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