Penang Street Hawker Food (Tong Hai An) 东海岸

Penang Island is famous fot its Street Hawker food. Many of the visitors come to Penang because of the Sreet Hawker food, unlike having your coffee at the open space coffee house. At Penang you enjoy various type of tasty food in this type of open space hawker centre. This type of hawker centre will start crowded when the sun is about to set. Many of them enjoy their dinner here and also watching TV.




If you stay at Air Itam area, I'm sure you're familiar with this (Tong Hai An) 东海岸 kopitiam. It is famous for its grilled fish (Ikan Bakar) especially the killer of Steve Irwin (Sting Ray). The fish is full of fat(lemak), juicy and is eaten with special chilly sauce with all the small onion (we called it Lam Cheok in Hokkien). It's perfectly delicious.

Grilled Fish In Bananas Leave

Fried Oyster is also a famous food in Penang. It is hard to find Penang Fried Oyster(Oh Jian) in other states. Although this stall is not the best in Penang, but it also serves a good Fried Oyster (Oh Jian).

Fried Oyster

The Yong Tau Hu is also a favourite for the Office ladies/guys working in this area. They like to come here for their lunch. The Yong Tau Hu stall starts business from afternoon until night. It will separate the deep fried stuff and those fish ball. So you can taste the crispy deep fried beancurd skin ....(crunchy). Remember to order its prawn dumpling, very fresh and juicy prawn inside the dumpling, it is good to try out.

Fresh and juicy prawn dumpling...really good!

Crispy deep fried beancurd skin and fish cake. Crash.... Crash

Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Balls)

Tang Yuan ( 汤圆) or tangtuan (汤团), is a Chinese food made from glutinous rice flour. Glutinous rice flour is mixed with a small amount of water to form balls and is then cooked and served in boiling water.Tangyuan that has been filled with sweet or savory fillings are collectively known as Yuan Xiao (元宵). Filled tangyuan (Yuan Xiao) can be filled with a wide variety of ingredients including red bean paste, chopped peanuts and sugar, sesame paste (ground black sesame seeds mixed with lard and sugar), rock sugar (which would create a hot, melting caramel-like filling), etc.

Most Penang people will make their own Tang Yuan during MidWinter Season(冬至). I could still remember during childhood, all the family members would gather together to prepare the Tang Yuan. Nowadays most busy Penang local do not have time to prepare their own, so mostly we would just buy outside.

Now we do not need to wait until MidWinter Season(冬至). We can eat Tang Yuan any time we want. Many people will tend to eat Tang Yuan after watching the TVB series A Life Made Simple (Ah Wong II). I will not introduce Mango Tang Yuan but a delicious and simple frozen Tang Yuan from KG Pastry. Their slogan is "So Easy, So Yummy". It's very true!




















You can buy this frozen Tang Yuan from TESCO or from others Hypermarket. There are two types, one bigger size and the other smaller but both also same prize. It is just the matter of quantity. I love the one with peanut butter fillings.
















Prepare the ginger and brown sugar for the soup.

















Most people's house should have these two ingredients, so just prepare a pack of KG PASTRY Tang Yuan in your freezer. You can have your Rice Ball anytime you like.

It is easy and simple, boiled a bowl of water and put the ginger and brown sugar inside to cook the yummy and simple soup.

Remember to remove the frozen Rice Ball from freezer but do not defrostthem. Then put the Tang Yuan into the boiling soup. Be careful and make sure to push the Rice Ball with the back of laddle to prevent breakage and sticking. It is ready to serve when the Rice Ball float.



















Note : If you dislike brown sugar and ginger, you can try white sugar with pandan leaves. It is also not bad!

Flame SteamBoat Near Gurney Drive

Hong Kong actor Mark Cheng Hou Lam is the owner of FLAME RESTAURANT in Penang. You would not see him in here, but a very huge potrait of him is in the restaurant.Most of the people will like to try out the restaurant that was opened by famous actor. It provides a brand new dining concept serving you traditional hotpot cuisines from around the world such as countries like Hong Kong, Macau, Korea, Japan, SzeChuan-China and Taiwan. You can try out several styles of steamboat in here. A Penang Kia(local) like us would prefer having steamboat with clear soup or Tom Yam soup. But some occasion we might have something different and more comfortable. Celebrating birthday with friends should choose a restaurant that is air-conditioned with friendly waitress. A good servicing is a must for the restaurant especially if the food was already not so good(boh ho jiak).
Nowadays Flame Restaurant is not so crowded as was before, even weekends also a few tables of customers only. But it is good for us, the place had less noise so we can enjoyed the dinner, chit chatting. Even the waiter responded faster.
The Supreme Set that we ordered include Pomfret, Taiwan Sausage, Japanese Beancurd, Fish Maw, Crab Claw, Spinach Noodle, Prawn, Meatball, Abalone Mushroom, Sotong, Fuchook, Flame Fish Paste, Frog, Yam, Vegetables, Fish Ball, Minced Chicken Paste, Pork Fillet, Golden Mushroom and Flame Fish Noodle. It costed RM 98++. It was just nice for five pax.


The extra dish that we ordered, Crispy Crystal Prawn that costed RM12++. It is good to finish it before your steamboat starts. And it is more delicious than prawn cracker! It is recommended to try out.



Popeye the Sailorman POO! POO! The vegetable that popeye like the most. We are not popeye so we did not eat spinach but we ate spinach noodle instead! The spinach noodle is healthier than yellow noodle and it tastes nicer (Q Q). The waiter told us not to cook the spinach noodle for too long, just a quick dip will do.


We had two type of soup for our steamboat. They are Porridge and Szechuan soup. Szechuan special soup base was actually derived from a combination of recipe taken from Taiwan, Hong-Kong and Szechuan, China. Specially brewed from 10 different kinds of herbs and spices, this flavour is mainly sour, tingling, spicy and piquant. Suitable for those who loves hot and spicy food but out of the five of us, there's only one who can stand the special taste!

We chose porridge and we did not regret it as it was a smart decision. A simple porridge can really be brilliant when it is combined with steamboat. Really mouth watering and simply perfect!


FLAME RESTAURANT
20 Jalan Bagan Jermal
Georgetown, Penang
(04) 226 8422

Starview Restaurant

I had my lunch with my family on National Day. We went to the Starview Restaurant and enjoyed ourselves there. This restaurant comes with parking services (Hong Kong style "Toi Hak Pak Ce"). Most people will go to STARVIEW to try out their FISH STEAMBOAT (HU LO). We tried out before, the steamboat was really mouth watering with the freshness of the fish. The soup did not stink as it's sour enough. But today we did not order HU LO. We tried out other dishes instead.



This dish is really Yuuuummmyy!!! Who would have thought the chef could cook up two marvellous style of this dish using aubergine (Penang people called it Kio). One type is by frying the aubergine with sambal prawn while another type is superb miracle. I have never thought of cooking aubergine this way. The chef stuffed prawn and fish into the aubergine and deep fried them. The golden aubergine would look like fish ball and serves just perfect with crab meat sauce. Most people wouldn't like aubergine but this is a must try dish. It was simply delicious!!!
Full of seafood feel. Yummy!



Today we tried out salad prawns with some fruits. It wasn't bad but got to finish up while it's still hot. I still prefer it's TomYam salad prawns. Spicy, Sour, Hot, Cold all inside your mouth. Yeah!



Golden Beancurd was not bad, better than some other restaurants. I like beancurd which had crispy skin and soft content.




Special highlight for this post, Claypot Eel, most restaurant seldom have this dish. This is the first time I eat Eel (鳗鱼) in claypot. Usually Eel is used for sashimi or by deep frying it. The chef put a lot of garlics to make this dish marvelous. People who likes fish should try it. And its come with very huge portion so it is better eaten with group of friends or family.


Four Heavenly King (Shi Da Tian Wang). Nowadays, most restaurant or food stall like to fried this, maybe because of the special name. This Shi Da Tian Wang do not have Aaron, Leon, Jacky and Andy but consists of asparagus, okra, french beans (kacang buncis) and peas.

Address: 66, Jalan Burma, 10050 Pulau Pinang

Tel: 04 226 5213, 04 226 6544, 04 227 4507

Business hours: 12 noon to 2.30pm, 6pm to 10pm

Close: Chinese New Year eve, 1^st & 2^nd day of CNY and nine days during the Ninth Emperor God’s celebration

Tong Hoi Seafood Restaurant

I had my lunch today at Tong Hoi Seafood Restaurant. The restaurant is actually inside the Lone Pine Country Club. Well, they serve lunch with a very attractive price. You get to choose selected dishes for only prices ranging from RM3.80 or RM4.80 each. Considered super cheap with the air-conditioned room and fantastic services from the waiters and waitresses. They will always make sure that your drink is full with a polite manner just like the Hotel Restaurant.
We ordered Crispy Sweet Sour Fish, Omelette, Sambal Fried Kangkung and Claypot Curry Beancurd. The food were quite good, not excellent though. It's very much worth a try!


Claypot Curry Beancurd. The beancurd were stuffed with meatball inside (very much like Yong Tau Foo). Compared to those just using boilled beancurd with meat, the cheff deep fried the meatball first before stuffed it into the beancurd. So one can fill their mouth with the juicy meat of this curry beancurd. Only RM4.80 for this dish. Worth it!


Crispy Sweet Sour Fish. Considered very good to my liking. The taste was just nice for me and the fish were just crispy enough:) Also only RM4.80 for this dish. Cheap leh?:P


Just a simple Omelette. Got to finish up this dish fast as we were in air-conditioned room. Omelette won't taste nice when it gets cold. Costed RM3.80.


This Kangkung tasted very nice. Highly recommended. Costed RM3.80 as well.


So, both of us had our stomach very full for our lunch;) Yeah...two people eating four dishes...pandai eat hor?
We ended up paying RM24.26 for this meal.
RM4.80+RM4.80+RM3.80+RM3.80=RM17.20.
So what are the rest of the money for?
Here it goes...
RM1.60 for the rice (RM0.80 for each person, unlimited flow of rice)
RM 2.00 for the jasmine tea we ordered
RM1.50 for a plate of nuts
RM0.80 for two towels
And of course 5% Govt. tax=RM1.16.
Add up altogether=RM24.26.
Hmmm...super duper cheap considering the environment and the services we got. All in all, it's worth a try! Do remember...this promotion is only for lunch hour.The menu changes every month.


Block 5, Lebuh Rambai 14, Taman Lone Pine, Paya Terubong, 11060 Penang.
Tel/Fax: 04-8290308

Note: They also provide Eight Course Dinner.

Hongkie Kopitiam

More and more restaurants, coffee houses and food corners are occupying E-Gate lately. This is a place where it would be pack during weekends or even weekdays. Why shouldn't it? You can have gathering there, chit-chatting all the way through midnight, some equipped with Wifi Zone [can do blogging:)], and most important...yeah...having nice and delicious food!=)

Well, I tried out Hongkie Kopitiam (Hong Kong Style Restaurant) twice. The first time was a disaster coz the food I ordered sux but the second time around, I had my stomach full with a happy smile on my face:)



Seafood Cheese Baked Noodle. It's an excellent dish....comes with my favourite seafood PRAWN! *Slurp..Slurp*. Costed RM9.50++


Chicken Wings Rice Set. This is a so-so dish. Both the rice and chicken wings tasted a bit flat. It comes with mushroom soup, drink and dessert (a small scoop of ice-cream). Can't really remember the price but it's around RM14.00++


A must eat dish..."Attack Of The Pirates Ship". This dish consists of a huge home baked bun stuffed with 'deep fried soft shell crabs' (nui kak jim), prawn, sea asparagus and some vege together with creamy seafood sauce around it. Costed only RM9.90++ Highly recommended.


Seafood Cheese Baked Rice. This dish is also worth the money. Much better than the Chicken Wings Set. Costed RM9.50++


Note: Order the food with a red star beside it. It's much better compared to those without it.