Motormouth From Ipoh – Asian Food & Travel Blog

Motormouth’s disclaimer : Wherever you are, Whatever you’re doing; STOP FOR A MOMENT and embrace this series. You really should view this series with an empty stomach. 🙂

One. Chapter. At. A. Time.

For it has been ages since I have done anything vaguely similar to this in nature; a food hunt series in a not-so-familiar setting (unlike the routine Ipoh Food Hunt); this time taking precedence on the island that rivals Ipoh when it comes to cheap, varied and delicious hawker food; PENANG.

Gone within minutes, you have to be fast and on time to witness the dainty pieces of “Nyonya kuih” being snapped up in a frenzy @ Kheng Batu Lanchang Nyonya Kuih stall No 29

Batu Lanchang Food Complex is a good place to start for a variety of cheap and good hawker fares in Penang. Biased view? Okay, maybe slightly. Since I visited this food centre the most amongst all the others, back when we were still students on the island.

But I can’t forget the sheer satisfaction from ordering plates after plates of the famed Chinese “pasembor” (or rojak, or a type of mixed salad in a spicy and starchy potato-based gravy), fiery Char Koay Teow, seafood Char Koay Kak, Nasi Tomato and chicken rice, then washing them all down with a refreshing and freshly grated sugar cane juice. That’s the end? Nah …. not forgetting to ‘ta pau’ (taking away) an array of Nyonya kuih for consumption later in the day. Burp?

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Indian Mee Goreng (RM3.50/USD1.00) – Large portion enough for two, but you’ll have no problems finishing the whole plate, really.

And let me share this place that I have been intending to write about for so long. As I have mentioned before in my post on Mee Hailam Parit, I am not a fan of yellow noodles. I’ll go for Kuey Teow/Sar Hor Fun (flat rice noodles) first, if not then Lou Shu Fun (rat’s tail noodles, I know … it sounds morbid but actually ain’t) followed by Mee Hoon (rice vermicelli noodles). The last resort? The yellow mee; no thanks to various bad experiences with heavy alkaline taste from the lye water used to cure the noodles.

Look at how chirpy the Indian girl was …. Cathay Mee Stall @ Restoran dan Rumah Tumpangan Beauty Baru – Brisk business come lunch hours, hence be there early. Or very late.

Initially I was skeptical when Mum told me about this great Indian (or Mamak/Indian-Muslim) Mee Goreng (fried yellow noodles) & Pasembur (Indian rojak; a type of salad) stall on Jalan Yang Kalsom. That this stall beats even the famous one at Padang Ipoh in old town, and the various incarnations everywhere else. Heck, there’s even one on Jalan Yang Kalsom itself, at Restoran Sen Yee.

But after tasting a packet of their Mee Goreng brought home by Mum, I was sold ……. and this has been MY personal favourite Mee Goreng in all of Ipoh. This coming from someone who hates his Mee … Read the rest of this entry »

It was ironic that I went to Penang twice last week, almost back to back. Within the span of a week, in fact. Whereas the short excursion to the mainland of Penang (Seberang Jaya/Butterworth, to be exact) saw us scavengers ravaging through the myriad of stalls selling delicious hawker food at the newly-discovered (at least to this most innocent-cum-naive Ipoh guy here) “Wai Sek Kai” of Chai Leng Park in Butterworth.

But as destiny would have things her way (overly-dramatic?), I was back to Penang a few days later for a short getaway. In case it’s your first time here, or amnesia struck again, I absolutely fell in love with Penang food, especially food from the streets. In fact, time and again I’ve stressed that I developed my inquisitive, epicurious and gastronomic taste bud NOT in Ipoh, but when I spent my 4 years in USM of Penang. Yeah ….. those dastardly-memorable years saw me ballooning from a frail weakling to a mass of gigantic blob, to an almost ogre-like creature now.

Regrets? Nah …. FAR from it. 🙂

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