My Second Trip to Penang

Food has never been an issue in Penang; one can get good food by just following the masses. But with poor understanding of the local dialect, one could end up ordering the wrong food or worst, lost in the clutter city of Penang.

No, I wasn't serious. It's just that sometimes as Chinese, you want to blend in with the other Chinese and knowing Mandarin is simply not enough. Somethings are learned through cultural background.

Still for what is worth, enjoy the pictures below.

Another famous Loh Mee in Penang but not as good as the one I wrote on my first trip.

An all rounder Loh Bak, unless he/she can't speak Hokkien then the food is bad.


It might look like any ordinary Lok Lok but the price and variety defers greatly from what we have in PJ/KL. Take prawns for instance and you'll get lai liu har.

Black glutinous rice soup. Rare, intense and delicious. Nothing like a splash of coconut milk. It's not red bean though.

And if you something even better, try their white glutinous rice soup. It's sweeter and creamier.

Bitter-god stir fried with egg. Compliments to the famous dish below.

A clear soup that taste like Tomyam with fish meat and hor fun. Soury and flavorful despite its clear color.

ABC, one of the things I ordered while waiting for the unprecedented one hour char kuey teow.

And then it came. Large prawn, skewy "si ham" and creamy flavour. No complains.

Cheap and famous Apom. Only 30 cent per piece. Never increase in price ever since.

It might look simple but when you grab it out of the plastic bag, it releases an aromatic flavour leaving you wanting for more. Kudos to the bananas.

Penang Rojak. Not too sweet, not too sour, not too spicy. Simply irresistible and slightly on the healthy side.

Hainanese very own western cuisine, the remake of gorden blue.

Cream of mushroom. Nothing too spectacular.

Clean and refreshing taste of grilled fish. No unwanted flavouring or ajinomoto added.

Probably the most seductive Ice Kacang I've ever tasted.

Compliments to that, this is also another weird Indian Mee Goreng prepared by a Chinese Hokkien lang.

Even weirder, he excels in Mee Rebus as well. Gee...

The best cendol in Penang. Better than the one from setiawan and melacca. Sad case.

Restaurant on sandy beaches. No further information will be shared.

And after smooching and hugging, we bought this weird corn. Good marination though.

Just when I thought Wai Sek Kai's Ling Chee Kang was the best. I was wrong.

And strangely, this cocoon like dish came and now I obtain a new favorite, "Kuey Chiap". Very very skewy and yummy. Served with duck meat.

******

After tasting the best of Penang, I was fortunate enough to experience my girlfriend's cooking for the first time.

Indomee special

Bee Hoon soup sayur campur special.

And breakfast Set A + 2 special.
Thanks honey!

Really, at the end, it is the people you are with that matters and not the luxuries behind it. Even if you have a million dollars behind you and no one to share it with, it's useless. And that does not include whores where you purchase on the streets.



Till then

Happy Holiday!

*** forgive me for not including the exact name and location. i don't remember!***

CNY visits!

Just as the spirit of Chinese New Year diminish among adults and older generation, we, unmarried folks however still find the culture a blessing for its extra allowance given via red envelop. But seriously, is money the only thing special about ang pao's? No.

The believe derive from Chinese and East Asian societies where the color red wards of evil and attract good fortune and luck to the receiver. That is why we see red packets distributed in wedding and death ceremony. It doesn't bound you to when and where and who you should give aside from the common belief where the married gives to the unmarried.

More importantly, the amount money does not signify anything with the celebration but rather a token of appreciation. In other words, you bring home protection and luck after visiting.

But as the culture continually practiced, people started to assume the number "8" in the each ang pao (RM8, RM88 and etc) where it is believe to bring wealth from the cantonese word "fat", pronounce as "farrr-aaart".

On the bright side however, the culture of giving luck and protect spread across to our islamic counterparts as well, only with the change in name to duit raya and the usage of the color green that represent their religion's color.

Of course, for people like YOU, you only care about the money inside and not what the beliefs are in those red envelop since you dispose of it so quickly but what makes it sad is when you call green packet cheapskate because it's so obvious that you forgotten that we are all from the same envelope given culture. Arrogant prick!


Till Then,
Happy snitching ang pao.

*** Hopefully you wouldn't abandon my blog for my lack of attendance. I'll be at Penang until Sunday, 2o February. Thank you again for supporting my bullocks. ***

Reflection of 2009/CNY greetings.

It's a rather quiet CNY (Chinese New Year) this year. You don't see aunties reveling in trolley charts with tons of unnecessary things anymore or an unexplainable long queue in supermarket. Needless to say, everyone is caution with their spending habits.

For me however, it's pretty much the same every year, only a little quieter this year. I used to have my friends around for CNY celebration from my college and high school counterpart but since they have all moved on with their lives to further studies or work, I have only the poor or unfortunate locally bred and studied friends in my repertoire (I'm one of them).

But don't get me wrong, I'm merely stating the facts and not discriminating the poor/average income group, just that sometimes, I, like you, misses the old days where we gamble, drink, party and collect endless amount of ang pao's from you folks (parents) out there.

As the saying goes "all good things must come to an end" and that includes your friends and family. Like my close friend, Yong Siang, he lost his father late 2009 from a tragic heart attack and I sympathize much to how reunion/family dinner will be without him around.

Sometimes, it's just hard to ignore certain situation cause just like me, my dad is only one year older than his, so to some point, it gets me worried sometimes.

Still, we must look forward and not dwell over the unchangeable past, as ugly as it may be. And like how I mentioned earlier , All Good Things Must Come To An End, mustn't be misunderstood. What I mean is, try to think pragmatically and critically in that phrase particularly on the word things because it is more than meets the eye. Meaning, it could be reverse and utter as, All Bad Things Must Come To An End, which is what Chinese New Year is all about, a new beginning.

I seriously hope that you people out there are doing great cause I know I am since I got people who love and miss me out there and please please go visit your friends.

Happy Chinese New Year.

PS: I accept foreign, stranger, alien, whoever's ang pao's via e-mail and courier.


Ok enough crap,
Have a good holiday,
See you in reality,
Bye!

ss2, Tian Pin Ge Ge (Dessert Brother)

I have been passing by the new dessert house in ss2 for quite some time now but never really attempted to try it. So today, I made the initiative to try the newly established dessert place with my girlfriend.

To her amusement, she found the almond soup dessert to her liking and compliments it for being healthy and soothing for the throat. I on the other hand, was simply excited to see so many desserts available in front of me.

And like always, I hesitate on the menu. I simply wanted to try every single one of them. But after several discussions with my counterpart, we decide to go for the red bean tofufa, which looks really yummy, white fungus almond for its refreshing look and the cute and skewy pumpkin pudding.

almond soup with papaya and white fungus

iconic spring water tofufa with read bean

When the dessert arrived, I quickly took a hit of the almond soup and almost immediately my enthusiasm dropped from hyper to moody for its acquired taste, not to mention the taste of ginger in the soup, which I personally dislike. My girlfriend however savors the soup with nothing but a single word of awesome utter from her. I, on the other hand, prefer the red bean tofufa over the almond soup for its simplicity and creativity.

As I gulped the third spoon of red bean tofufa, the pudding came. I can almost feel my blood pumping in a fetish for cute skewy thing. And as happy as I can get, it tasted beautifully according to my expectations.

pumpkin pudding

But nonetheless, it was only three different desserts. There are other decent ones that are yet to be tried, like durian pancake, yam pudding, fruity ABC and papaya milkshake to name a few.

So be it hate or love, this restaurant fetched a whooping 7/10 from the "darrenometer" scale and if that's not enough, see how much she enjoy the pudding. The dude behind as well! hehehe!

getting prettier everyday

Till Then,
Bon Voyage,
And have a safe trip back home, Happy Chinese New Year!

Worrisome Culture

I encounter something different today from my usual routine of gym, reading, movies and more reading. A lady, in her mid 50s approached me today with a notion of advice belief to be enlightening but sounded rather nostalgic in the end.

She expresses her grief in the country's political crisis and mishap of tax payers money to a point that she forgets about the truth behind each accusation. I mean, it's not wrong to make such remarks but since the matter is at an investigative level, why make assumptions? For example, the Jet Engines case and the death of Teoh Beng Hock. Let the authorities do their job. If they make a mistake at the accounts to please you, will be responsible for the collateral damage? Ask yourself that question.

It is really upsetting to see how matured adults absorb information sometimes because we tend to take the media too seriously and very often scrutinize the good part of every news and grin at every bad outcome, particular to the party that we dislike.

Even though situation sometimes demands the obvious, we can't deny the very aspect of protecting oneself when it comes to life, regardless of innocent or guilt, take Teoh Beng Hock case for example.

Who with the right mind will sit there and do nothing while the gallows is waiting for them? Is simple ignorance really when it comes to speculating that the whole scenario is setup, delay etc.

But that doesn't stop there, even the Prime Minister gets "eggs on the face" when something goes wrong in the defense ministry, just because he lead a group barbarians in the past. Look back on Altantuya case you'll see mix reaction from the crowd and it all boils down to one fact, the ministry of defense leader. It's sickening to see people drown themselves to the obvious.

True, big tycoons and high ranking politician get away with murder in movies but that doesn't happen very often in real life is it? How can we go on complaining about press rights while we humiliate ourselves with endless assumption upon given information? Don't you think is taking rights for granted?

I suggest that we learn from our mistakes and carry on a more critical and pragmatic way of life instead of baseless accusation and assumption. Understand comments as comments and accepts facts as facts.

By then, who knows, issues of transparency could be a thing of the past, and maybe bloggers will no longer be locked up behind bars.


Kudos! freedom!
Till then.

Nasi Lemak on the go!

Curiosity

As we arrive, loud and enthusiastic staffers quickly usher us to their designated stall and chanting recommendation aloud to our confused mind but alas, we took two packet of nasi lemak leaving them disappointed to rejection and discretion to what life has to offer. But for the most part, the drinks seller gets the best out of us.

Not only did we order cold drinks from them, we added a set of half-boiled egg as side dish to our nasi lemak.

But later on we notice two different nasi lemak packets, one with red fonts Nuri and one with the blue fonts (sorry I forgot the name).

We debate quietly and decided to try both of them and regrettably only one passes our close examination.

And Here's The Verdict:

The pack with the red fonts, Nuri, has better sambal as it concentrates more spiciness rather than the actual sweetness of most commonly prepared sambal. And just like any standard nasi lemak, it has boiled eggs, peanuts and anchovies.

The blue pack on the other hand is somewhat similar to the ingredients but lack the whoom on the sambal as it tasted sweet and not the actual chili-based sauce that we're looking for.

So I suggest that you go according to your chili endurance but if you trust me, go for Nuri.

PS: ignore the cold ones, ask the lady to prepare a new one for you if you can't find the hot once.

Here's some photos we took:

Nuri Nasi Lemak

Half-Boiled Eggs

Not so good otak-otak

Up to par Milo Ais Kao and Teh Ais

If it hasn't for her, I would have categorize the sweet nasi lemak as the one being feature on the magazine. Owe you big time honey!

To find this mamak:

Head over to Jalan 222, near AmWay building. Cheers! It's not too difficult to spot, is the only food court around the area.

Till then,

More food and gadget next post,
Good luck!

Go organic this valentine

True, Chinese New Year and Valentine don't come together very often but with all the effort done to contained plastic usage and earth hour around the corner, there's the guilt every time you step in that meat shop, so on behalf of the animals that get slaughtered everyday, I suggest that you and your partner should go green this festive season. And fret not, I know just the perfect place for you, Green Meadow.

Not only do find organic a stand out in this restaurant, it also serve up a variety of fermented beans and roots that no other vegetarian joint does. With that in mind, you'll get sushi inspired cabbage wrap, miso infused rojak and mix vege with charcoal brown rice.

Cabbage Wrap

Rojak

Mix Vege served with Charcoal Brown Rice

As for beverage, you will find a selection of soothing teas that are both thirst quenching and stomach friendly, especially when you over indulge like me.

Unknown black tea PS: I forgot the name!

As for the result, this is one spanking good health environment.. bla bla bla, it's 9/10. There isn't much to say really, just try it for yourselves.

Hi! Cabbage Roll very very nice ah!

Till Then,
Go Green!