famous penang food

with a heading like that, one would expect the entire range of famous penang food.
apologies, i was only there for under 24 hours, most of it spent quaffing pints to cool off after the lazy drive from kuala lumpur.
and seriously folks, most penang food is famous - as the photo would show and the hawkers shamelessly proclaim. and some are infamous.
anyway, this was a trip that i have made many times years ago, a quick dash to ipoh and penang for good food and good company. i had both again this time around.
first, made a pit stop in ipoh for its famous nasi ganja, a corruption of nasi kandar. its the only shop along jalan yang kalsom but more on this in the future. suffice to say, eating it is far better than describing it.
it was a rather quick one-hour trip from ipoh to penang after lunch, notwithstanding the deluge that cut most of the visibility and slicked most parts of the highway. took the bridge and made my way along the jelutong highway to penang road for either pints, plonk or penang food.
walked past line clear, that very very famous nasi kandar joint. here's a tip, either have lunch or early breakfast, say 4am, when the food is freshly cooked and rice is steaming.
skipped it this time as the nasi ganja was still in the system.
but line clear does have an excellent range of curries, fried meats - not forgetting gizzards and fish roe - that will tempt the most stubborn of tastebuds or diets.
as is standard for nasi kandar, which basically describes rice meals that were carried in big baskets and balanced on a pole, steamed rice is the base for the variety of curries in the restaurant or stall or basket, as the case may be.
the old wives' tale is that the pots used to cook the curries are never washed but used immediately to make a fresh batch of curry. that could be why the curries are absolutely heavenly tasty.
some hundred metres away from line clear is lebuh keng kwee - famous for its famous chendol and famous penang assam laksa. chendol is a cool dessert of basically pandanus flavoured flour noodles in coconut milk and generous lashings of palm sugar. variants include red beans and other pulses or glutinous rice to the mix.
assam laksa is rice noodles in a soup of tamarind juice and fish with mint leaves, prawn paste, pineapple and cucumber slices, onions, ginger buds, and can include lettuce leaves as found in a stall in the joo hooi cafe in lebuh keng kwee. it is arguably one of the two famous penang assam laksa joint in penang. the other is at the market in air itam.
it is also arguably the best assam laksa ever. period. that's it. no arguments necessary. got my bowl, snapped a couple of shots, inhaled the fragrance of the mint and the fish/tamarind soup, and dug in. the noodles were more than al dente, the fish, pared and without any bones, combined well with the tamarind and prawn paste and the usual condiments for a hearty treat.
the bowl was dry when i left the place.
met up with friends at soho freehouse in penang road. the pub, located in the peking hotel, has a great selection of beers on tap but the food has taken for the worse. then again, good food in penang is always a few steps away.
and so, my friends took me off the beaten track for most of us non-penangites. we headed for pulau tikus, an area between penang road and gurney drive, and thus called as opposite it is a rather small island full of rats.
we ended up in mohd raffe restaurant, a nasi kandar joint quite famous for its fish head curry. i waited to be surprised as i surveyed the pots of bubbling curries and the spread of dishes available.
the wait was 20 minutes and it then appeared, fleshy-cheeked fish head covered in sprigs of fresh mint, ladies finger that looked like they were clamouring for the dish, and red-hot curry bubbling underneath. all other dishes paled in comparison.
the fish head curry went in 10 minutes and my spice-addled brain was too slow to even record the magnificient dish. all that was left was some curry and lots of bones and cartilage in the plate of the ronaldo-teeshirt-wearing dude.
the fish head was fresh, the flesh was firm and juicy like the ladies finger, and the mint made it all the more zesty and might i add, piquant.
a few other dishes attempted to compete with the fish head curry and only the beef stood up to the test. tender chunks of beef in a thick spicy gravy that went well with the fish curry.
the honey chicken, mutton curry and cuttlefish curry was standard stuff found in most restaurants in penang. having said that, the selection was good and better than most of the restaurants that pass off crap as indian food in kuala lumpur.
and so ended the quick trip of famous penang food. will be back for more.