Penang Food

If you Google for the words “Penang Laksa”, you will be greeted by pages of recommendations as the must-have hawker food if you visit Penang island. It is an exotic Asian dish, topped with shrimp paste for the ultimate experience that truly express the words “Now that’s GOOD”.

There are many ingredients in a bowl of Laksa. The soup is made of fish meat, and it tastes sour and thick yet steaming hot just like curry and some may opt for the version that comes with coconut milk (laksa lemak). Within the bowl of soup is a mix of rice vermicelli and finely sliced vegetables including cucumber, red chili, pineapple, onions, lettuce, mint and pink ginger buds.

A word of caution is that you may prefer to eat something else first before eating Laksa, especially if you have a history of gastric problems. The spicy and sour attributes may leave your tummy with a less than happy reaction if you eat Laksa with an empty stomach. Also, you might wish to scout around because not all stalls offer the same taste or grade of Laksa, since some hawkers might make the soup either too thick or too thin.

Some recommendations include the Laksa at the Air Itam market by the road leading towards Kek Lok Si temple. However, it is not the best in the island yet, since some people would prefer to go downtown for that bowl of Laksa at Penang Road, or take the trouble to drive to the other side of the island in Balik Pulau for the most sought after Laksa.

The Balik Pulau Laksa is the most popular stall in Penang, and over the years it maintained consistency in its quality. Some would prefer to add bird’s eye chili (cili padi) that will really bring out the burning sensation in your throat and keep your tummy warm for a long time, a big challenge to the already sour and spicy soup of the original Laksa.

Although this dish is very much sought after, the price still remains pretty much the same throughout the years. Some may cost as low as only RM1.70, and the most expensive is probably just RM2.50. A favorite combination is to follow up with a bowl of Shaved Ice with Nuts (Ais Kacang) or Chendol, often topped with a scoop of ice cream and lots of beans and jelly.

What makes a good plate of Char Koay Teow?

In the not so distant past, the best quality of Char Koay Teow comes from a high-cholesterol substance, which is lard. However, the rising health concerns and lack of supply of this substance has led to a decline in the use of lard in the Char Koay Teow, even though most old timers still continue using it in their cooking. Some attribute it to the prawn, but the prawn is too common an ingredient to distinguish a good plate of Char Koay Teow from a meager one.

As an effort to add flavour to the Char Koay Teow, the dish advanced from a simple plate of noodles with eggs, bean sprouts and lots of chili, together with some cockles, to a dish with additional ingredients like salted duck eggs and crab meat, with large prawns and prawn mantis to entice diners.

Never mind if such a concoction will make your cholesterol rise rocket high, because it will be an occasional treat for the price that it asks for with such lucrative additions. When it used to cost only RM1.50 for a plate of Char Koay Teow almost twenty years ago, today the price can be as high as a minimal RM3 for a very normal dish to almost RM10 for a dish with the extra ingredients.

Another important attribute to a lovely plate of Char Koay Teow is the cooking skills of the chef. It looks simple, but actually the skill determines whether the dish comes out just perfect, without being too clumpy, spicy or too bland. It takes years of experience to get the taste just right.

A recent furor over the Internet is the move to boycott one of the more popular Char Koay Teow stalls, situated in Lorong Selamat. Email circulations saw a comic of the hawker stall owner being rude to an elderly lady. For a while, there were a lot of comparisons and recommendations of other stalls so that diners have the option of getting a delicious plate of Char Koay Teow elsewhere, such as the popular Ah Leng Char Koay Teow at Dato Kramat Road and the charcoal stove Char Koay Teow stall at Siam Road.

At the end of the day, Char Koay Teow will still carry on the legacy as a must-taste food in Penang for all visitors.

Penang is a culturally rich state in Malaysia, and sometimes it may be mistaken that vegetarianism is only for specific festivities such as the Nine Emperor Gods festival.  In reality, Penang is full of vegetarian shops and patrons consists of Chinese or Indians with a preference of long-term vegetarianism.

The evolution of vegetarian food menu sees the availability of specialty cuisine, such as Japanese, Thai and Western dishes, using mock meat, with most shops now using imports from Taiwan that uses vegetable fiber to create the mock meat instead of flour in previous imports.

Most vegetarian shops will offer a buffet of selection with rice during lunch for the convenience of working class vegetarians.  This concept is somewhat similar to the ‘economic rice’ offered in other shops around the island, with patrons getting a plate of rice and adding on the gravy and their choice of dishes onto the plate, bringing it to the cash counter to check and calculate charges for the meal. Sometimes it may be set meals, ala carte or even noodles with names similar to their non-vegetarian counterpart.

One of the most interesting dish is probably the vegetarian Bak Kut the (literal translation is Pork Bone Tea), using the original herbs and spices, omitting the ribs and pork, and usually the garlic too. Some may cook it with mock ribs, mock fish balls, and vegetables. The vegetarian shops in Penang would omit the five pungents from its dishes, namely onions, chives, leeks, shallots and garlic, although most vegetarians may be lacto-ovo-vegetarians, meaning that they still consume eggs and dairy products, just omitting meat, poultry, fish or shellfish from their diet.

The improvements of mock meat using vegetable fibers make the dish taste a lot better than ever before. Some better chefs may be able to create your ultimate vegetarian Hawaiian Chicken western dish just like the original, with the mock meat alone! It also comes with french fries, tomato and cucumber slices and occasionally some salad just like the non-vegetarian western dish that one can get from hawker stalls and other eateries.

Chinese vegetarian shops usually has a sign painted yellow with the words “vegetarian” in green, and Indian restaurants clearly state that they are vegetarian shops on the signboard itself. Whether it is for religious or health reasons, the vegetarian shops in Penang attract patrons of all ages any day.