CRIZ BON APPETITE

When you feel like taking Yam Rice in Penang island, you will normally ended up at Yong Tau Foo stalls or stalls that sells Pig Stomach Soup, Egg Soup, Cabbage Soup and so on. Most of the time, you do not even see any yam or dried shrimps in the rice. I have frequent this specific Yam Rice stall right in Chai Leng Park, mainland Penang for the past eight years or more and the standard still maintained the same. Each time I am in mainland, I will visit this stall without fail regardless of eating in or takeaway. Why not? It is the best Yam Rice I have taken in Penang. Who knows? It might be the best in Malaysia too.

Together with a client of mine (my Chinese clients will always end up with me here. :P), I visited the place again. As usual I will order the big bowl of Salted Lettuce (Kiam Chai) Soup with my own selection of lean meat, belly meat, pig stomach and meat balls. You can even add in other parts such as intestines, liver and so on. The soup, a bowl of Stewed Pork Legs and Beancurd in Dark Soy Sauce and 4 bowls of yam filled rice cost us only RM13.40. Don’t you think that’s really cheap? By the way, their combination of specially prepared chili paste in dark soy sauce really blends in well with the rice. Here are what we ordered.

If you are coming from the Butterworth Ferry Terminal, just turn right as you come up to the traffic light junction and drive towards the “mini Penang Bridge”. You have to pay a toll of RM1 if you are driving a car. Just follow the sign to Prai and Chai Leng Park towards Megamall/Pacific. If you are coming from the Penang Bridge/North-South Highway, turn into Jalan Baru where Megamall/Pacific is, drive towards an overhead bridge and make a U-turn to reach Chai Leng Park. When you see Pearl View Hotel on your left, turn left into the junction (Jalan Kurau). Turn left at the first junction, right at the first junction and right again into Lebu Kurau Satu. You will see the stall on your right in Kedai Kopi Chin Heng. The stall is in between another Yam Rice stall (I have tried before but not as good as this one. Just follow where the most crowds are. They are usually not wrong) and a vegetarian restaurant. You can also visit their other branches (call up and enquire where about) in Jalan Raja Uda and Bukit Mertajam areas. All of them carry the same name “BM Yam Rice”.

Where would you go for some hot steaming homecooked food after working late in the office or had just arrived from a long tiring trip from outstation? Most of the time you would just end up at Mamak stalls or McDonald’s to grab your meals as majority of the good restaurants and famous hawker stalls would be closed by then. Well, I had that experience myself as I had late dinner dates with a few friends of mine. By the time they have finished their work (especially those from malls) and refreshed themselves, it would be almost 11.00pm at night.

You might get some stalls still selling rice/porridge but their food were precooked and left on the warmer for hours. What I needed was some freshly cooked dishes with rice. I have searched for this type of service all over Penang and managed to find barely a handful scattered at different districts of the state. One of the coffee shops worth mentioning would be the Kedai Kopi Kristal Seafood located right in the heart of Pulau Tikus. Not only do they serve their customers right until 2.00am, they also provide delivery services right to your doorsteps. What impressed me most was their internet/WIFI ready access in their shop as this extra service is extremely rare in Penang coffee shops.

The charges for the food here can be considered reasonable with a meat/vegetable dish in the range of RM6, RM8 and RM10 whereas seafood dishes would be RM10 and above based on the market rate. My friend and I spent barely RM32 on the food and drinks, not forgetting the extra helping of rice we had ordered. It was a waste that there were just the two of us. If there were more, we would have tried out their impressive arrays of steamed fish and spicy prawns. Here were the basic dishes that we had ordered.

I did also find out that there was another room upstairs with air-conditioning and KTV that can cater for a small gathering of 50 persons or more. It is real easy to find the shop as it is situated along the main road. Just refer to the map below for directions.

On my way back to my place, I saw a new Thai Restaurant opened up for business along Upper Penang Road. I was curious as it replaced where Pintail Bistro used to be. Although the previous restaurant served one of the best fusion dishes around, it had to be closed down due to lack of parking spaces and diners around that area. Well, this new restaurant had quite a nice environment with dim garden lights and soft Thai music playing against the background.

We sat down and were immediately served by a lady. It looked as if she was desperate to recommend this and that as we ended up having food enough to feed three persons. We ordered 5 dishes and a dessert and I did stress to her to make the portion smaller as there were only two of us dining.

The Appetizer Thod Marn Pla (RM7.50) which was to be some sort of Thai Fish Cake came. I expect them to give 4 pieces since there were two of us but instead they gave three. A bit pricey to charge that as there was nothing inside except for some minced meat and long beans. But the taste was quite nice.

The Khao Pad Sapparos (RM8) aka Pineapple Fried Rice was next. Not bad for the amount served but it lacked of the fragrance for fried rice. Moreover, it was slightly soggy.

The waitress recommended Mango Tofu (RM10) next. The taste was not bad, a bit sweet for my taste bud. The dish has not more than 2 packet of deep fried Japanese tofu, some shredded mango, battered minced chicken meat and cooked with some tomato paste and they are charging that high. They should at least check the market rate for any tofu dishes out there. Even a crab meat Japanese tofu that amount won’t cost that much.

The waitress again strongly recommended the Thai style Egg Roll (RM5). It was just a plain egg with some over salty minced chicken meat cooked with fermented beans inside. Moreover, it came last when all the plain rice as well as Pineapple Fried Rice were almost gone. I think they got their dish priority all wrong here.

As for dessert, she recommended the Thai Dessert (RM3.50). By right this dish is to be served with only some jellied water chestnut, sliced jackfruits and coconut milk. It came with additional sweetened attap palm nuts, nata de coco jelly and some over springy colored jelly. All the add-ons spoiled the taste of this traditional Thai dessert.

I would consider the food served here are a bit pricey although the amount charged was not with any taxes. We paid RM68.20 for the meal. They even charged us 30sen for a glass of water on top of the amount we had ordered? Come on! If they were planning to charge, at least state in the menu or just get me a bottle of mineral water instead. How to reach this restaurant? Just refer to the map below for directions.