Wandering Fel

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

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. 

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

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

There are so many food to eat in Penang but certain food stalls close pretty early (as early as 1PM) on Saturday afternoon. For example, we initially wanted to have a go at Nasi Kandar, a popular rice based dish in Penang, but most stalls for these popular dish have closed by the time we started our adventure. Oh well, it's okay, there are other food to try. And that's when we stumbled upon Kedai Kopi Ho Ping.

Our eyes have gotten way bigger when we saw one of the push carts uncle's frying char kway teow. It is definitely a sin not to eat char kway teow when one is visiting Penang. There is char kway teow back in Singapore too but the original char kway teow was borne in Penang. What's the difference between Penang and Singapore's version of char kway teow? Hmm, for a start, Penang's char kway teow taste lighter somehow and the portion given was not so big in terms of the size. However, look at the size of the prawns given on top of the char kway teow, they are pretty big indeed. Another main difference is definitely the price. This plate of char kway teow only costs SGD 2 in Penang while it can cost double or triple back in Singapore. There's nothing you can do about it though since Singapore imports basically every food ingredients from other countries. So yeah, don't miss this food when you are in Penang!

The weather in Penang was so hot, as hot as Singapore. So it is kinda impossible to go on without having some refreshments. At Kedai Kopi Ho Ping, you can get your usual kopi/ teh fix like the one you probably often have in Singapore (remember the kopi-O/C or teh-O/C?). The iced lemon tea that I ordered seems to have more lemon than usual but I did not really mind it because it taste good and refreshing at the price of less than SGD 1. Oh gosh, I love Penang already. 

One of the trademarks of the buildings in Georgetown area is that you may spot a lot of street art and wall mural on these buildings, just like the one we spotted on the 2nd level's wall of another coffee shop. Quite fun to hunt, these street art. 

Oh right, I forgot to mention. If you are looking for other food, there are other food carts opening under Kedai Kopi Ho Ping as well. These food carts selling another famous food in Penang called Loh Bak but unfortunately we did not really have much time to try other things. Next time, I guess.

Kedai Kopi Ho Ping is located at Jalan Penang and it opens from 9AM until the food is finished (uh oh, better come fast then).