Total Miles Traveled: 32,450
Seriously our journey is not about food (no really it’s not!). It just happens that everywhere we go in Asia, there is amazing food to be eaten. We certainly don’t mind, as long as our waistlines don’t get any bigger!
Penang is known to most as an island (it’s also a state) in northwest Malaysia near the border with Thailand. The main – and most historical – city is Georgetown. Penang is also the high-tech capital of Malaysia with companies like Dell and Intel doing manufacturing there. It even boasts free public wifi in town, although we could never get it to work. Good attempt though, and a big plus for us lovers of free wifi. It’s also one of two states in Malaysia with a majority ethnic Chinese population, the other being Melaka.
Penang is probably better known for its delicious food; if you consider yourself a foodie, you must make a pilgrimage to Penang. Penangites are extremely passionate about their food – there are countless blogs and websites dedicated to trying, reviewing, and photographing every restaurant on Penang Island. You can search for the BEST of whatever it is you want to eat, be it curry mee (noodles), or nyonya food. And some people will swear that the ONLY place to get curry mee is at this food cart on that street at the corner of X and Y streets. Yes, that specific.
So Penang – in a nutshell – is on an ocean, has high tech, has great food, and is a city for foodies… hmmmmm, sounds a bit like San Francisco! Minus the wine.
After spending an afternoon walking around Georgetown (and enduring intense heat and humidity), we spent most of our time in Penang eating. Imagine that!
Here’s a guy outside of Hameediyah (on Campbell Street in Georgetown) making fresh murtabak.
This woman seems to be an icon on Chulia Street, serving up her wonton noodles. There was a long line for her noodles. Look at the heat pumping out of that stove!
For dessert, there was a guy making mini-pancakes with sweet corn or bananas. It’s basically a roti from Pakistan.
Of course, in between meals, we had to walk off all the calories, so we wandered in to neat art/antique stores – like this one where the guy handcarves his statues from wood. Here’s one of the famous Monkey Prince – starting price? $500 USD.
Here’s an Indian temple in Little India:
OK back to food. There are many food courts and food hawker areas in Penang. This one is called Red Garden Food Paradise – full of locals and tourists just about every night, with 20-30 booths of food.
Here’s Hokkien Mee, much like the curry mee we’ve had, and oh so good. Only $1.50 USD.
We were told to try the Assam Pedas, or fish head curry. Yes, with real fishhead in your curry. It was good, but probably hyped a bit much.
And as if your excellent meal wasn’t enough to entertain you, the Red Garden Food Paradise puts on a live show every night, with a guy on his keyboard belting out American oldies. Bizarre, but you can’t help but smile. Notice the sign, “no guest singer” and check out his HAT! YES! Awesome.
On another day, we decided to wander the backstreets on a whim, and we came upon what shall be dubbed the “pork district.” Several pork slaughterhouses on both sides of a quiet street – not what you would expect, and something you never see in the States.
Finally, Penang is known for its Baba Nyonya culture. If you’ll recall in an earlier post about Melaka, it’s a fusion of Chinese and Malay cuisine which makes for interesting dishes that you probably won’t have anywhere else.
Here’s fried basil leaves. Pretty neat in concept, but I think much of the basil flavor was lost.
Next up, “Ju Hu Cha” or stir-fried shredded senkuang (radish), carrots, dried cuttlefish and mushrooms, topped with fresh sambal belacan (smashed hot chiles with prawn paste) in a lettuce wrap. Not bad, not bad.
Another must-try apparently – Curry Kapitan – or curry chicken Nyonya style. Pretty heavy, but good…
So, overall, we love Penang and if we have the opportunity, we will return to sample more food and other restaurants. Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area. Before we leave Penang, we’ll do a cooking class to learn a few typical Penang dishes which we’ll write about shortly.
Here’s the complete set of photos from Penang:
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