Wandering Fel

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. 

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. 

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). 

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).