Penang food trip

This one is long overdue. My family went to Penang, Malaysia for a month last year, and I wanted to do this feature on Penang food. But organizing the 1st Karay-a Arts Festival took most of my time in June to October 2007; I never got to write that food article. Until I sorted my pics folder and found these. It's never too late to share them here.

Nasi goreng ikan (small photo) - No big deal but fried rice with dried fish, and bits of vegetables thrown in, topped with fried egg. Staple among Malays. My sister Mila's favorite. Variants are nasi goreng ayam (chicken) or paprik (spicy veggies). I prefer the paprik, which I suppose is of Thai origin. I saw something like it in a Thai restaurant menu.

Penang laksa (big photo) - This is a Peranakan dish. My sister always coaxed me to try it. Tried twice but never liked it. First time I was alone at the Komtar food center and cannot make up my mind on what to have for lunch; the second time at the food stall in Bukit Bendera. It's white noodles, like oversized spaghetti, in a soup of mysterious concoction. I suspect it's got ginamus (shrimp paste), which they call belacan in Malay. And snips of herbs, dashes of spices. It must be an acquired taste.

Nasi lemak is, I think, the Malay national food. It is rice cooked in coconut milk, paired with fried ikan bilis (dilis), egg (boiled or fried) roasted peanuts, and slivers of cucumber. In most times a dish of chicken, beef or fish (ikan goreng) in sambal sauce is also served. At the KL Bird Park cafe, I ordered this with beef rendang. The simplest nasi lemak can be bought for as cheap as one ringgit from stalls at a kampung (village), and gets more pricey at fast foods and classy restaurants. They also serve this in pre-packed containers at Air Asia, costing 12 ringgits. I had to try it to compare with what I tasted at a nasi kandar in Penang.

Food in Penang is really something to explore. The Malay, Chinese, and Indian influences give a foodie a lot to try out. At Restoran Daun Pisang near the Indian street, I tasted my first authentic Indian curried food, mango chutney, and lassi drink. Best of all, we ate with bare hands on banana leaves. It's so like home.

The Kapitan fast food along Kapitan Keling street near the mosque is also famous. I stopped by there one rainy afternoon for curry lamb chops and roti. There's also a restaurant called something like Yasmin along Penang Road, right beside Sam's Batik House, great to shop for clothes. Spice and Rice along 1 Green Hall St. is a fine dining restaurant with authentic northern and southern Indian menu. Eduard and I had a quiet lunch there during our vacation in 2006.

The most popular and cheap places when going out in Penang are the nasi kandar, serving usually Malay and Indian food, the Chinese dimsum and kopitiam, and the hawkers at night markets. The nasi kandar is the Malay version of our "turo-turo." Some of these are serve yourself affairs, and the charges depend on how much food you scoop up on your plate. The cashier simply knows how much to charge.

At the hawkers that musroom along Chulia St., Eduard and I tried oysters omelet and nasi goreng cooked right before us by a Chinese cook. The noodle houses abound, and one can get all kinds, with soup or without. There's one shop we went to that gave us the best Hainanese chicken rice, but I declare it was only second to that I had in a restaurant near the Singapore Art Museum. Well, it's also called Singapore chicken, afterall.

First timers in Penang must try the teh tarik (silent k, please), satay (simply barbeque to us) in peanut sauce. In one stop over during a trip to KL, my brother in law Ramli brought me to this satay place and gave me what seemed like a satay fiesta! I tried all kinds: goat meat, chicken, beef, liver, lamb, etc.

Secret Recipe, which is the most successful Malaysian foodchain brand, serves the best lamb stew, a real winner. Now, I am drooling. Good thing they opened branches in Manila, but the lamb costs twice as much. Their cakes are divine too. There's one at Robinson's Ermita.

This fish dish in the last picture is not Malay though, but Thai. We ordered this at Siam Cafe, another of my sister's favorites. It is fish tomyam actually but maybe a variant of Malay influence because the tomyam we had during a Thai wedding reception at Ang Thong province, was in clear soup but very very hot.

Now, I remember I have lots of photos of northeastern Thai food taken in Mahasarakham in 2006. The friends I met at the conference there, in fact, gave me an authentic Thai dinner for my 39th birthday. Wonder where I stored the files.