the inter-spersed cubes of capsicum will add a zesty twang before you chomp them all down in heavenly transport. Good satay sauce is also available for that extra oomph.

If ambience is important to you: tungsten light bulbs give a touch of old-town charm, a constant roar of gurgling soup pots and the whirring of a generator near by can be quite hypnotic as well.

See you next week at the pasar malam?

Kurau Acar Fried Rice

Acar ikan kurau masin is a highly specialised and acquired taste. I presume it's a malay power preserved food that comes from salted kurau fish and pickles.

The very creative chef at CHARMS in 1U has somehow worked the potent paste into a delectable delight they call the Kurau Acar Fried Rice.

The rice alone is a transport to taste. They have however added on a fried egg, their signature sambal, and some kunyit fried chicken for variation and fill.

A wonderful creation. Lip-smacking. Will keep me salivating for a week until I visit 1U again! Now if I can get my hands on some of the original acar stuff and make some myself..

Mother of Chee Cheong Funs

If you don't know what chee cheong fun is, it's going to be hard for this post to make sense to you. I'll try anyway: chee cheong fun are sheets of steamed rice flour, rolled into tubes. They are traditionally served with sticky sweet brown sauce and sesame seeds or a thin curry sauce. This place in Pudu is a fusion of Yong Tau Foo (another task to explain..) and Chee Cheong Fun.

 

As you can see, they serve up more than CCF ad YTF; the braised loh shee fun is my must-have.

 

My wife goes for the curry CCF every time. It's garnished with crushed crispy shrimp to give it that added kick.

 

The YTF selection is varied enough to make a good meal of crunchies and soupies.

 

OKONO WHA??

OKONOMIYAKI. The best darned food to come out of Japan next to Sushi, IMHO.

This place in Low Yat Plaza (basement) serves up a mean Yaki. I'll let the photos speak for themselves...


Starting with the base on the hot plate.


Then slop on soba, vege and seafood.


A few strips of bacon for the oink factor.


Top it with fried egg.


Add on another layer of fried batter.


Garnish, mayo and Okonomiyaki sauce for topping... and..


WALAH... OKONMIYAKI.


Juicy and meaty on the inside. Crispy batter layers. Creamy sauce toppings with crunchy garnishings. Semi-sweet stocky magic brown sauce to keep it all glued together. What can I say? Heaven on earth.

Curry me away

 

There are days when you want throw caution to the wind and let cravings take over. For days like that, you have things like CURRY LAKSA. I doubt anyone needs an introduction to what it is. Though there are so many varieties of the LAKSA, some qualification is needed. Depending on where you are, the term LAKSA has means different things. In Sarawak, it is a belacan based curry. In Penang, there is no curry; it is a shrimp-paste-based sour concoction made for days when you want to lose all sensation on your tongue - outside of Penang, it's called Assam Laksa. Johor has its own variety. For Balinese or whatever other exoticas, you can try The Laksa Shack, though I don't guarantee authenticity.

Curry Laksa in KL, is simply that - curry noodles.

 

What makes a good curry laksa? Let me see,.. I'd narrow it down to these criteria:

1) COCKLES - Fresh, juicy cockles. Medium rare. Cooked enough not to ooze blood from the corner of your mouth (Ugh!). Undercooked enough to spurt glorious juices all over your palate and stay there for awhile for the after-taste (Ahhhh!). *WARNING FROM THE SURGEON GENERAL: Under-cooked cockles are a known vector for the Hepatitis A virus*
2) CURRY - Not so thick that it sticks to the spoon, tongue, throat and continues to slime around till you sleep at night. Not so thin that you can see through it. Also finely laced with coconut milk, just enough to line your coronary arteries with a film of cholesterol. Yes... Cardiologists recommend curry mee daily lest they run out of patients.
3) Other features - chicken slices, char siew, pork skin, taugeh. All add interest and flavor to the essentials above.

The ones featured here is from the Taman Midah hawker street. Quite good. 8/10 for me.

One Ton of Slithering Goodness

I just realised that I've never done anything on Wan Tan Mee. The Klang Vally signature dish that no other Malaysian variation does justice to. Wan Tan Mee outside of Klang Valley is schlock. Anyone who talks of Penang Wan Tan Mee or Sibu Kampua or Kuching KoLok Mee as comparable needs to have his taste buds checked. The cheap imitations that pretend to be Wan Tan Mee may be reckoned for what they are, and may actually be pretty good in their own right,.. but get this straight: they are NOT Wan Tan Mee.

CHAR SIEW WAN TAN MEE is a tradition,.. no, it's an INSTITUTION. And an art form of gustational delight. Where should I start? The noodles? The charred pork? Or the soft wanton?

Let's start with the noodles, seemingly the most easy part of the dish. It looks like, well, just, noodles.. but if not done right it's crap. The wanton mee chef must be able to take the raw, lightly powdered noodle-bundle through a series of boiling-hot and cold water baths, in the exact timing and sequence for it to come out cooked, tender, and separate. Before there was the PCR thermocycler, there was the wanton mee kungfu master. Each noodle must be a single discrete strand not enmeshed into one another. And they must be individually firm, not mushy and slopping on to each other. To add to its silky strand-by-strand smoothness they may be laced with a hot stock-sauce that is barely noticeable but lifts the noodle from the ordinary to the heavenly.

Then,.. comes the charred pork, or CHAR SIEW. These are chunks of pork, marinated with a secret blend of spices and sauces and roasted, usually in a large, blackened oil barrel almost the height of a wanton-mee kungfu master. For all its primitiveness, it is a wonderful way to make roast pork. The wanton mee kungfu master worth his salt, charres his own siew. Early in the morning he will be seen setting a pile of coal ablaze under his large black cauldron. Chanting, puffing and occasionally lifting out the porcine portions for inspection, a billowing cloud will shroud the populace, signalling the coming of char siew. When the tender meats are ready, they are sliced thinly but not so thin that they blow off in the wind (like Kampua) or so thick that you have to gnaw for hours. The peripheries are reddish-brown, almost black and will be crispy at the farthest edges. The meat within should be firm and still retain some moisture. The aromas of the spices would have permeated the meat thoroughly and jet steam into your olfactory nerve upon first bite.

Wanton. Wanton are simply meat-rolls. Light, in a refreshing soup. But again, this can be done wrong in so many ways. Too much meat and it will feel like having a whole meal in itself. Too little, it's nothing more than a flour ball. Just right, and again rapidly passed through the boil, the meats should be chewy, the wrap silky, and the after-taste, oh-so-yummy.

OK. Where can you get this? KL has quite a few places that passes the test of authenticity. You can't just walk into any coffee shop that has a stall selling wanton mee and think it's KL Wanton Mee. There's practically one in every coffee house and food court in this city. The few that make the mark in my list (and I'm happy to be introduced to any I've missed) are: Khoon Kee (Petaling Street), Toong Kwoon Chye (Jln Bukit Bintang), and one I've recently discovered that top them all, Jalan Pahang (corner shop, few shoplots from Kamal Book Store.)

The one at Jalan Pahang (I'll update this one I get the name), from which these photos were taken is a classic place. Attesting to its superior quality are two things: the crowd, and the behavior of the crowd. It's always packed in the mornings. People with papers, people in neckties, doctors with stethoscopes (the General Hospital is just opposite), renal failure patients with cathethers in their neck, schoolkids with their bags and doctors late for work because they are waiting for their wanton mee. And all these people, regardless of their status in society, sits quietly, not raising a finger or whimper. They wait. They do not annoy the lady-boss with rude orders. You are seen, not heard,.. until the lady-boss decides it's time to take your order, and not a second earlier. Amateurs are seen walking up to the stall and demanding their portion... hahaha... they will never eat. This place has all the above qualities of wanton mee, plus the attitude.

Needless to say, I love it.

Hill Top Ha Kau

 

Grill Galore

What happens when Dusun meets Bajau on the northern coasts of Borneo? They break out the BAR-B-Q that's what! The variety of grills burning flesh here is akin to some kind of sea-spirit religious rite, appeasing the ocean-gods with burnt offerings and incense of coals! Ok, I'm exaggerating, but just take a walk along the grills of Kinabalu coast and the offerings will have you salivating silly and you will get a little sacrilegous too.

Nestled between the Handicraft Bazaar and the Central Market, almost toppling into the sea, is this crowded commotion of grills, woks, and makeshift eating tables. On one side are the Malay delicacies of goreng pisang, Murtabak, and a whole lot of other delectable delights I can't even get into. But the rest of it is searing, sizzling, sputtering flesh on fire. Something you don't want to miss.

Alas! But I DID miss it... Saving our tums for fresh seafood at Salut, I could only take photographs, no bites. So please, if you're reading this - the next time you are in Borneo, go sink your teeth into something hot and sizzling from the grill for me and tell us all how it goes.



Finding the place