Taiping/Penang trip - Part I - Food

The trip worked out. Without much 'casualties'. And all participants showed up. 4 days 3 nights. 10 persons. 3 cars. It's too long to write in detail every single thing we did, so for the first part, I'll talk about the main purpose we went up north. FOOD of course. What else could Penang be famous for right?

So, here goes.

• Nam Heong coffee shop in Ipoh - I seriosuly have no idea what this place is famous for, but people from there says it's good. So, we went for it. And it is indeed good. Expecially the egg tarts and this chicken siew pao. Highly recommended. It's crunchy and it's fresh. A totally must go if you happen to be in Ipoh.
• Hokkien mee in Taiping - my friend lives there, so he knows where to bring us. There's no name for this place. Just a stall by the road side managed by an old couple. Another thumbs up. Taste nothing like any Hokkien mee in KL. We ordered plate after plate cause it tasted so damn good and there were 10 damn hungry kids to feed. And it was damn cheap. The aunty there sort of got confused with so many orders that she had to repeat them so many times.
• Duck rice, Taiping - This is one of the most expensive meal we had. Forgot which shop it is already. Basically it's by the main road. Ya. I know. Which main road rite? Sorry la, you know I'm bad at directions. I guess the expensive part is not the duck but the side orders we placed. The soups were suppose to be yummy so we ordered a few. We had 'tien kai', 'sang yu', 'chu tou' and some chicken essence one. And their orange juice is fabulous. Can't describe here la. You got to try them out yourself. Then, you'll know what I mean.
• Char kuey teow, Lorong Selamat, Penang - now this one has been on the papers. The aunty who made it famous is real snobbish and they have different pricing for locals and non-locals. Obviously people like us are considered non-locals and are therefore being charged at a higher price. It was nothing special anyway.
• Gurney Drive, Penang - locals don't find the food there nice. But there were plenty of varieties. That's their main attraction. So, lets see, we had : fried oysters, pasemburs, laksa, ikan bakar, fried chicken skin, otak-otak, fried tauhu etc. Yea. All unhealthy stuffs. But we loved it.
• Yam rice, Bukit Mertajam - another friend knew of this place. We went for it. It's situated in a corner coffee shop. Didn't get to know the name of the place. But it was something special. It's actually rice with yam on top plus meatballs and all kinds on pigs' intestines. We didn't have enough of it as well cause the portion of it is rather small. A few of them shouted hungry not long after that. No fret. There were other 'menus' planned out.
• Cendol, Jalan Penang, Penang - This is absolutely good. I had two bowls myself. People were actually queueing up for this. The cendol's sweet but not too sweet. Just right enough for our taste buds. Yumm.
• 'Pie-tee', Jalan Penang, Penang - Just situated at the cofee shop next to the cendol. Cute cup-cake sort of like delicacy filled with turnips and tomato sauce. One bite finishes it all. Just a small one la.
• New Lane, Penang - Something like Gurney. All kinds of stalls along this road. Mostly what you can see in Gurney is here la. But we tried stuffs other than those tried in Gurney. To name a few: porridge, satay, lobak, chee cheong fun, fried oysters (again), 'pat pou' drink etc
• Seafood, Bukit Tambun - This was our last place to eat. We went there for lunch on the last day. It's actually a fishing pond turned into a restaurant. So, we got this table by the pond with a nice view, with water under us and fishes swimming around and soft breezes blowing, as it was cloudy that day. All kinds of seafood were ordered and we took our own sweet time munching on soft shell crabs and just enjoying the moment and the company. For 8 dishes of seafood and 2 plates of soft shell crabs, we were charged for less than RM 200. Plus raw oysters as well. My friend ordered some kind of weird looking seafood which I forgot what it's called. Look yucky as well but tasted not bad. I will know how to tell you when I see one. All stomachs filled before the drive home.

Nah. No fancy restaurants on this trip. We got all our food in hawker stalls. By the road. By some tempat terpencil. All sweats and dirty but definitely worth all the long drives. At least, they were special stuffs that we don't get them often in KL. And they are really damn cheap man. We were laughing our heads off. Yummy and cheap. Hah! We had a few meals in one day. Real fulfilling.

I shall detail my activities there, other than food, in the next entry.