Penang – Where the Good Food is!

For Baby Boomers, a visit to Penang is like finding once again the home we left all those years ago. While modernization and gentrification has altered the townscape quite a lot, certain pockets of Penang still transport the visitor back powerfully to Singapore of the 60s and 70s. Sights, smells, sounds, and especially tastes, still evoke what can only be described by the cliché, ‘the good ole days.’

The younger visitor, meanwhile, will find a town on the upswing, thanks to its new status as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Hip hostels and cafes line the historic lanes of Georgetown, and specially commissioned street art cling to weathered walls and peep out from unexpected corners. But the most telling impression the youngster will take away is the stupendous street food, which literally carpets Penang.

Penang and Singapore share many similar flavors, not surprising given some of our common origins in Malay, Hokkien, Hainanese and Indian food. However, differences exist, some more obvious than others, because of geographical and historical circumstances. Just look at Singapore’s and Penang’s idea of laksa!

That being said, to anyone who has ever moaned about the food in Singapore going to the dogs, a trip to Penang is an antidote. Dress comfortably for sure; ideally in tees and Bermudas, as it’s hot and the best food is invariably found in non-airconditioned coffee shops, side lanes and outdoor spaces.

Meat Porridge and Fried Kway Teow

It may sound touristy, but to local and visiting foodies alike, the street market at Jalan Kuala Kangsar is not to be missed. The food stalls are mixed in with the usual market vendors along both sides of a thronging and narrow lane. Nearly all of Penang’s signature foods are here; but two stalls in particular stand out: the pork porridge, and Penang fried kway teow, located at the entrance to the market street, next to Campbell Street.

Forget about decorum: make a choice, shout your orders to the stall-owner, and grab a seat nearby. Your porridge will arrive in about 20 minutes, steaming and delicately smooth in texture. What’s unfamiliar – at least to us Singaporeans – was the shredded charsiew on top, which, surprisingly, went very well with the porridge.

The hawkers use itinerant pushcarts, and adjacent to the porridge stall across the lane stood the Penang fried kway teow. Although not on the usual litany of foodie favorites, this stall unfailingly serves up a heaving plate of cockle-filled kway teow perfumed with intense wok hei.

Jalan Kuala Kangsar Street Market

George Town

Penang Assam Laksa

Once located on the roadside next to a Shell petrol station in Farlim district, this laksa pushcart attracted droves. Following complaints, it was forced into a nearby coffeeshop, where it is still named after its original ‘address.’

Unlike most commercial stalls where canned sardine is used as the stock base, this one uses fresh fish and spices for broth. There was a right balance of sweet and sour coming from the blend of assam peel, shallots, garlic, and lemongrass. What stood out from this spicy thick stock was the Penang prawn paste and ikan kembong.  Freshly cooked ikan kembong was deboned and strewn generously on the bowl; and those who wanted more fish could simply request for it.

Another must-try was the fried spring roll. Eat it the local style, dipped into the laksa broth – another novelty for a Singaporean.

Farlim Shell Station Laksa Café

Medan Angsana 4, Bendar Baru Air Itam

11500 Penang

Telephone: +6016 459 7179

Curry Rice

Known only to locals in the Jelutong area, this family-run stall opens every night at 10.30 pm. It is a swift and efficient operation. Early arrivals will find the whole coffee shop looking deserted half an hour before opening. Then suddenly a flurry of activity erupts, and a 6-man team sets up the stall and brings out more 30 trays of freshly cooked food from the back of the shop – all in 30 minutes!

The food was predominantly Teochew, with a variety of spicy curry dishes to choose from. The taste was home cooked and simple; however every curry dish had its own distinct taste, unlike in Singapore, where it sometimes seems like a ‘one-curry-fits-all’ situation exists. The only thing to beware is that one tends to over-order as each and every dish looks equally appetizing.

Tong Sun Coffee Shop

Jalan Perak, Jelutong

Penang 11600

Fried Oyster Omelette

Amusingly, this rundown coffeeshop was listed in Penang food guides for the beef noodle stall it housed. But it is the fried oyster that is driving the crowds here. The stall-owner, Mr Gan, gained popularity when he operated for more than 10 years from an old coffee shop at New World Park. He moved due to high rents some two years ago.

Mr Gan serves two versions of fried oysters: the Thai style which is more dry and crispy, and the more popular starchy and wet style -- which is also the version Singaporeans are more familiar with.  Go for the Thai version, as the crispy edges of the omelette would blow you away when dipped in the special chili sauce.

Gan’s Crispy Fried Oysters

Lam Ah Coffee Shop

194 Lebuh Chulia

George Town

Mr Lous’s Lok Bak

No visit to Penang would be complete without a visit to the Lok Bak stall at this café. Mr Lou Joo Chon has sold lok bak for more than 40 years. He offers quite a selection but the must-try items are the prawn fritters, tou kwa, and fish roll. Also a must is the five-spice meat roll, simply known as lor bak.  Instead of minced pork, Mr Lou seasons strips of pork with a special concocted five-spice powder and wraps it in bean curd skin.

He then fries the rolls in a moderate heat that cooks the meat without burning the bean curd skin. Another of his unique offerings is the dipping sauce similar to our lor mee gravy. This is a derivation of the Hokkien-style dipping sauce, where heavy stock is used as the base and potato starch is added as thickening agent. Incidentally, Penang lor mee shares the same stock with lok bak, except meat bones are added to the lor mee stock.

The popular Mr. Lou makes an appearance at the annual Penang Food Festival held in a Singapore hotel along Scotts Road. But nothing beats eating at his stall, enveloped in the atmosphere of Penang.

Kheng Pin Café

80 Penang Road

Georgetown

Pasar Bukit Mertajam

A visit to Pasar Bukit Mertajam would remind one of eating on a movie set. Located just outside a 120-year-old Chinese temple, the dining space is a courtyard flanked by temples and stalls serving a variety of food from morning till night.

In the day, the dishes to aim for are wontan noodles, Mee Jawa, Hokkien mee and rojak. Look out for a unique dish known as “cup rice”, where rice is steamed individually in an aluminium bowl. Upon order, the rice would be topped with morsels of meat and braising gravy, and then served to be eaten soggy wet with gravy and pickled chili.

At night, the selection from the cze char stall reminds one of unpretentious home cooked food. The ambience is of Singapore streets in the 60s, where tables and chairs were placed randomly in any available space. The food and ‘feel’ of this place has made it one of the more popular spots for friends and visitors to gather.

Jalan Bunga Raya

14000 Bandar Bukit Mertajam

Butterworth

Curry Fish Head

A visit to Sri Siam makes the hassle of crossing to Butterworth worthwhile. Sri Siam is a name synonymous with street-style curry dishes in Penang, ask any Penangite and he would direct you to this place instantly. Be prepared to queue and elbow for a table during lunch though, because Sri Siam’s curry fish head is famous.

Unlike the Singapore version, the curry fish head here is light as it uses coconut milk. However, the taste of onion and mint come through strongly in the gravy. Apart from the curry fish head, the array of dishes available would satisfy even the most seasoned foodie. It is an eclectic mix of Chinese and Malay-influenced dishes, but stick to the spicy items and you won’t go wrong. Sri Siam’s food bears the strong influence of nearby Thailand, so the spices used slant towards sourness, and there is a generous use of fresh herbs.

Sri Siam

32, Medan Kurau 2

Chai Leng Park, 13700 Perai

Butterworth

Photos by Mark Ong

What I Think (1)…

This is my reply to a Penang-based blogger who recently commented on Singapore street food and the inaugural World Street Food Congress.  I won’t go too much into her post, instead I’ll refer interested parties to her blog, Eating Asia dated 7th June 2013 and her article “Keeping the Street in Street Food” in The Asian Wall Street Journal dated 11^th March 2013.

"I have three points to make. Firstly, it’s meaningless to compare cities and their street food and argue which is the better. For example, the Nyonya food of Penang, Malacca, Singapore, and even Indonesia are different. I shall not even go into Thailand’s Nyonya cuisine. While they all come under the umbrella of ‘Nyonya’, they have each evolved over generations in their respective locales. They each bear different marks of ingredients, flavor, and stylistic emphasis, brought about by geography, demography, culture, etc, etc. For example, Penang Nyonya has Thai influences while I detect the Cristang element in the Malaccan version. Singapore’s is closer to the Malaccan. Having said that, we all swear by the food we grew up with; so every particular style of food will have its adherents. Therefore, arguing on something as subjective as personal taste in food – and hoping to reach some definitive judgment on it -- is ultimately futile and pointless.

Secondly, WSFC as a discussion platform might not be perfect, but hey, we have to start somewhere. And, it’s just the inaugural instalment. The disappearance and/or mutation of street food is a pattern in all developing/newly affluent societies. It is a cultural change that accompanies urban development. WSFC helps shine the spotlight on this phenomenon. It makes people aware and interested in street food from all over the world, and gets them thinking and discussing about the issues connected with street food. Are the selected council members the most ideal persons for the job? Only time will tell. Their immediate challenge, I think, is to keep an open mind, keep the conversation going, and work together to further illuminate critical issues such as heritage preservation, government involvement, career prospects, business challenges, etc.

Thirdly, we always equate ‘good’ and ‘authentic’ with the old. When we travel we like to see things that have remained, so to speak, in a time warp. I am guilty of this myself. Old architecture, old food, old cultures, appeal to us. But are such expectations fair? It is the right of every society to progress; for its people to enjoy better lives through commerce, technology, politics, etc. But when such advances result in loss of traditional foods, and other similar things, we lament the loss of ‘authenticity’ and ‘the good old days.’ The implication is this: that it’s okay for us to move forward, but when others do so, they’re being shortsighted and callous of their heritage. Isn’t this arrogance and chauvinism?"

UPDATE:

Since I last posted my comments in Eating Asia's blog on 9th June , she has responded with the following:

Gastronaut, thanks for your comment. I welcome the discussion. I'm not sure if you read my reply to Umami. I'll answer your points, but with a bit of repetition.
A) Thank you for the Nyonya cuisine primer. I am aware of local variations (you forgot Kelantan Nyonya in your round-up).
As I wrote to Umami, my "best" label was partly tongue-in-cheek, a rejoinder to Singapore Tourism's "street food capital" campaign. When you claim to be a street food capital you are opening yourself up for rejoinders. I would like travelers to know that George Town (and Penang) is a street food destination. That is all.
And while I agree that it is useless to label any city's XYZ food "best" -- bec taste is so subjective -- I am going to continue to assert that George Town's street food *scene* is better. Not bec I get exhaust with my noodles, but bec street food here is everywhere, on almost every block in kopitiam and from individual hawker stalls. It is easily accessible -- no need to duck into a shopping mall or a large hawker center to find it. When you walk in George Town the streets smell like food, most hours of the day. That, to me, spells a superior street food scene. For lovers of street food it doesn't get much better. You of course are free to disagree.
B) Yes, of course, as urban areas develop street food will mutate. It does not *have* to disappear. And *how* it mutates can be controlled. As I stated previously, my prob with the WSFC is that its organizers start from the premise that "the way it happened in Singapore is a model for other countries." I don't agree. (Just as I don't agree that, for all its merits, Singapore's urban development is also a model for all other Asian cities to aspire to.) And I'm unconvinced that packing the Congress with celebrities and others who aren't really down there "on the street", so to speak, is the way to introduce strong oppositional views to that stance. I'll stand by my assertion that the Congress could stand to benefit from steering away from the glitz and seeking knowledge from unknowns. (And no, I'm not referring to myself there.) We'll see what happens with Year 2.
Would pple be unaware of street food all over with the world without the Congress? I think that in this age of food blogs, that is debatable.
C) I deliberately steered away from using the word "authentic" in this post, so please don't put words in my mouth or ascribe thoughts to my brain. I've lived and traveled extensively in developing countries, and I've reported and written on heritage and conservation and the push-pull between the two and urban development.I like to think I have a pretty clear-eyed view of these issues, even when I travel (perhaps even more so when I travel). I'm not displaying a time-warpy, nostalgic love of the "old-timey" by expressing a fondness for George Town's street food culture.
That said, I understand where you're going with your third point. But I think I speak from a unique position -- I am living, right now, in city that is struggling with how to balance the "old" with "progress". I talk with people in George Town every day. I am not a nostalgic outsider focused on preserving "heritage" at the expense of "progress" for the locals. I know a dirty, decrepit old building when I see one. I also know, from experience -- having just finished renovations on a late 19th century shop house in the city -- that "old" buildings can be made liveable. And I know that "progress" for George Town's and Penang's street food culture doesn't have to look like Singapore's, Hong Kong's or Shanghai's.
When it comes to hawker food here Penang-ites are fanatically proud. No disrespect intended -- but they tell me "we don't want to be Kuala Lumpur. We don't want to be Singapore. We don't want to be Hong Kong."
What I think is arrogant is when "we" assume that others share our view of progress. Of course it is the "right" of every society to progress. But who's definition of "progress" do "we" assume they should subscribe to?

Feng – An Exotic Highlight of the X’mas Table!

The majority of Eurasians in Malaysia and Singapore are descendants of early Portuguese navigators and explorers, who arrived on these shores about 500 hundred years ago. These intrepid men braved the then uncharted waters of the world in search of wealth and glory, travelling from Lisbon to Africa, and eventually to Asia. When they reached Southeast Asia, these Europeans immediately set up an outpost in Malacca, the gateway between East and West, to monopolize the highly lucrative spice trade of the region.

The Portuguese ruled Malacca under a hostile social environment: so as not to be outnumbered by the natives, and to create harmony under colonial rule, the Portuguese promoted inter-racial marriages between themselves and the local people. They even brought women from their own country known as “Orphans of the Queen”; these women came from all castes of Portuguese society, including even the nobility. However, the local spouse would have to convert to Catholicism before the marriage could take place, in line with the missionary objectives of the conquerors.

From these marriages a new ethnicity was born, known as Eurasian -- or more accurately Cristang. With their exotic blend of European and Asian parentage, the Eurasians were accorded many rights and privileges enjoyed by the governing classes, and bequeathed a rich and fascinating legacy to our modern cultural mix, most famously, in food.

Combining western cooking methods with Eastern ingredients, the Eurasians created a cuisine with a unique identity. Like their European counterparts, Eurasians usually marinated their food with lime, lemon or vinegar, and, at the same time introduced chilies, galangal, and lemon grass into their curries. The Malaccan Eurasians also came to acquire the Peranakan and Chinese fondness for sweet-and-sour dishes, and the practice of stir-frying their ingredients. The most famous Eurasian dish in this region would probably be Devil Curry.

Christmas is an important celebration for Eurasians as it is a time for sharing joy and love among one other. Preparations would start weeks ahead. Beginning with the spring-cleaning of the house, and preparation of Christmas treats and cookies, until the eve of Christmas when the family would return from church, wish each other season’s greetings and sit down to a festive supper. Celebrations continue until Boxing Day with more food being served, feng (pronounced ‘fing’) being one of the “musts” for Christmas, and also at weddings.

It was believed that feng came about from the first Portuguese sea explorations to Asia. Animals were taken onboard the ship to be killed for meat, and because of the scarcity of food, no part of the animal was to be wasted. Feng became a dish where the innards and the poor cut, especially pig’s entrails and offal, were stewed with spices and eaten over days.

Feng

Pork belly                   300 g

Pig’s tongue               1

Pig’s intestine             150 g

Pig’s ear                      2

Pig’s heart                  1

Pig’s kidneys              2

Pig’s liver                    200 g

Water                          1½ litres

Cloves                         15

Star anise                     2

Cinnamon sticks         5

Oil                               ¼ cup

Ginger                         50 g, julienned

White vinegar             5 tbsp

Salt                              3 tsp

Brown sugar               3 tbsp

Dark soy sauce           1 tbsp

Paste (blended into fine paste):

Shallots                       500 g

Garlic                           25 g

Spices (ground):

Coriander seeds          6 tbsp

Cumin                         1½ tbsp

Fennel                         1½ tbsp

Black peppercorns     1 tbsp

Cinnamon                   2 cm

Star anise                    1

Turmeric                     20 g               

Method:

1. Boil water with 8 cloves, 1 star anise, and 3 cinnamon sticks.  Cook pork belly for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.
2. Cook pig’s tongue, ear and intestine for 20 minutes. Drain and set aside. Scrape skin off the tongue and rinse thoroughly.
3. Cook kidneys and liver for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
4. Dice all cooked meat into cubes.
5. Saute ginger with oil. Add the remaining cloves, star anise and cinnamon sticks. Lower the heat when you can smell the fragrance.
6. Add blended paste and fry for 15 minutes under low heat. When the onion starts to caramelize, add the spice mixture. Increase the heat to medium and continue to stir-fry until oil is seeping through the paste.
7. Add pork belly, intestines and white vinegar. Stir-fry on low heat for about 10 minutes.
8. Add ear, tongue and 1 cup of sieved stock; simmer for 10 minutes. Add the rest of the meat and simmer for further 10 minutes.
9. Season it with sugar, salt and dark soy sauce. Cook for another 2 minutes before turning off the heat.
10. Let the dish stand for 30 minutes or keep it overnight before serving.

Note: Coriander seeds should be dry-fried until they are fragrant before grinding to yield a strong flavor.