Bukit Mertajam Food Crawl - Penang Dec 07

Now this post has been postponed once before, because, I lost my camera on one of those trips, Tamiya actually took me around hunting for food. Now back with a bigger camera, Tamiya, Rinoa and Ranjeet(dats me) partied up and wandered around the streets of Bukit Mertajam.

The idea of this food hunt @ Bukit Mertajam was quite far fetched until I spoke to our lawyers who happened to be from this area too. He was describing to me how from the Highway you drive past Pacific Mall, bla bla bla. I asked Tamiya one day and he said, sure we should go round here.

The first stop is Sunrise Coffee Shop. Its one coffee shop out of like thousands of coffee shops here along this Jalan Raja Uda. The main attraction of Sunrise Coffee Shop is of course its Char Koay Teo. The uncle who mans the shop has been frying this koay teo, since don't know when, even he lost count himself. He is also secretive and abit cautious to tell me things when he saw me taking pictures of his stall. He said don't write so terror-terror about my stall, scared of IRB going after him all.



After a bit of persuasion, our friend said, ok la, you take my back side. From the picture below, you can see our friend actually uses Coal Powered stove to fry the good stuff.

Tamiya and myself, we both ordered a plate each. Its only Rm 2.80 for biasa, and Rm 3.30 for a large serving. Of course one of the reasons why Tamiya recommended this place is because, its just outside his house, and its cheap.

Now this is the second time I have been back to this stall in as many visits to Penang. I believe this stall is actually frying up one of the best Penang CKT in town. Since most of us prefer to eat around the Penang Island, most of us will overlook completely about eating in these parts of Penang.



What I like about this CKT is that, you can get the "enough fire" (suppose to say in Cantonese) hope someone can help me out with the England. He did not over taruk the lard into his CKT, the sambal is hot enough, although it doesn't exude the redness in color. He actually put in a few pieces of medium sized prawns (Lrg Selamat being large), a few pieces of the waxed sausage, and a generous portion of koay teo and beansprouts. For RM 3.30, thats a hill of Char Koay Teo being served there.

Rinoa, ordered a bowl of fish porridge. It was quite good and tasty.

Then I looked around and saw the Satay stall. I asked the tauke, ada Satay Babi ka ? She said got. So I ordered 10 pcs, and found the satay to be very tasty. Its definitely marinated with some kunyit, salt, pepper, lemongrass (quite strong) and sugar. The peanut sauce was quite kau also. Even Tamiya did not know this stall actually sells Satay Babi....


Chai Leng Park


In my previous visit over here,we tried to come here but it was closed. This hawker center is located in an old abandoned cinema in Chai Leng park. So this time around we swung by and it was open.Ayam goreng belacan. This ayam goreng is superb. I first kena a dose of this ayam goreng belacan when I was walking around Kimberly St, in Penang Island. Ever since then, whenever I spot a stall selling this, I sure go for piece minimum. Thats RM2 bucks, and it tastes really nice. It smells like it has belacan, but when you bite into the chicken, you get the aroma of the fried chicken, with just a little hint of the belacan.

First stall was to to get the Asam Laksa... but found the laksa too watery, the fish chunks werent enough, but the gravy still tastes like it has tissue paper in it.
Standard, penang Asam Laksa ( tissue papery texture to its soup). This stall, I will pass the next time, unless you are hard up for Asam Laksa. Thats a plate of RM3 Asam Laksa for you. If you ask me, I'd still drive all the way to Air Itam market or to Balik Pulau for the better tasting Asam Laksa. Verdict: Nah!! just not as good as the island ones..... or maybe I just didn't know where to find the good ones


Then we ordered Penang Yong Tao Foo. Its cheap and the fish paste is white color wan. Definitely taste different from what we are used to in KL. Their YTF comes attached to pure fish paste. Otherwise it wouldn't be so white right ?

Their yong Tao Foo comes with additional vegetables also. Unlike in KL, where we only get chives, this flers get real vegetables that comes with their YTF. However so, when it comes to taste, the KL YTF definitely better.


I won't say so much as that the food on the Island is no good. But at least over here, the prices are still cheap, and servings still big compared to those on the Island. A plus point for me is that, these coffee shops have not started charging us 50 cents for sitting in their shop or something like in Lrg Selamat. I thought these two places is huge, Chai Leng Park area and The Food Stalls along the entire Raja Uda area... its just massive la....

Asam Laksa in MidValley - Halal wan

Famous Asam Laksa can be found in many places in Penang. But we stumbled upon this place, Garden Cafe, in 2nd floor of Jusco MidValley. It is unusual to find a cafe situated in the middle of a Electronics Floor. While walking pass this cafe, you cant help but notice, bustling with activity and a long queue waiting to order. Usually it doesn't take long for the Asam Laksa aroma to hit your nostrils.

(Ting ! ) Light bulb glows, hmm looks like a nice place to eat.

Two months after that, we finally came by to eat.

Asam laksa smelt very nice. Serving was small, but it does taste different compared to the Penang ones. Penang Asam Laksa , tastes sweetish, got more of that Prawn paste while this place I think they stinge on that abit, instead, they hentam more MSG into the bowl of noodles. Garden Cafe's Asam Laksa is a bit more salty compared to the Penang Variant. Here they stinge on the fish, noodles serving is quite large.

Overall, it tastes quite okay, just that they stinge on some of the ingredients. Penang flers go try la !!! Not bad wan.