Pork Spare Ribs (Pai Kut Ong) Fried Rice King, Taman Pekaka, Penang

When I first taste the fried rice, it was many years back when they are operating at Happy Cafe, the one facing the main road. Then after a couple of years after my first try, they moved to the coffee shop behind, opposite Maxim Dim Sum restaurant.

They have few other options, from plain fried rice, salted fish fried rice, chicken curry rice, fried bee hoon and more.

But my all time favourite is the pork spare ribs fried rice.. the rice is actually very plain fried rice, with eggs and light soy sauce.

The key ingredient is the spare ribs which are coated with flour and deep fried, and then cooked with some kind of sweet & sour sauce (tomato and chili sauce). Pork ribs then placed with the fried rice with sesame and chopped spring onions sprinkled on top. The sauce complement the fried rice and it somehow taste really good with the succulent spare ribs… I tried to cook at home but it’s just not the same… haha… perhaps the fried rice although simple but fried with strong fire, it taste just better… I can’t remember how much it cost already.. I think around MYR4.50 to MYR 5.00. Not sure if the price has increased or not.

The char koay teow is also not bad.. i tasted only a little cause my friend always take his char koay teow, fire burning spicy hot! I sometimes wonder if his taste buds have gone malfunction or not…

But he said it was okay… not bad.. just a bit oily… as usual.. char koay teow, if it’s not oily then it’s not called char koay teow… MYR 3.00 or MYR 3.50.. if I’m not mistaken.. getting older.. next time must take one little notebook to write down the price.. hahaha

Deep fried salted fish tofu…not bad.. although deep fried, not very oily… flavour is not very strong but just nice… it has like powdery/dusty texture on the crispy thin skin.. besides the bean curd, they have belacan fried chicken as well..

There’s another stall selling lok lok too… Business operates from evening onwards...

Sg Nibong’s Claypot Bak Kut Teh (肉骨茶)

To some, it may be a surprised that prior my stay in Penang, back in my hometown, I don’t recall going out for a bak kut teh dinner. Reason being, if we want to have back kut teh, my pa or ma will personally cook them, but of course with less spare parts (pigs innards) and with extra favourite of ours, pig’s tail :P So I have not really been exposed to outside Bak Kut Teh until I came to Penang.. haha.. sounds sua ku, but hey.. I’ve been having homecook bak kut teh lehhhh…..

I’ve been all along patronizing the Bak Kut Teh at Super Lai Lai along Mccalister road, opposite Agora Hotel (now known as Red Rock Hotel). But I have not been there for some time already and since I’ve been hearing about the infamous Sg Nibong’s Bak Kut Teh, I decided to go and try.

It was raining pretty heavy and the thought of having something soupy and hot supports the idea of paying this coffee shop a visit. It’s along Sg Nibong, and back row corner coffee shop. There’s another coffee shop in front facing the main road but if I could recall, they were saying the one at the back… there were not many customers the time I arrived.. but then the crowd starts to fill in after my order came..

 

Yau Char Kway also known as you tiao, one of the essentials in bak kut teh :D ;  with choice of white rice of flavourful yam rice in a small bowl, and mixture of finely chopped garlic with red chili and chili padi (bird eyes’ chili), mixed evenly with sweet dark soy sauce, and soy sauce for dipping.

The bak kut teh served straight from the stove when it’s still boiling hot…

It’s soup is somehow rather clear and thin compared with Super Lai Lai’s and ingredients are all in, but was not bad.. the flavour is not bad, soup refillable like most bat kut teh stalls… I still personally want to go back and try the Super Lai Lai’s cos you pick your own ingredients.. and every pot is made to order..  I can’t remember when was my last visit… but I heard they said it’s now expensive already…

Yau char kway dipped in the soup, eaten soft and hot… with the rice

Nice big piece of my favourite pork belly… :D, the bean curd actually come in different bowl of soup instead or added in the clay pot together with other ingredients… i think perhaps they do not want the bean curd to be smashed beyond recognition when other ingredients added in…

Many customers also when the time I was leaving… so i made a conclusion that I came to the right stall :D and business is not bad even on rainy days…

The stall’s name in chinese which I do not really know how to read… I think it reads Wo Lai Yeh… something something rou gu cha(bak kut teh)… meal came up to MYR19, one claypot bak kut teh for 2, rice  and yau char kway… no beancurd, no oily vegetable (basically lettuce blanched in hot water added with oil, soy sauce added and topped with pork floss), and drinks separately paid. I have not eaten bak kut teh for a while now, so I guess the price had gone up so high.. and they said Agora’s expensive… I’ll go find out :D

He have 2 huge pots of stock which means business must be good but I find it quite dangerous to have it placed there since it’s also a walkway for customer. there’s not extra “fencing” between the pots and the walkway and its height is at round your thigh. It should be placed at the other inner side of the stalls or anywhere that will not post risk to anyone.

Noir from Starbucks Coffee

A visit to Starbucks got me committed a sin. A heavenly sin though cause I sunk my teeth into one of the cakes available….. Noir, a piece of some kind of chocolate cake or soft biscuit, covered with dark chocolate  and topped shaved strands of dark chocolate too… it looks like a porcupine…

One of Noir’s meaning is black/dark in French.. It’s read as “nwar” just like the pinot noir.

How does is taste like.. hm.. if you are a chocolate lover, then of course you will like it a lot… but because it’s more to a soft biscuit, rather than a cake, if slightly dry and the texture is harder than a normal moist cake.

It’s only a small piece costing around MYR8.00, so thinking back again, it wasn’t a big sin after all, it was more of like an indulgence, a reward to self :D haha… i am so finding excuses for myself….

So, my defaulted order in Starbucks would be the Green Tea Frap, around MYR 12.00, i think, and the bottle of Giant Peach Tazo Tea is at MYR 10.00. The Tazo tea have go real strong peach scent… yummy….

Starbucks in support to the mother earth, less napkin, more plants…

Pretty empty…. means…. recession… :P

New BT Food Court, Burmah Road

This food court has been there for a while now with brisk business. It has huge selections of Penang hawker fares, and also other international cuisines like Western, Japanese, Italian and stuffs.

It can be stuffy sitting in the food court regardless the high ceilings and the huge spray fans available. So you can opt to sit outside, well, of course during night time ler… and don’t play play… they have Wifi also leh… and huge plasma-s… high tech also.. haha

Hokkien noodles (Prawn Noodles) was not bad.. the soup is thick with rich prawn taste (maybe because it was the last few bowls), presented nicely with meat slices, eggs slices, prawns and sprinkled with aromatic fried shallots. But overall, it’s not bad..

Seafood and vegetable curry parcels… I’m not sure if this is a Portuguese cuisine or somehow like it. It’s seafood (prawns, clams, squids, and i think got mussels) and vegetables (lady’s fingers/okra and four angled beans) cooked with thick curry sauce, wrapped in aluminum foil and I think they baked for a while before serving cause you can see the steam released the moment you open the aluminum parcel.  tasted okay, quite spicy and I believe it goes well with rice, not sure if they have it…

Seafood Tom Yam Spaghetti, Italian with a hint of Asian. My friend said it’s quite sour though… as in more sour than a normal tom yam. But if you love your tom yam super sour, you will like this one a lot.. Presentation wise, pretty tempting when you look at it.

Fried Maggi noodles, fried in huge wok with strong fire, it surely does give it an extra oomph aroma and it has got few huge prawns too!!

Belacan(Shrimp Paste) Fried Chicken… really crispy at the outside and succulent in the inside, but the belacan taste is quite mild… If the belacan taste is strong enough, it will then be really really good since the coat is already crispy and yummy….

Grilled honey chicken wings!! ~Siu gai yek, I love to eat ~ :P I actually like the one in Jelutong Market next to the Mat Tou Yau thong sui though cause is has the hint of the five spice powder..

There’s many more food to try there.. next round perhaps :D

Canton-i, Queensbay Mall

Canton-i opened their doors to Penangites at Queensbay Mall, early 2009 few years after sister restaurant Dragon-i serve their first customer in Penang. Difference is, Dragon-i serves Shanghainese cuisine and Canton-i on the other hand serves Hong Kong cuisine.

Their interior theme are simpler, yet nice, in combination of white and pink.

I like the so called divider wall, in white with cherry blossoms, dragonflies and butterflies. Nice touch with their tables and chairs which somehow also look traditional but chic.

Table setting is pretty much the same as Dragon-i’s

The difference is only, the restaurant name imprinted on the chopstick.

Hong Kong Signature Prawn Wonton Noodles, and I have to say it’s not bad at all. It tastes somewhat similar to the ones I had in Hong Kong but maybe slightly smaller in portion which is good cause that also I had hard time finishing it. In Hong Kong, I had to get my brother to finish the other half. The prawn wantons are nice, fresh and wrapped in delicate wanton skin. The vege (choy sum) well, definite look presentable in a whole but I don’t quite fancy choy sum so I have to think of ways to slide it down my throat without chewing it, which of course I did not manage to, I ate it anyways.

Breaded crabmeat patties something like that, i think.. I can’t remember because it was not me who made the order…. Crispy and nice flavour…

Fried rice with fresh scallops (around MYR18 or MYR20 i think) which was rather plain and oily… but of course perhaps it was already with scallops added, they do not want to spoil the taste by adding other ingredients…  my friend who treated me for dinner loves his fried rice. In Dragon-i, he will order his MYR16 fried rice, when we go for buffet in Rasa Sayang, he said he must try the fried rice too.. (speaking of which, i have not blogged about Rasa Sayang’s buffet I had.. last September before i went to Hong Kong.. oops.. hahahaha!!).. anyways, I conclude him as rice bucket (fan tong).

Bolo Yau/(菠蘿油)… (Hong Kong Buttered Pineapple buns) is one Hong Kong famous and must haves. Some would just have the simple plain Bolo Pau without the butter. It’s called Polo Pau (Pineapple Buns) not because it has pineapple as an ingredient but basically because the checkered top sugary crust on the buns that is baked to golden brown, and resembles the pineapple’s outer skin. Pretty sinful, if you can see, the one nice piece of butter stuffed inside. Read something from the wiki on Bolo Pau.. it says…

“ In 2005, "Pineapple Bun" was nominated as a potential typhoon name but was rejected. The director of the Hong Kong Observatory, Lam Chiu Ying, as one of the judges for the naming process, commented: "If we say XX country is being ravaged by Pineapple Bun, that would be too hilarious."”

hahaha.. I agree… then it will sound more like a joke than natural disaster and a tragedy!

Pretty lamps in bird cages, creating a nice ambiance..

There is still other section in the restaurant (which was closed) but I guess the patrons are not at the maximum capacity, so they only seated us at one section so it’s easier to manage. Food here, I guess there is more to explore. I’ve tried only a few, however if compared to Dragon I, the selections are slightly lesser and more expensive too.