CRIZ BON APPETITE

You would be amazed by how many times a Malaysian would eat a day, especially those Penangites with so many options available from breakfast right up to supper. You have so many choices at each and every corner of every district such as Adam’s Karipap Ayam (chicken curry puff – RM1.50 each) in Pulau Tikus Market along Jalan Pasar, Te Chang You Tiao Wang (the longest Chinese cruller at 14” length – RM1 each) along Jalan Paya Terubong, 8o varieties of kuih-muih (local finger snacks – 40sen each) at Mat Relax Corner along Jalan Jones or even some authentic Cantonese snacks at Guangzhou Cake House along Lebuh Carnarvon. Who could resist such temptation even at odd hours of the day?

Another great snack would be the Malaysian Pancake, commonly known as Apom Balik by the Malays and Ban Chang Koay by the Chinese community. Where could you get such great snack then? One prominent place would be right in town itself. With a continuous flow of buyers from all races, En. Noor Azam has been selling his Apom Balik right in front of the General Post Office (Pos Besar Pulau Pinang) along Downing Street (Lebuh Downing) for more than a decade.

What made his Apom Balik (60sen each) so demanding compare to many other sellers in town? His Apom Balik has the right texture, thickness, sweetness, buttery taste, freshness of the pounded peanuts and most importantly the crunchiness on the crust at all time. There are actually two types available at his roadside stall. One would be a thinner version with crunchy crust. You could opt for plain or with cream corns.

Another version would be the thicker type being slowly cooked in a large pan. This version would be more fluffy and soft in the center.

If you are at that area, do try his Apom Balik out. I had not stopped patronizing his stall each time I’m around that area as I find his skills in preparing this wonderful snack had maintained its consistency throughout all the years. It’s a great snack for tea.

Finding the stall would not be hard if you frequent Lebuh Pantai (Beach Street) often for your banking transactions as this is the road where all the major banks are located. Just drive along Lebuh Pantai until you have reached Hongkong Bank. The road next to the bank is Lebuh Downing. Drive right until the end and you would see the General Post Office at the junction of Lebuh Downing and Pengkalan Weld (Weld Quay). The stall is just in front of the GPO, next to a Chinese iced drink seller. Do try out the corn drink here too as it’s one of the good ones around.

Name: NOOR AZAM APOM BALIK
Address: Lebuh Downing, 10300 Penang, Malaysia.
Opening Hours: 12.00noon-6.00pm
GPS: 5.417557, 100.344192

RATING:
Ambience: 5/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 5/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 8.5/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Popularity: 2% [?]

When you mention about Uncle Bob’s Taiwan Styled Fried Chicken (RM5), most frequent night market (pasar malam) goers would surely heard about them. Being the first to bring in this Taiwanese snack concept to Malaysia, Uncle Bob has been operating this business since 2002, spreading its mobile snack vans all over peninsular and east Malaysia. Well, being a successful pioneer in this food industry has always a drawback. More and more competitors have mushroomed all over the country plagiarizing this successful story. In fact, I had noticed that some competitors even offered more flavors than the existing original and spicy recipes Uncle Bob has.

What made Uncle Bob so successful in this business? All you can see is just a piece of chicken breast meat or boneless drumstick coated with some bread crumbs, deep fried and sprinkle with some flavoring. That’s nothing special right? What many did not notice is that those chicken meat pieces have their skins and fat removed prior to the frying process. This is a healthier version? Maybe not but at least the consumption of fat would be lesser than most of the existing fried chicken stalls around. Uncle Bob has just two flavors to their bite sized crunchy chicken cutlets, namely original and spicy. The spicy ones were the most sought after.

On top of the smooth selling product stated above, Uncle Bob has its Research & Development (R&D) group based in Taiwan to find out more products that would the local market. One of the products that launched not long ago was the Sweet Batter Coated Cheese Hot Dog Stick (RM2). It has a jumbo sized cheese filled sausage coated with a specially formulated batter and deep fried to golden brown. The end product has a sweet tasting crispy crust that tasted a bit sweeter than our local pancake (ban chang kuih) base.

The combination of the sweet and salty taste of the product complimented each other well. The best part would be squirting out some existing juice from the sausages as well as some melted cheese oozing out of your mouth. This is such a cool to snack while exploring more bargains in the night markets!

As the vans would be on the move each day, I could not provide a specific location map or GPS reading for you to track them down. Maybe a detailed venue of the night markets each day (Penang Island and Mainland) would ease you more in your food hunting expedition. Gook Luck!

Name: UNCLE BOB TAIWAN STYLED SNACKS
Penang Area Contact: 013-4316868 (Mr. David Yong)
Penang Mobile Van Whereabouts: 016-459 4433 (Nee), 016-481 6963 (Wei)

PENANG – ISLAND (NIGHT MARKETS)
Monday– McCallum Street (Opposite Li Tek School entrance)
Tuesday -Tanjung Bungah Market (Next to Bus Station/Market)
Wednesday– Farlim Padang, Air Itam
Thursday-Paya Terubong, Air Itam & McCallum Street (opposite market)
Friday-Taman Kheng Tian (off Van Pragh Road/Hamilton Road)
Saturday-Sungai Dua (opposite Tesco Extra)

PENANG – MAINLAND (NIGHT MARKETS)
Wednesday-Kampung Juru
Thursday-Kampung Valdor
Friday-Taman Permata
Saturday-Mega Mall Food Court (Pacific Shopping Centre) & Kuan Nam Coffee Shop (Chai Leng Park)

OTHER STATES IN PENINSULAR & EAST MALAYSIA
Please check out here for the whereabouts of the mobile vans for each state in Malaysia.

RATING:
Ambience: 5/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 6/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 8/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Popularity: 2% [?]

Chinese New Year (26-27 January 2009) is just around the corner and many Chinese are already busy preparing some gifts for their family, relatives, friends and clients prior to the celebration. Some would buy hampers filled with canned and dry stuff whereas some would still go for the traditional way of giving away some BBQ meat (Bak Kua/Rougan), a Chinese salty-sweet dried meat product similar to jerky. There are actually two variants, one with minced meat slices and the other with slices of meat straight from the solid meat blocks. It could either be made out of pork or chicken.

Have you ever wonder how these juicy dried meat slices were made? Let me share with you what I have learned through my recent visit to a BBQ meat maker in Georgetown who has been making this delicacy from her home for over a decade. The preparation is actually quite simple but the process of making the dried meat could be real time consuming. Pieces of choice meat (80% lean and 20% fat) would be minced and then mixed with some seasonings such as soy sauce, salt, sugar (some would use honey), 5-spice powder, pepper and rose wine. The mixture would be left to marinate for awhile before proceeding to the next process.

The mixture would then be spread evenly but thinly onto customized large aluminum trays. Some makers, especially those older ones would still use bamboo trays to spread the mixture.

These trays would then be placed inside a slightly heated oven to dry the meat. Traditionally, these would be left out in the sun to dry but the modern generations of people had shy away from purchasing food using this method as the food might be contaminated with dust particles and bugs. Thus, through this hygienic process, the food would be safe for consumption.

After leaving those trays in the oven for some time, this would be the result. You will get huge slices of dried meat but this is not the end of the process. There would be the final preparation.

These huge meat slices would then be trimmed into smaller slices and BBQ to perfection. The maker has two ways of barbequing the meat slices. She would either use a metal net over some burning charcoals or by using an electrical BBQ machine when the orders get too many.

The other variant which I had mentioned earlier would be the dried chicken. The preparation would be the same except that they would use a customized mould with holes on it to make them round.

They do also produce the Red Dried Pork which is of a lesser quality and flavors compared to the ones mentioned above. These are normally used by our local hawkers to prepare Roti Bak Kua (Dried Meat Buns).

Over the years, Bak Kua has evolved into something different. They are now being produced in strips form that made eating easier. These yummy and juicy strips are called the Gold Bars (??). Unlike the step of spreading the seasoned meat thinly, they are rolled into long bars and followed the same drying process as above. These would then be fried instead of being BBQ, leaving the inner layer to be moist with rich flavors. These have been my all time favorite. Sad to say, they only produce them once a year, just a month before the Chinese New Year. Even my friends and relatives had not stopped reminding me to order them yearly. I had tried from many sellers but theirs had been the best so far.

Another fried version would be the Gold Nuggets (????) which have thinly spread meat as the base and a small amount of minced meat on the middle. These again have been the much sought after dried meat after the Gold Bar. I could not get enough of these either.

You should also not miss out their Pork Floss too. The floss was always fresh, well flavored and crunchy. I’m still trying to remember how many slices of bread, spread with butter and sandwiched with the yummy pork floss I had last evening. LOL!

The price of the items:
Dried Pork (Bak Kua) – RM24 per 600gms/kati
Dried Chicken (Kay Bak Kua) – RM26 per 600gms/kati
Pork Floss – RM24 per 600gms/kati
Gold Bars – RM25 per 600gms/kati
Gold Nuggets – RM25 per 600gms/kati
Red Dried Pork – RM16 per 600gms/kati

Since the festive season is near and stock could be quite limited, MAKE SURE YOU CALL UP to book your order prior to visiting them. They do not have a counter (remember? It’s a house) to sell you the delicious dried meat if you did not make any reservations. The house is strategically located along a small lane off Lebuh Carnarvon. If you are coming from Jalan Dr. Lim Chwee Leong, turn left into Lebuh Carnarvon. Drive on until you see a police station (on your left), turn into the first right turning back into the other side of Lebuh Carnarvon. You will see a mamak store on your left. Drive on until you have reached the second left junction (Lorong Carnarvon). The house is on the left somewhere almost towards the end of the lane with a small red sign with gold wordings stating ???????Choo Choo Heng Dried Pork.

Name: CHOO CHOO HENG BBQ MEAT
Address: 51 Lorong Carnarvon, 10100 Penang, Malaysia.
Opening Hours: 12.00noon – 7.00pm
Contact: 604-261 4223 (Ms Loh)
GPS: 5.414097, 100.335645

RATING:
Ambience: 7/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 7/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 8/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 7/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Popularity: 3% [?]

Suddenly I had an urge to go for sushi after having tasted the delicious sushi brought by CK Lam during the 3rd Penang Floggers Gathering. I immediately headed out to the Pulau Tikus Market where all the yummy hawker stalls are. Hidden from the sight of the main road (Jalan Pasar) was this dimly but beautifully decorated stall selling sushi. The two owners, Boon and Sandy, had manned this stall for many years. Although hidden from where all the crowds were, business remained quite smooth flowing with consistent flow of patrons. What attracted their customers was the 100 over selections available, taste, presentation as well as the price of each sushi. Prices can range from as low as RM1 per sushi to RM5 per sushi with large fish roes.

You would not believe that I had a 7-piece sushi takeaway such as the Califutomaki, chopped baby octopus, tuna, prawn, crabstick & egg, fish roes and prawn roes sushi as shown above for a mere RM7. Yup! You heard it right! Each sushi costs only RM1. There were more available but I chose what was available as the sky was beginning to drizzle at that time. Here are some snapshots of their other sushi.

You do not have to worry about the unavailability of your preferences as shown on the menus on the stall as well as on the special order menus as either Boon or Sandy would be more than happy to make them for you. In fact, you can always ask them for their house specialties.

If you are coming from Jalan Burmah into Jalan Cantonment, turn left into the first junction. That’s where the Pulau Tikus market is and that’s also where the night hawker area is. Move further up until you see a small lane beside a bakery on your left. You will see the stall at the corner with two lighted up red Japanese lanterns.

Name: PULAU TIKUS MARKET SUSHI CORNER
Address: Lorong Pasar, 10350 Penang, Malaysia.
Opening Hours: 5.30pm-11.00pm (Closed Monday)
Contact: 016-472 2893 (Boon), 016-532 2066 (Sandy)
GPS: 5.430320, 100.312100

RATING:
Ambience: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 9/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 8/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Penang has quite a number of records in the Malaysian Book of Records and this yummy Chinese Cruller or Fried Bread Stick (You Tiao) from Te Chang You Tiao Wang (Extra Long Chinese Cruller King) could well fall into one of the category as being the longest (as I know) in Malaysia. This crunchy golden brown, deep fried strip of dough was about 14” long, one and the half times the length of a normal You Tiao selling elsewhere.

Even a specially designed aluminum stove had to be constructed to ensure evenly spread heat to cook this dessert.

At present, there are only two types of crullers available at the stall, the extra long cruller (RM1 each) and the Black & White Sesame Twins (3 for RM2). The Black & White Sesame Twins is quite similar to Ma Keok (Horse Shoe Shaped Sweetened Crullers) except that they were kneaded differently with black and white sesame seeds sprinkled on them.

It was not the extra long crullers that impressed me but the fusion of what it had become today. I could not have imagined that they can be stuffed with so many different combinations and yet tasted great. Would you love to try out Stuffed Cruller with Meat Floss and Mayonnaise (RM2.50)?

Stuffed Cruller with Tuna Mayonnaise was my favorite. Selling at RM2.50, it had tuna flakes mixed with mayonnaise, chopped onions, cabbages and carrots. Simply crunchy and delicious!

You can even have Stuffed Cruller with Sausage and Mayonnaise (RM3). This would be a favorite for children.

There were actually a few other sweeter combinations for you to choose. Each set would cost you only RM2. They are Kaya & Butter, Honey & Butter and Peanut & Butter. Instead of having one long cruller with one filling, I opted for the Mixed Cruller which has half meat floss and half tuna mayonnaise (RM2.50).

On top of that, they have Black Soy Bean Milk at only RM1. The crullers are best taken when they are fresh and crispy. Leaving them too long with the mayonnaise stuffing would not ensure their crispiness.

If you are coming from Jalan Air Itam (near Kek Lok Si Temple) towards Jalan Paya Terubong, you would pass by SJK (Cina) Kong Ming 2 on your right and then East Coast Seafood Restaurant on your left. The stall is just a bit further up on your right before the Lintang Paya Terubong/Jalan Paya Terubong traffic lights. In fact, it is just next to the Paya Terubong Lao Foo Zhi Bak Kut Teh stall. This extra long Chinese cruller originated from Kuala Perlis. They are the main supplier of You Tiao to one of the famous seafood restaurants there. You could even try them out at their main branch in Kuala Perlis, Perlis, Malaysia.

Name: TE CHANG YOU TIAO WANG ENTERPRISE
Branch Address: 1250-A, Jalan Paya Terubong, 11060 Penang, Malaysia.
Contact: 016-433 7301 (Mr. TH Tan)
Main Branch Address: 76, Jalan Sarawak, 02000 Kuala Perlis, Perlis, Malaysia.
Opening Hours: 6.00am-6.00pm (Closed Alternate Tuesday)
GPS: 5.394222, 100.276417

RATING:
Ambience: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 6/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 7.5/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Popularity: 4% [?]

Name: MAT RELAX CORNER @ JONES ROAD
Address: Jalan Jones, 10350 Penang, Malaysia.
Contact: 017-429 5082 (En. Aziz)
Opening Hours: 7.00am – 8.00pm (Close Saturday & Sunday)
GPS: 5.431094, 100.315347

RATING:
Ambience: 4/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 9/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 8/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 5/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 7/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Popularity: 1% [?]