FLAVOURS OF PENANG

The Drive For Food Competition was finally over, thanks to my teammates Jackson, Teckie and WMW for being such a wonderful travelling companion throughout our journey from KL to Penang. The objective of the competition was to shoot videos of food and interesting places along our journey, so we did make a lot of stops. The videos will be put up at Star Online website for voting soon, so will post up the link here and please vote for us.

To avoid delay in our journey, we have decided not to take any personal photos for our blogs. Well, that was until we reached Penang, our final destination and the last meal for the day. In fact, this was the only proper meal we had as the earlier ones were done in a rush. This means, it's also time for us to dig out our abandoned cameras and start snapping away for our blog.

For the last stop, we decided to go to New Lane, one of the best places to get Penang's gastronic offerings. There are about 40 over stalls operating at both sides of the lane from 1 p.m. till late at night. Definately a place where one could be spoilt with choices. So here were the goodies that we had that night:

O Chien or Oyster Omelette got our votes. We were delighted to see such big, juicy and plump oysters cooked with aromatic egg omelette; not starchy as those I have eaten before. Thumbs up!


How could we not order Penang Char Kuey Teow right? Our servings came sprinkled with crabmeat. Tastewise a big disappointment as it lacks of the 'wok hei'. Sadly, I got to say that I can find better Char Kuey Teow in SS2 selera malam.

We also ordered a few pieces of Lobak which is also a specialty in Penang. Plenty of choices to choose from such as fish, pork, chicken, prawn, beancurd and even century egg with pickled ginger. Each items were freshly-fried and then cut into smaller pieces and served with chilli and sweet sauce.

WMW's favourite, soft and chewy chee cheong fun sprinkled with lots of sesame seed. Instead of being served with normal sweet sauce, we opted for the sinful prawn paste instead. The taste? Sinfully delicious!

Again, WMW gave thumbs up for this bowl of Duck Meat Kuey Teow Th'ng. But I guess, what really excites WMW was the 'Jue Yau Char' aka pork lard sprinked in the clear soup. I tried one spoonful, not too bad as the kuey teow was smooth and the soup was tasty. And it only costs RM3 for such big bowl of noodle.

For something healthier, we ordered a plate of popiah to share. To our surprise, the plate of popiah came soaking with stock. Perhaps this is what they call Popiah Basah. The fillings contains shredded yambean, Chinese lettuce beansprout, egg omelette and chopped taukua. Am not a fan of popiah as I never like cooked yambean but this one is moist and good. Not bad!

The grilled chicken wings was too sweet for my likings, so I don't quite like it.

A highly recommended stall in most foodguides is the Intestine Porridge or Chee Cheong Chook stall which one would not missed as it is the very first stall you will see on your right when you enter New Lane.

How could you miss this stall when all the pig's internal organs are being displayed?
Gosh!! Uncle, no tongue in my porridge ok?

For only RM3.50, this bowl of smooth porridge came with lots of deep fried intestines and offals. Personally, I didn't quite like it as I find the offal smell too overpowering. Although the texture of the porridge is exactly how I like it to be, the sweetness of the broth somehow tasted too sweet to me. I went through my foodguide again and found that the pork intestines are marinated in sugar and sauces, then smoked before being deep-fried. Perhaps that explain why the porridge broth tasted so sweet.

We were practically stuffed to have any desserts like Cendol or Ice Kacang but we can't just leave like that right? So we stopped at this Apam Balik stall to get some back to the hotel to munch while editing our videos for submission the next day. The Apom Balik here can be customised according to your taste. The batter comes in either original, coconut or pandan flavour whereas the fillings comes in either banana, cream corn or dessicated coconuts cooked with gula melaka (palm sugar). My favourite was the aromatic Pandan Flavour Apom with the dessicated coconuts. The texture of the Apom was soft and melts in your mouth. Sadly, they don't have my favourite Apom with crushed peanuts filling.
Lots more of food that I didn't get to try it here, such as the Curry Laksa, Hokkien Noodle (Prawn Mee), Kuih Kak, etc...so definitely a place which I will revisit if I ever go to Penang again.