Singapore Eats: Cicheti, Kandahar Street

Yesterday, I finally had the time to celebrate my best friend's birthday and she chose to have Italian food. The thing is, I seldom eat Italian food in Singapore (not even pasta from the pasta chain, Pastamania) because if you eat at the real Italian restaurant in Singapore, you have to be prepared to dig deep into your wallet. Yup, they are definitely not kind to your wallet. But what's the point of celebrating birthday if you do not even want to respect the birthday girl's decision. After burppling (re: googling Italian food choices in Burpple), we have decided to go for Cicheti at Kandahar Street.

Cicheti is located at one of the shop houses along Kandahar Street, just two shops away from Dong Po Colonial Cafe. We actually made reservation pretty last minute (like two days before) but since we only need table for 2 and we figured we will not take long to eat, we agree to Cicheti's condition of releasing the table by 8PM. In a glance, there weren't seem to be many customers around 6PM-ish. 

Which worked well for us, because our food will be made immediately upon ordering since we did not have to compete with other guests. Based on Burpple's reviews, Cicheti serves pretty good pasta and pizza so we decided to go for one pasta and one pizza each. Since I have chosen the pasta, the birthday girl had to choose for the pizza. It's fair play after all. Hahaha. 

The birthday girl chose Pescatore which is a kind of seafood pizza which have oregano, garlic, grey prawns, scallops, squid and basil for the toppings. As you can see, it is a tomato-based pasta. While the size seems to be nice enough for 2, we could not finish the whole pizza since we also had to eat the pasta while allocating space for dessert. Taste wise, the pizza was pretty good and it has thin base which I like. I hope the texture can be more crunchy but the toppings are good enough despite I usually am not really a fan of seafood pizza. 

  

The pasta of my choice has come and it looks so yummy just from the outlook of it. I love the braised lamb ragu especially when it is served with grated cheese on top of it. Parpadelle is actually not really my first choice of pasta because it kinda reminds me of hor fun somehow but apparently it goes well with the braised lamb ragu. Quite heavy pasta for sure but aglio olio kind of pasta is not really my kind of pasta anyway so yup, I like this. 

I initially wanted to get a candle to put on top of the lava cake but the birthday girl refused my idea as it would have attracted attention from the other tables. In any case, it will probably make the cake melt further since we turned out spending a lot of time taking wefie with the dessert. The 72% Venezuelan cocoa lava cake taste just nice not too sweet and yet, not too bitter. And obviously it goes well when paired with vanilla ice cream. Yummyyyy~~~

Cicheti is located at: 

52 Kandahar Street

Singapore

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday 12 - 2.30PM

Saturday 6 - 10.30PM

Closed on Sunday

Weekend in Penang: a complete itinerary

Penang might just be the perfect weekend destination with its historic centre, sandy beach and yummy street food. Malaysia's second largest city, George Town of Penang, was occupied by the Brits and set as a free port to attract settlers. The city is now a UNESCO World Heritage City filled with cultural and historical attractions like the 1880s Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, Fort Cornwallis, Chew Jetty and other buildings. These days, many come from the neighboring countries such as Singapore and Indonesia to enjoy the beauty and fun offered by Penang.

SATURDAY - MIDDAY

Assuming you are taking morning flight from Singapore, you will reach Penang around midday - 2PM ish. Since the heat is most likely to be somewhat unbearable during these period, seek shelter at one of the coffee shop in George Town while enjoying local street food like char kway teow or lor bak for lunch. Kedai Kopi Ho Ping at Jalan Penang (re: Penang Road) serves refreshing local drinks such as homemade iced lemon tea, teh-C peng (re: iced milk tea) or the famous white kopi (re: white coffee). Don't miss the char kway teow (re: fried kway teow) from one of the food cart parked at Kedai Kopi Ho Ping for the price of RM 6. You will not be disappointed. Nomz.

SATURDAY - 2PM

The weather in Penang would still be hot at this timing no matter what season you decide to go to Penang. Head out to Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendol at Lebuh Keng Kwee for a bowl of shaved ice filled with chendol (the green stuff), kidney beans, coconut milk and gula melaka. Don't let the long queue scare you because the queue is moving quite fast since it does not take long for the staff to serve chendol to its customers.

SATURDAY - 3PM

On the other side of George Town around Lebuh Kimberley are various museums such as Trick Art Museum and Dark Mansion, a 3D glow in the dark museum. Squeeze in a visit to Dark Mansion for unique picture taking experience under the glowing lights of a tropical forest and fountain/ volcano for the price of RM 35.

                             

Next up to the Lebuh Armenian where most of the popular Penang's street arts are located. Take your time to discover the unique painted walls mimicking life in the city. These street arts describe the lifestyle of the early settlement days which gives memorable impression of the streets and landmarks which are George Town today. 

SATURDAY - 5PM

Grab one of the many bikes available all around George Town to enjoy cycling experience in Penang. If you are just a casual cyclist, you can use one of the bikes provided by Link Bike which only requires online registration and scanning QR code. For those looking for real challenge, rent a mountain bike and cycle your way to Pearl Hill, a 2km road winding up past largely vacant residential lots to a point where you can see delightful views of Tanjong Bungah. 

SATURDAY - 6PM

Ride your way to see iconic sights of George Town such as the UNESCO listed living community heritage, Chew Jetty, and the grandest temple in Malaysia, Khoo Kong Si Temple. If you are lucky, you may be able to catch some traditional Chinese performances such as the lion dance at the temple court.

SATURDAY - 8PM

Follow a long chilaxing time at China House, a 10-minute walk away from Lebuh Armenian. China House has 3 heritage buildings linked by an open air courtyard and converted into 14 spaces comprising shops, cafes, restaurant, galleries, live music and library. Have a go at their most ordered gula melaka and almond milkshakes while having delicious slice of one of their many cakes.

SUNDAY - 9AM

Stroll back to Lebuh Carnavon at George Town to try out the old school dim sum at Aik Hoe Restaurant. Founded by a humble Cantonese 60 years back, this neighbourhood dim sum place offers various traditional dim sum dishes such as siew mai (re: pork and prawn dumpling) and lo mai kai (re: steamed glutinous rice). On the way to Lebuh Carnavon, don't forget to visit some of the hidden street art at Lebuh Chulia. 

SUNDAY - 10.30AM

Make your way back to Jalan Penang to buy traditional Penang biscuits and pastries for the loved ones back home at Ban Heang (M) Sdn Bhd or Ming Xiang Tai Pastry Shop. Testers are available at Ban Heang for the famous local Penang biscuits, tambun biscuits. This savoury and salty biscuit will surely create smiles on your loved ones back home. If you are adventurous enough, you may want to try out the durian filled pastry and biscuits.

SUNDAY - 11.30PM

Time to get a traditional Penang Assam Laksa for the last lunch fix before hailing cab to the airport. Make your way to Lebuh Keng Kwee to visit Penang Famous Assam Laksa for a bowl of sweet, sour and spicy fish base noodle soup. Best paired with a fresh coconut drink right from the fruit (and not some bottled coconut water or anything like back in Singapore).

WHERE TO STAY:

Accommodation was provided by Merchant Hotel (twins from SGD 41, with no breakfast), a non-fussy and conveniently located in the central of George Town at Jalan Penang. There are 93 rooms which were recently refurbished promising to provide most value added personalized services. 

WAY TO GO:

Getting there: Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways will be your best premium flight choices with the price range around SGD 400 and above. Scoot, Jetstar and Tiger Airways are your budget flight choices with the price range starting from SGD 99 (exclusive of all the additions and charges). 

Getting around: The best way to navigate yourselves in Penang is by cabbing. Once you are in George Town area, you can either stroll, take a rickshaw or rent a bike to check out the old town area of Penang. 

For further information on Penang, go to www.tourismpenang.net.my

Penang Weekend Trip: Penang Assam Laksa

I did not really like sourish savoury food to begin with and as I thought, the first Assam Laksa dish that I tried back in Resorts Worlds at Sentosa in Singapore did not suit to my liking. So when my travel buddy suggested us to eat this Penang delicacy, I kinda squirmed a bit. In addition, the name of the assam laksa place seems a tad too confident for my skeptical level. 

  

But, I decided to give this dish a second chance and since the shop owner is confident enough to display the word "famous" as part of his shop's name, there must be some goodness about his version of Assam Laksa. The color of the Assam Laksa served at Penang Road Famous Assam Laksa (oh gosh, that's a mouthful) is way lighter than the color of the assam laksa that I tried in Singapore. And guess what, apparently that made a lot of difference because I could tolerate and even enjoy Penang version of Assam Laksa. The amount of the fish given is quite generous too and there is no hint of fishiness at all emanating from the bowl. The shop owner told us that she just moved shop from another road to Penang Road. Well, since we found out about this shop by pure chance, I suppose it must be destiny between me and the Assam Laksa. 

Full stomach and yet, no idea what to do in Penang because soon it's your flight time? Do not worry as there are a lot of alleys with wall murals to check out in Penang. If you think you have checked all of them out, you may be wrong because that's what we thought too initially and yet, we randomly wandered into Lebuh Chulia and guess who we met here!

Celebrities on the wall. Yep, Lebuh Chulia is where you can ride a bike with the famous British dude, Mr Bean (I wonder if Sir Rowan Atkinson earns some commission from Penang. Oh well, maybe not.). 

At Lebuh Chulia, you can also meet a beautiful legend from the past, Marilyn Monroe. It seems that the wall mural is sponsored by Grand Swiss Hotel which is situated at the end of Lebuh Chulia. So if you are looking for this road, just google either "Lebuh Chulia" or "Grand Swiss Hotel" and you will find these people on the wall. 

If you have explored all sides of Georgetown and yet, still have time to kill, you should visit one of the 24 hours mini mart scattered around Georgetown. We visited one which is situated near to our hotel, Merchant Hotel, at Penang Road. Even though it is not a supermarket, I could still find some interesting items to loot from this mini market such as Uncle Saba's Poppadoms (which taste so good, I should have bought more tubes) and Zesty Lime & Chilli flavoured Pringles (which I initially wanted to give to someone but ended up finishing it myself). 

My travelling buddy went crazy for these assorted packaged lava cake from Luva. She sworn that all taste so good and I ended up following her advice and bought a few back to Singapore. I love the purple color the most but the cake taste pretty heavy actually so I ended up eating them as breakfast instead of dessert. Oh right, don't forget to buy the sweet and spicy muruku as it is quite addictive (despite the rather weird logo). The Turkish biscuits, Biscolata, taste so so to my liking but they are freebies as we have hit certain purchasing threshold. We must have been kinda crazy to shop that much at a mini store. 

Our taxi ride back to Penang International Airport only took us less than 30 minutes so we had a lot of time to spare and what better way to chill than trying out Penang's McDonalds. We did not really try anything which is so different from Singapore though apart from the grape slushie. Not adventurous bunch indeed. Oh well, that's a wrap! Until next time, Penang! 

Penang Road Famous Assam Laksa is located at: 

5 Lebuh Keng Kwee, Georgetown

Penang, Malaysia

Opening hours:

Daily 9AM - 5.30PM

Penang Weekend Trip: What to buy for souvenir?

Hello! It has been a few days since the last time I blogged. I want to make this update daily but apparently managing time is like one of the most difficult thing to do in life. We have come toward the end of the Penang trip (T_T) but of course there is no trip which ends without buying some goodies for people back home. No matter whether it's family or friends. 

Thankfully if you are staying in the midst of Georgetown, you do not have to wander for so long before finding souvenir shops. We found two interesting shops along Lebuh Penang at Georgetown. The first one gives off retro vibe and the narration on the wall seems to describe about the founder of the store. 

It is a shop specializing in filled round pastries (seems to be Cantonese pastries) named Ming Xiang Tai Pastry Shop. It seems to be a quite popular pastry shop in Penang (and Malaysia, I think) and the name card of the shop shows a list of location throughout Malaysia. The pastries on display look the same in a glance but all of them have different fillings ranging from salted egg, coconut, green tea, pineapple, chicken, pork and everyone's favourite durian. I suppose Ming Xiang Tai Pastry Shop caters for all tastebud from sweet to savoury. 

You can choose to buy either ala carte or by boxes. The packaging seems to be more suitable for souvenir to be given to people at home. You can choose from minimum 6 - 12 pieces of pastries in a box. You can also mix the taste if you want variety in the box. The price is ranging from RM 13 (for 6 pieces) to RM 38 (for 12 pieces). 

The next shop that we visited is just located a few stores away from Ming Xiang Tai Pastry Shop. It is called Ban Heang and it is famous for its tambun biscuit (or also known as tau shar pheah). 

The great thing about shopping at Ban Heang is that the shop provides tester for most of its products including its varieties of tambun biscuits. Tambun biscuits are basically baked flaky pastry biscuits filled with sweet or savoury filling made from grounded mung beans. However, Ban Heang does not sell the tambun biscuits by pieces. You have to buy a minimum of 9 pieces if you want to get the box. It costs around RM 9.50 for each box. 

Otherwise, the smallest size you can get from Ban Heang is in this paper roll packaging and it has 5 small tambun biscuits inside it. It smells good even when I have not opened the packaging. Yumz! 

Ming Xiang Tai Pastry Shop is located at:

475A Jalan Penang, Georgetown

Penang, Malaysia

Opening hours: Daily 8.30AM - 7PM 

Ban Heang is located at:

245 & 247 Jalan Penang, Georgetown

Penang, Malaysia

Opening hours: Daily 9AM - 9PM

Penang Weekend Trip: Dim Sum Breakfast at Restaurant Aik Hoe

If you are up and ready to fuel up for the day before 9AM, you may want to try out the old school dim sum breakfast experience at Aik Hoe Restaurant. Situated at Lebuh Carnavon Road, the popular dim sum restaurant amongst the local and the tourist alike is ready to serve customers since 6.30AM in the morning.

Thankfully we did not come to Aik Hoe Restaurant on Monday or Tuesday because the dim sum restaurant is closed on both days. You will have this vibe of eating breakfast at a traditional Chinese house, you can even see a prayer altar right behind the dim sum counter. 

For ordering, you can make your way to the counter and check out the selection of the dim sum offered by Aik Hoe Restaurant. The restaurant owner will display the dim sum on the trays based on its type. Fried, steamed and other specialities. We checked out the fried dim sum and the egg tart selection on the right side. 

Meanwhile, the steamed dim sum is displayed on the left side of the table. The dim sum tray is stacked one upon another so if you could not find what you want, you can ask the restaurant staff if there are more items available underneath this layer. 

Our dim sum order that day (from left to right): Peas dumpling, Siew Mai (pork dumpling), Har Kauw (Prawn Dumpling), another Siew Mai, Lotus Sesame Seeds Ball, Chee Cheong Fun (Rice Noodle Roll) and Lo Mai Gai (Steamed Sticky Rice). 

One would have expected to pay quite a big amount of money for 6 plates of dim sum order in Singapore, but one of the reasons of why Aik Hoe Restaurant is always a local favourite for dim sum in Penang is because of its affordable price. We only ended up paying around 10SGD-ish per person (shared amongst the two of us) for these dim sum feat. The dim sum is not the fancy type (e.g. Those shaped in cute animal form or filled with unusual stuff) so Aik Hoe Restaurant is the place where you can have traditional dim sum inside old Chinese house setting. 

The rice roll served at Aik Hoe Restaurant is the plain version without any additional meat served inside it. Just the good rice roll served with fried shallot, chili and a great deal of seasoning.

My favourite dim sum dish is gotta be the Siew Mai. My all time favourite since childhood no matter served with or without chili sauce. And that's why we ordered two portion of Siew Mai, because it's so good I refused to share with my travelling buddy. Hahaha. 

The Lo Mai Gai taste okay and it's complete with the Chinese Sausage (Lap Cheong) and mushroom at the top of it. The portion of Lo Mai Gai is generally the biggest compared to the other dim sum item so if you don't want to be full easily, you should consider sharing this dish instead of finishing one on your own. 

Aik Hoe Restaurant is located at:

No. 6 & 8 Lebuh Carnavon, Georgetown

Penang, Malaysia

Opening hours:

Wednesday - Sunday 6.30AM to 2PM

Closed on Monday and Tuesday

Penang Weekend Trip: Khoo Kongsi Temple Georgetown

Upon my random wandering around Lebuh Armenian in Georgetown, my travel buddy and I chanced upon a small alley which somehow passed by a lot of travellers. Fueled by mainly curiousity and lured by the sound of the liondance's drum from a distance, we followed the small pathway which led to an open space filled with crowd. Walking closer to the source of the drum sound, we saw that there was a performance going on in front of a temple named Khoo Kongsi Temple.

Khoo Kongsi Temple is situated at Lebuh Cannon in Georgetown. The temple itself is quite special because it is actually an old Chinese clan house which is also functioning as temple and meeting hall. A performance like lion dance and drum show are usually held on a weekend at the temple's square. The performance is free to watch and it was quite fun to see the lion dance and the puppets teasing one visitor to another. 

If you love to check out the history of clan house in Penang, you may want to pay the temple a visit for an admission fee of RM 10. However, if your surname is Khoo, you can visit the temple for free (since this is supposedly your ancestral clan house). Interestingly, the temple cannot be seen from the street as it is blocked by other building in the vicinity. We were kinda amazed by the beautiful clouds forming on top of the temple too that day. But since it's already way past 5PM, we did not manage to go inside the temple. Too bad. The temple opens from 9AM to 5PM everyday if you would like to visit.

The weather has become nicer around this timing and perfect for wandering around. However, the sun will set soon and we were getting tired from our Saturday adventure, so we decided to go back to our hotel, Merchant Hotel, by using a rickshaw. We kinda had a small discussion on what kind of driver should we choose to pedal our rickshaw because after all, we are not as slim as K-Pop idols you see. I was quite skeptical about asking old men to pedal but my friend thinking otherwise. However, at the end we decided to go with the younger guy to pedal our rickshaw. 

The rickshaw driver will quote you a price and ask for your agreement before you can ride the rickshaw. The quoted fee from Lebuh Armenian to Merchant Hotel is around RM 15, which we thought was quite reasonable so we did not bother to bargain. To be honest with you, the rickshaw feels kinda cramped with our two butts sit next to each other. Oh my gawd, are we really that fat? 

Oh right, space issue aside, be prepared with your camera because the route taken by the rickshaw is usually filled with many interesting thing to take picture with. One area that you must be prepared to take picture is definitely the mosque at Lebuh Buckingham. I am not even a Moslem and yet, I could feel the amazing vibe from this beautiful mosque. 

When we are getting nearer to our hotel, we could feel that the rickshaw driver really utilized his brute strength to the max because the rickshaw feels heavier and heavier. At some point, he even coughed pretty badly we kinda prayed he could last and not fainted or vomited blood prior reaching to our hotel. And woots, he made it! I shall repent and eat lesser now that I am back in Singapore, I promise. 

Penang Weekend Trip: Chew Jetty Heritage Site

I find that the only problem that I have when visiting Penang is that my stomach is not big enough to keep on consuming yummy food in Penang without taking a break. The best way to give your stomach ample time to digest whatever you have consumed (like char kway teow, chendol, tau sar piah, etc) in Penang is by taking a stroll or riding a bike to roam in the old town of Georgetown. I, for one, is a fan of walking and I have walked 16,000 steps alone in the CBD area of Singapore so imagine my joy when I wander around somewhere I have never been before. It's really adventure of a lifetime like what Coldplay sings.

Wandering in a city gives you a lot of random happenings and sights. It seems that Penang is famous for its durian and this is one fruit that I really really can't and won't appreciate in my lifetime. I gave green light to my travel buddy to have a go at the durian pastry or ice cream or whatever food which can be infused with this stinky fruit but she did not feel like eating durian by herself so yeah...

Let's just moving on with our walk shall we. My travel buddy and I had a little debate on this particular wall mural because the cat in the picture looks kinda outworn. I do think that the outworn parts make the wall mural looks kinda vintage but my travel buddy disagreed. Anyway none of us is taking picture with the cat anyway because the lighting was not that nice at that particular timing. Random debate upon our wander, really. We should have our own talk show one day. 

The next wall mural that we chanced upon is quite interesting though. Initially I did not get what the cat's looking at a particular direction and that's when I realise that there's a picture of a mice hanging playfully there. Hahaha nice touch of creativity, I think. 

After we cross the street to check out the nearby market, we stumbled against Chew Jetty which is displayed as UNESCO World Heritage Site. We totally did not have any idea nor that we had plan to visit this particular heritage site and I suppose that's probably one of the quirks of going-with-the-wind kind of travel plan? It seems that there are a lot of restrictions imposed and there is no motorcycle and bicycle allowed inside. Well, not a problem for us since we came here on foot. 

Smiley faces on the house under the blue sky, I see. 

Chew Jetty is apparently a settlement of wooden houses built on silts. It kinda reminds me of a settlement at Tai O Fishing Town in Hong Kong. The houses are now functioning as stores ranging from ice cream, souvenir, hats, sunglasses, and snack stores. Why is this settlement is called "Chew Jetty"? I googled it and found out that "Chew" is the surname of the first residences who stayed in this settlement. Back then, migrant families from China with the same surname (whoa, must have been a big clan) stay together in this area. 

 This was how the jetty harbour looks like back then.  You can see the difference between the nostalgic old Harbour and the modern Penang harbour at the other side of the sea. If you come during the night, the whole place may give a softer ambience because the settlement is lit with yellow lights, if you get what I mean. You can still visit Chew Jetty until 9PM everyday. 

Walk further and you will reach an open area where you can admire the bustling Straits of Malacca. A lot of visitors hanging around here while eating their snacks and ice cream. We did not hang around for too long though because Chew Jetty was pretty much packed with visitors from all ages on Saturday afternoon. 

If you are adventurous enough and feel like spending the night at Chew Jetty, you may want to consider homestay. The descendants of Chew families are operating the homestay.  The details for the homestay is as follows:-

Address of Chew Jetty Home Stay  

59A, Chew Jetty, Weld Quay 

10300 George Town Penang, Malaysia 

E-mail: infor@mychewjetty.com 

Telephone:     

Chew Siew Pheng     +6013-4381217 

Chew Lay Zheng    +6016-4020411 

Chew Yong Seng    +6016-4561884