Home, sweet Home!

Tuesday was the day of tearful goodbyes. Seng took me to the Batu Lanchang Road famous curry mee kopitiam, but with my luck, he does not sell on Tuesday! No curry mee? On my last day here in Penang? Hence the tearful part. We had hokkien mee instead.

Mom put in one last valiant try on not wanting to take pills, but I was firm in telling him she should take whatever pills the doctor prescribed. So far, she has not been happy with the once-a-week Fosomax (for improving her calcium absorption.)

Loon came by at 9:30AM to take me to the airport. It was too early, so we sat down for a beer. Mom brought out chee-cheong-fun, and made Loon eat it. She also offered hum-yoke-chong (rice and bean wrap in leaves), but Loon refused. I explained that I would like to get to the airport early, around 10:30AM, because the ticket I bought from the Malaysian Airways online web site to go to Singapore is for a promotional price of RM8 only. Of course, with all the tax and fees (RM91), it came to RM99, which is still very cheap. I wasn't sure if that is a real ticket. What if, when I get to the airport, they say there is no ticket for me. What if they laugh in my face, and tell me it is just a joke? What if there is a fine print somewhere that says you cannot use that this year? I need to have ample time to rectify that, if there is no ticket.

Well, the ticket is real. I got it without any trouble. What a relief. In fact, the counter clerk even checked my one suitcase all the way to Boston, even though they are not responsible after getting it to Singapore. So, he stuck on a sticker "SIN to NRT", and another one for "ORD to BOS". I am looking at my suitcase, and silently wave goodbye to it. I don't think I will ever see it again.

At Singapore, as soon as I set foot in the airport, I checked in to the Transit Hotel. I have a block of time from 3 to 9 PM, so I got some sleep, woke up around 6PM. I found a Chinese restaurant in the airport, and ordered laksa (curry mee), and a dish of Dim Sum chicken feet. Weird combination, but good eats. With a full stomach, I went back to the hotel, and watched TV on Asian Youth Games 2009, until it was time to leave.

I was able to go to the Transfer counter, and got my boarding pass for ANA (All-Nippon airways), all the way to Chicago. At Chicago, I have to get my boarding pass to Boston.

The flight to Tokyo left promptly at midnight. I like ANA. The food is good, the green tea is good, the seats are not bad, and the flight attendants are pretty. I give it a two thumbs up. I spent the night watching TV and movies. I was able to finish the series "24" which I started on the way to Singapore.

At Tokyo, I have about 3 hours to walk around before the next flight (to Chicago.) Since it was pretty early, around 8 AM, the restaurants were not open, so I decided to forfeit breakfast. I think I have eaten so much food in the last three weeks, I won't be missing much. The flight was delayed about an hour, so I sat down and watch TV at the waiting area in front of the gate. Eventually, the all-night TV viewing caught up with me, and I dozed off.

I was suddenly awakened by the announcement "This is a FINAL boarding announcement for Mr. Siew Mun Mui, please go to gate 47 immediately!" Man! I almost missed the flight! Why didn't my fellow passengers wake me up? Why didn't the gate persons wake me up? Can't they see they are missing one passenger, and I am the only person sleeping at the gate area? Anyway, I got in, just in time, before they closed the door. Phew! I would have had to buy another ticket to Chicago, and one to Boston, since I would have missed the two flights, and maybe spend a few days in Tokyo, waiting for the next available flight. Lucky me, this time.

The flight from Tokyo to Chicago was long. Very long. I was glad to get out of the aircraft in the morning. In a sense, I was glad to be back in America. The immigration was quick. The custom was quick. No mention of H1N1 anywhere. No inspection room, no swine flu signs. In comparison, Penang and to a lesser extend, Singapore, was very serious about this disease. From what I could see, there was no warning signs anyway, and no school closing in the States.

My flight was scheduled at 1PM, so I settled down for the five-hour wait. I eventually dozed off at the gate, and was awakened by my cell phone alarm clock, to find out the flight has been delayed to 1:45PM. At 1:30PM, the announcement came for the flight to be delayed until 3:10PM. We eventually board the plane, and was pushed off at 4PM. By the time we reached Boston, it was 6:45PM. My taxi brought me home around 8PM. A very long day indeed.

Paula came down to investigate when I walked in to the house. She had made some chicken soup and rice for me, and also has vegetables on the steamers ready, so I had a good meal, took a long shower, and settled down for the night.

It has been a wonderful trip to Penang. It was great to see mom still able to do things around the house, and in general good health. It was great to catch up with Sui Fun, and Seng and family. It was great to be able to catch up with friends like Kong Chan and Kar Hwa. The food in Penang is just incredible. It is probably the best food in the World. My 10 pound weight gain is testimony to the food. Thanks for following my journey.

"One Day More!"

Well, readers, I leave tomorrow for home. Homeward-bound! I can't believe it is already three weeks since I got here, well almost three weeks. It is no cliche', but time really does fly. One minute I was here at the Penang airport, scanning the cars outside for Seng, and next minute, I am getting ready to leave.

The plan is for Loon to come by tomorrow around 10AM. We will probably have a drink or two, before setting out to the airport. We should reach the airport around 11AM, and I have a couple of hours to get my boarding pass, and wait for the aircraft. Seng had informed me that Malaysian Airlines do not start the engines until five minutes before departure, as a cost and fuel saving measure. As a result, the air crafts are very hot (especially for mid-day flights) inside. I intend to wait until the last minute before I board the airplane.

I decided to go downtown for one more time before I leave. Seng has to take Theng2 to a dental appointment in the morning, so I hitched a ride with them to the (Adventists') Hospital. The dental clinic is a separate building inside the hospital compound.

We walked in, and while Theng2 did her things with the receptionist, I sat down to read a newspaper. I was suddenly aware of some commotions. Another patient waiting in the sitting room was at the door, opening the door, and helping a old lady get into the room. The old lady was already being helped by another young lady. She looked out of it, like she did not know what is going on. She could hardly move her legs, and her head was tilted skyward, as if she was in a daze. At some point, when she is supposed to move one leg to the front of the other, she hooked the root onto the other leg, and almost fell down. I jumped up to offer my seat (near to the door), but the entourage bypassed me to the next seat. They propped the lady up in the seat, and within a few minutes, she was taken into one of the examination room. I was thinking, at that age, her dental health is probably the least of her worries.


soon after that, Theng2 was called into another examination room. Seng motioned me to follow, but I declined. I think it is appropriate only for the father to follow, but not the uncle. We don't want the whole family crowding the dentist's room, do we? like Ma and Pa Kettle. Ha ha.

Apparently the hospital's cafeteria (canteen) is famous for their baked goods. Before leaving the hospital, Seng and Theng2 walked over to the main building for the cafeteria. Theng2 picked up many breads and pastries, and Seng bought two bags of oat meals. After that, we dropped Theng2 off at her school, which is quite near, a couple of blocks away, and Seng then drove me down to Komtar to meet Kong Chan.

After an hour's wait, Kong Chan showed up. He has to come down from Ayer Itam, and he complained that the bus was later than usual. I did not mind. I mostly sat in the Dewan hall, and watch people pay their municipal bills.

We walked over to Kek Seng coffee shop, and had a quick mid-morning meal. Kong Chan ordered popiahs, loh baks, and iced kachangs. I ordered a bowl of laksa (which I regret later, because even though it was good, it was just too much food.) I did not take pictures of these dishes, because I probably have too many of these pictures already.

We walked back to the Prangin Mall afterward. Kong Chan said it was just too hot to walk anywhere else under the Sun, and I agree. It was scrotching hot this morning. I was sweating profusely already

At the mall, I tried to look for a DVD of "The Princess Diary." I noticed Theng2 was ready the book, and I thought she might enjoy the movie after she finishes the book. The movie is a few years old, and all the DVD stores no longer carry it, unfortunately. I looked at the 3 in 1 and 4 in 1 DVDs, hoping to find one with the movie included, but to no avail. Ah, well. I had to give up after a while, when Kong Ming arrived to pick us up for lunch.

Lunch was at a Thiu Theo (a Chinese Province) restaurant. Kong Chan ordered Pork Belly soup, Tofu with vegetables, and Plum chicken. I have never had the soup before, but it was very tasty. The pork belly was very well cooked, so it was tender and not chewy. The waiter scooped out three bowls of soup, and served it, then retired discreetly. Very nice serving.

The tofu and chicken came soon afterwards, and the waitress topped our soup bowls, and took away the empty serving bowl. We enjoyed the tofu and the chicken. The chicken is deep fried, but not greasy. It was cut into small serving pieces, and you can optionally dip the chicken pieces into a small dish of plum sauce. That is why it is called "Plum sauce chicken." A very enjoyable lunch.

At night, we went to Sungai Tiram food court. Sui Fun and Peter graciously took time out to join us. We ordered Octopus and Tung Choy (green vegetables), satay chicken, Oyster omelette, Fish noodles, Sar Hor Fun, Hokkien fried noodles, Balachan tofu and Balachan chicken (chicken made with shrimp paste). There were so much food, it filled up the two tables we occupied. I am sorry I didn't bring my camera, but I wish I did now. The Balachan chicken was very good. I wish I had a picture of that.

The fish noodles vendor has been here since the 80's. They used to be very busy, very much in demand. A competitor has since opened across the street, taking away a lot of their business, but they are still very haughty. They have the attitude that they do not need your business, so you are welcomed to leave if you don't like their attitude.

We ordered two bags of noodles to go, for the children's lunch tomorrow. When we received them, they have the soup and noodles in the same bag, instead of separating the noodles and soup. When we went back to complain, and ask them to separate, the woman, who is also the cook, refused. She said "you didn't tell us to separate.", and "the noodles will not overcook in the soup.". Seng insisted, she finally relented, but will only redo one bag. Apparently she has never heard of the saying "the customer is always right." I joked that I will boycott her for at least one year, because I am leaving the next day.

Ronnie came over to join us, just as we stood up to leave. He said he was not hungry anyway. He just ate somewhere else, and only wanted to come by and say goodbye. He is a nice kid.

Sunday Lunch is just ducky

The day started out with a torrential downpour. One of those tropical rainstorms - one minute, clear skies, and the next, buckets of water coming down from the sky. I recall a few years ago, when we had our steamboat at Siew Kai's house, it was the same tropical storm. Very soon, the rain stopped, and the sky cleared again, but of course, the puddles on the ground soon evaporated, and the steamy jungle heat is pervasive. Seng had the air-conditioners running full blast, so it was comfortable inside the house.

Seng busied himself in the kitchen, besides sending off and picking up children to and from the tuition classes. He chowed up the roast pork, roast ducks, and fried up the vegetarian dishes. Ann was busy in the kitchen as well, supervising (just kidding, Ann). I tried to help out, and was assigned to mince the garlic cloves. I was going at it, when Siew Kai arrived. Ann then assigned me to meet and greet Siew Kai, so there we sat, downing beers and eating Indian crisps, all in all, a good assignment.

Sui Fun and Peter arrived soon, and the house is suddenly full of noises. Sui Fun is our noise maker of the family. She is gregarious, vivacious, and always fun to have around. We exchanged a few jokes, and I settled down to more beer drinking.

Pretty soon, the food is ready. Sui Fun scooped out the rice, and I carried the plates to the table. One last call, and everyone was seated at the table, eager to dig in. Loon and Lilian have gone to another luncheon meeting, some RM10 deal at a hotel somewhere, so they won't join us until 2 PM, so we were going to start without them. Seng and Ann had prepared two large plates of (Chi) vegetarian dishes, a large plate of roast pork (Kai's favourite), two large plates of roast ducks (everybody's favourite), a plate of Golden Rods with shrimp (very nice vegetable we bought in Cameron Highlands).

Mom sat between Sui Fun and Sui Laun. I don't think Mom can be happier. She has just a broad smile on her face all through the meal, I am sure it is because all her children are home this weekend, and maybe she likes roast ducks.

The roast ducks from Kuala Lumpur is a tradition. Every time Siew Cheong visits home, he will bring home three large roast ducks, and roast pork, and all kinds of goodies. He is very generous to everyone. I think he should visit every weekend. The roast ducks comes with juices inside the stomach cavities, and also dark sauce on the side. I like pouring the duck juices onto my rice and eat the rice with just the juice. I was not much in the mood for duck this day, so I mostly have the vegetarian dish, and the golden rods.

Family Reunion

"Where do you find the best Char Kuay Teow?" Ann asked me, "and where do you find the best hokkien mee?" The answer? In two coffee shops a block apart. One coffee, at one end of a block in nearby Sungai Ara, has the best char kuay teow. Ever though the coffee shop also has hokkien mee and other vendors, most customers go there only for char kuay teow. The other coffee shop is at the other end of the same block, but only the hokkien mee is famous. They also have a char kuay teow stall, but nobody goes there purposely for that.

Well, that is interesting. We must try that. So, this Saturday morning find us there for the char kuay teow. This vendor has very good wok-hay. He lets the wok get real hot before putting in the cooking oil, waits for the oil to get real hot before throwing in the ingredients for stir frying. He is a consummate perfectionist.

Another thing I noticed about this vendor is that he is in no hurry. He refuse to mass produce the noodles. Only two orders maximum per stir-fry. We later ordered five bags of noodles to take home, and he makes two, two, then one bag to fill our order. Not all five orders at once like some other vendor may do. That is how he maintains the good wok-hay.

When the char kuay teow came out, it came occupying just one side of the plate. The vendor made no pretence of quantity. He did not try to smear the noodles all across the plate to make it look like it is a full plate of noodles. You get half a plate of quality noodles, take it or leave it. We took it, and we were glad we did. It was really that good.

After we ate the kuay teow noodles, we walked to the other shop for hokkien mee. We ordered our noodles and waited. While waiting, we comment on how odd the char kuay teow vendor stall
in this shop is not busy at all. No one ordered from this vendor. She was standing behind the wok looking bored. I think she should walk over and check out the other vendor and see how he does his noodles, and copycat it.

Siew Cheong and Sui Laun arrived around 1PM. After all the hellos and hugs, we settled down to eat the Dim Sum Siew Cheong had brought from Kuala Lumpur. Even after the long trip, the Dim Sum still looked good. The size of the dumplings are about twice of those from Ming Court in Ipoh (see Cameron trip on Monday.)
Siew Cheong brought shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, scallop dumplings, gluttonous rice wrapped in leaves, stuffed tofu, spareribs. We had a feast with these goodies.

Siew Cheong and Sui Laun were both very generous. They brought all kinds of gifts for everyone. Wine for Seng, Loon, Kai etc, cookies, roast ducks, model cars for the display case. There were blankets, towels as well. Sui Laun also brought a whole large bag of goodies.

After a quick rest, Ann, Seng and I went for a walk up the hill to the top of the development. I like walking up there. Some of the streets leading to the top of the hill can be quite steep, and in the hot weather here, I tend to sweat heavily. I like sweating, so by the time I come back, I will be drenched, and it feels good. I feel like I have cleansed myself. After a cool shower, and putting on some dry clothes, I feel pretty good. I try to walk everyday while I am here, to keep up the exercise. I miss bicycling the hilly roads of Mattapoisett. This is a good replacement for the bicycling.

At night, we had booked CRC (Chinese Recreation Club) seafood restaurant for a full course dinner. Since there are 14 of us, we took three cars from Sungai Ara. Seng led the way, but when we got there, Peter and Sui Fun had already arrived. Peter kindly told us there was one parking space left in the basement parking lot, and he showed Seng to the space. Sui Fun and I walked mom upstairs to our table.

Mom had originally said she was not coming with us. She complained that she needs to go to the ladies' room frequently. We persuaded her to change her mind. All seven of her children are here today, and I don't know when the last time we were all together in one place, probably more than 30 years ago, before Loon went to England, and then Kai went to U.S. for college. By the time they came back from college, I was either in Singapore's Nanyang University, or in grad school in the U.S. Once we started working, there was just no time when all of us were together.

This picture showed all of us, except for Loong2, who is the photographer.
In the back row, from left to right: Siew Kai (#2), Siew Mun (#3), Siew Seng (#7), Ann, Kean Ming, Hui Theng (Seng's wife, son, and doughter), and Siew Cheong (#5).
In the front row: Lilian, Siew Loon (#1), Mom, Sui Laun (#6), Sui Fun (#4), and Peter (Sui Fun's husband.) Everyone looked great.

During the last few days, we talked a lot about the old days when Dad was with us, and all of us living in the "Pigeon hut", a phrase people used to refer to the pre-war downtown houses we used to live in, and how we used to share everything. The fortunate child today does not know what it is like to share an orange 8-ways, for example. We laughed about the 'good' old days, our old friends, the things we used to do. It was great retelling the old stories.

Dinner was served banquet style. Two or three waitresses served us. The first course was "birds' nest soup with crabmeat." The waitress portioned out the big bowl of soup into smaller individual bowls at the side, then serves each of us with a cup each. The soup was full of crabmeat. The birds' nest is very subtle jelly-like things in the soup, and they do not add any flavor to the soup. This, I hear, is a very expensive dish. We normally do not see it in the restaurants, except for in banquets.

The next course is a course of four appetizers. There is a dish of scallops, a dish of seaweed biscuit, crab claws, and another dish, which I cannot ascertain, but it appears to be some kind of biscuits.

Buddhist temples

"Don't build your happiness on top of other's pain.", came a shivering voice from the back seat. Seng and I were in the front seats, taking Theng2 to an early morning school meeting. Apparently the air conditioning is too cold for her in the back, and this is her sacarstic way of telling us to turn off the air conditioning. Kids today!

I have made arrangement to meet Kong Chan this morning at Komtar for the day, so I took advantage of the trip to go downtown with Seng.

I met Kong Chan at KomTAR later in the morning, at our usual MayBank meeting place. Kong Chan knows of a good place for curry mee, so off we went to Pulau Tikus (Rat Island.) This is actually not an island, but somewhere in the North side of Penang, in town, on the way to Botanical Gardens (from Komtar). Across the street from the Pulau Tikus police station, there is a coffee shop called Happy coffee shop.

I was happy indeed when I saw the curry mee vendor. Kong Chan order two bowls of noodles, and set off to order other things for us to eat. He came back with two Hum Chien Pangs (fried cakes), one plain salty, the other with black bean sauce. He went off to look for more food.

I impatiently tore open the salted fried cakes, and bit into it. Ah, it is good. Nice and bouncy dough, with just the right amount of salt. It is at the same time sweet, and salty. I swallowed my half, and Kong Chan likewise the other, when I remembered I did not take a picture of the cake. Meanwhile, I have started into the second one. Another good one. It contains a good amount of black bean sauce, and it is sweet and salty like the other one. I love hum chien pangs.

The curry mee is a vision of beauty by itself. It comes with mint leaves as a garnish, and shrimp, tofu poks (fried tofu), pig blood, and blood clams, and octupus slices. The coconut curry soup is not spicy, but a little salty. The wheat noodles and rice noodles are cooked perfectly, al dente, and not overcooked. Very enjoyable.

A couple more dishes arrived while I was eating. A plate of Sar Hor Fun and a plate of Choo Cheong Fun (literally pig intestine noodles, but really it is just thin white noodles, wrapped into a tubular shape, and cut into inch long slices, with hoi sin and chili sauce, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds and peanuts.) Kong Chan and I dug into them and eagerly devoured the two dishes.

The Hor Fun is actually a combination hor fun and rice noodles. I prefer all hor fun, but I will let this one go, because it has pig liver. There was one slice of pig liver in the gravy, and I was happy to see it. I think, for now, I have had my fill of pig livers. I hope not to see another one for a long long time. The rest of the ingredients include shrimp, green vegetables, pork slices, and char siew. I don't like char siew in the gravy, so that is a minus. All together, it is an okay dish, but not great.

The chu cheong fun is just so. There is not much you can do to screw up a dish like this. As long as the sauce is okay, it will camouflage any mistake you may have made with the noodles. We finished the dish in silent appreciation.

Across the street, into a narrow lane, we came across two Buddhist temples. On the left is the famous indoor reclining buddha. On the right is a Burmese Buddhist temple. We went first into the reclining buddha temple.

The reclining Buddha, also locally called the Sleeping Buddha, is big. It is a hundred and eight feet long, the third longest Buddha in the World, after some buddhas in Burma and Thailand.
The body of the Buddha is (rumoured to be) plated in real solid gold foils. I hope no one is thinking of stealing the Buddha and melting down the gold, although I don't know how you can steal such a big object. I suppose someone has thought of it.

The face of the Buddha is very well painted. In vivid color, it appears to be peacefully resting.

In front of the Buddha, you will see a few gold plated statues of monks. Kong Chan maintained that these are real dead monks. The high monks are gold plated and preserved after they pass away. This is a traditional Buddhist way of keeping them alive forever. Upon reflection, the statues resemble real person. I stared at one of them for a long time, and believe me, it did look like there could be a real deal person inside.

Behind the Buddha, there are cubicles built into the walls. Inside are urns of human ashes. Kong Chan said they are leased out to the deceased families. This is big business, he said. Our old Shih Chung Branch School is being converted into a crematorium and a ash-o-torium as well. I, of course, questioned why such a prime piece of property is being considered for this purpose. The dead cannot enjoy the view, why not do this somewhere in the suburbs?

There are many statues in and around the temple. More Buddha statues, some Goddess of Mercy statues, and in particular, one of a monk (I think) that looked like the Tang Dynasty monk who went to India in pilgrimage: The Tang San Chang (Third Monk of Tang.) This is the monk that was featured in the popular Chinese novel "The Western Travelogues", wherein he traveled to India on a white horse with his three disciples: The Monkey God, The Pig man, and the wondering monk, meeting all kinds of obstacles.

This also reminded me of a (not so popular) joke of a father's advice to his daughter: "Not everyone on a white horse is a prince. He could be Tang San Chang" (monks are no matrimony prospects.)

Outside the temple, there is a vey ornate pagoda housing a buddha and statues of lessor gods praying. We went in to take a look at the buddha. I noticed the window shutters were also carved with many intriguing patterns. A lot of work and thoughts went into creating this structure. I mentally compared this to the playhouse I built for my children many years ago. One is ornate, highly decorated, and the other one is just the opposite spectrum, plainly simplistic. Interesting.

I took some pictures of the Siamese Guards guarding the temple. From the statues, you can see a lot of influence from the Indian statues. I think the Burmese also use the same forms. The influence from India must have moved from India to Thailand, via Burma. Interestingly, the Chinese Buddhist do not have this kind of statues, perhaps because of the distance. The Chinese temple guards are usually statues of old time Chinese warriors and generals. My favourite is Kuan Gung, who carried a long-blades saber on a metal pole. He was a fearsome warrior, and a good and just soldier. I felt safe having him as my protector. Kuan Guan is also distinguished by having long black beard, and a red face. You may have seen him in a lot of the temples and old Chinese buildings. The Han Chiang primary school on Chulia Street, for example, has Kuan Gung painted on one of the doors. In King Street, there is a Kuan Guan temple which I often walk in and pray to when I was living in King Street.

Across the street from the temple of the reclining Buddha is a Burmese temple. This temple has been in existence since sometime in the early 1800's, and claims to be the first Buddhist temple in Penang (or Asia.) During my schooling years, when we used to go to the temple of the reclining Buddha, the temple was run down, and did not warrant a second look. In the past few years, there has been a lot of rebuilding and remodelling. As a result, it is quite a big complex, with many more buildings. The two, Thai and Burmese, temples situated together, just across the street from each other, presented an ideal one-stop tourist visiting opportunity. On this day, there were a couple of tourist buses parked outside on the street.

The picture above is a new additional building. It resembles a Burmese palace. It is also very intricate in the design. From the outside, it looked like a nice temple, but that is about it, nothing impressive. When you walk into the temple, and Wow! it hits you. In front of you, in the middle of the temple, is an overwhelmingly tall and large Buddha. The statue of the Buddha is as tall as the building itself, minus a few feet for headroom. It is tall! It is big! It looks great! Please click on the picture of the Buddha to see the visual effect.

When I first saw it, I was really in awe. I put down my backpack, and prayed to it.

The original temple building is behind this new building. Along the way, a corridor was built to shade you on the journey. Hung along the sides are pictures of Buddhist stories. The old building is just as impressive, although not as grand. There were many statues of Buddha everywhere in the building. In the middle altar was Buddha, in meditation with two other lessor gods. This man in the picture was praying to Buddha, long before I walked into the temple, and while I walked around the temple snapping pictures, and when I walked out 10 minutes later, he was still there, praying. Maybe he fell asleep.

It had rained in the morning, so maybe that is why it must have been humid this day. I was sweating so much, my shirt was wet as if someone had spilled buckets of water on me. Compared to Kong Chan, who remained dry all the time, I was sweating bullets. We quickly walked to Gurney Drive, and into the Gurney Plaza nearby. Once there, we found a food court, ordered a cold Soy Bean milk each, and sat down in the air-conditioned dining room to cool down.

The Gurney Plaza is an upscale mall. The stores are brilliantly lit and beautifully decorated. Since we don't really need anything, we went to the book store (MPH) to browse instead. I bought a couple of souvenir letter openers, just in case I need a gift.

Around noon, Kong Ming came and we had lunch at a Hong Kong restaurant on the third floor. Nothing fancy, just some Dim Sum, and a plate of Sar Hor Fun. Both Kong Chan and I were still full from the breakfast earlier, so it is mostly Kong Ming chowing down the Dim Sum. The restaurant gives each table a gadget with three buttons in it: Bill, Water, Waiter. If you need any of the three, you push the button. Pretty good system. I tried all three during the course of the meal, and it worked.

Later, Kong Ming gave me a ride home, and I spent the afternoon reading my kong-fu novel.

Around 8PM, Ann said "Pau, let's go." and off we went to fish noodles. Ann ordered two bowls: a fish and frog-legs noodles soup, and a fish and crab noodles soup. I don't believe I have ever had frog legs. I heard so much about it, joked about it, but has never tried it. Well, today is the day.

Here is a picture of the frog-leg and fish noodle soup. The frog leg, which I have propped up against the chop sticks, is white in color, I was surprise to find. I had expected darker color, being the dark meat of the frog. By itself, I don't believe it added much to the flavouring of the soup, not the way the fish did. Upon eating it, it is smooth, and tender, although not really flavorful. Unlike meat like crab meat that has a distinct flavour, frogs do not, in my opinion, have any taste. I think I am pretty sure I would not want to eat another one.

The fish soup, on the other hand, is quite tasty. I like the fish on the soy sauce and chili. I also like splashing some of the soy sauce with chili onto the noodles.

Seng gave me half of his crab, and I like the taste of the crab. The meat is sweet. I shared the crab claw with Ann.

From the fish noodles shop, we went to Sunshine square for some Ban Chang Kuay, and fried rice noodles. We bought some rice noodles home. The Ban chang kuay we finished at Sunshine. Another perfect day.

A night of Tai Tung noodles

x
Day 14 in Penang.

The day started out slow. I have no plans to do anything, except to go downtown with Loon around 11AM, and perhaps stay behind after lunch, and hitch a ride home with Sui Fun after work hours. I hung around with Mom, and read one of my books until I dozed off on the couch.

Loon came around 11AM, right on time, and we had a quick trip to Prangin Mall to check on a couple of computer items, then we headed straight back home. After a couple of beers, Loon left, and I went to bed.

When I awoke, Sui Fun had arrived with a box of crisps, and twenty Bah Chang (Meat, rice, and beans wrapped in bamboo leaves) and bags of Hor Fun. She tried to get me Hor Fun with pig livers "but the pig ran away." So far on the Island, I have not been able to find a Sar Hor Fun with pig livers. The vendors have just refused to handle pig livers anymore. You cannot get it with hor fun anywhere. End of story.


Mom likes hor fun, so she immediately tried some. The hor fun looked good, and contains a lot of 'liaus'. I declined her offer to try some, knowing that we are going to Tai Tung Restaurant tonight to try the famous Yee mee.

Mom did persuaded me to try on of the Bah Changs. This bah chang is slightly smaller than usual, and quite a bit (75% smaller) than the ones in Boston Chinatown, but it is full of mung beans. The meat is skimpy, consisting of an inch long piece of fat pork. The Boston bah changs are better, and the meat is twice as big, and is usually half fat meat, fat lean meat, and nicely marinated with herbs.

I used the sambal chili that came with the Hor Fun, and ate the bah chang by dipping the bean and rice in the sambal chili. The rice is very tasty, and the sambal brings out the sweetness of the rice.

Ann had brought out a bowl of Lotus root soup, cooked with peanuts and pork bones. It was very flavorful. Sui Fun told Ann that it tasted "almost as good as mine."



Even after eating all that food, our next destination is Tai Tong Restaurant. My father owned Tai Tong many years ago with two other partners: Fat Man Sung, and Ah Say (snake). I know they sound like someone from the underworld, but they are really pretty nice people. The three partners put up some money, and with not so much as a handshake, went into business together to start a restaurant. My father worked the front as the cashier, order taker, manager. Ah Say worked the kitchen, and Fat Man Sung is the silent partner, and also the Hor Fun supplier (he owned a hor fun business on the side.) He rode a Vespa scooter, with two metal baskets bolted onto the sides of teh Vespa, and he would deliver hor fun to the area restaurants, including Tai Tong.



I would go to the restaurant every afternoon, after school. I liked going there and talking to my father. Sometimes he will order something for us to eat: hor fun, yee mee, Singapore noodles. I loved them all. I have never had Singapore noodles since. The cook would fry up a lot of shrimp, add Worcestershire sauce, then put rice noodles on top to absorb all the flovor. Nowadays, whenever I order Singapore noodles in the States, they will come with char siew (roast pork tenderloin) and shrimp fried with rice noodles and curry powder. Curry is so wrong for Singapore noodles. Just because it is from South East Asia, they think it has to have curry flavor.

In any case, when father passed away, the other two partners just took over the restaurant, and my poor Mom was left with nothing. No compensation, no buy out. Just plain take-over. Never mind when father was alive, the partners were so friendly to us. They just grabbed the business, and tossed us out. This is what happens when you don't have a signed contract in business. I was so sad, and so mad that I could not go back to that restaurant for years. Of course, in the course of the years, the two partners have since passed away, and the restaurant has changed hands many times over. I no longer feel bitter, well at least not at the restaurant.

Since then, Tai Tong has modified their business model. They now sell Dim Sum all day, as well as noodles. They no longer serve rice for dinner. They result is that they are more popular. When we reached Tai Tong tonight, the place was almost packed. I went there two years ago with Kong Chan and Tze Foong, and it was similarly packed.


We sat down, ordered tea, and the Dim Sum carts came by right away. The carts, in fact, circle around constantly. It make it very convenient to order Dim Sum throughout the night. We picked out a few dishes: Har Kow (shrimp dumpling), Siew Mai (pork dumpling), Woo Kok (yum cake) and egg custard, and we also ordered three noodles dishes: Sar Hor Fun (flat white noodles), Yee Mee (fried wheat noodles), and Hong Kong Chow noodles (deep fried noodles in a gravy sauce.) Then we waited in anticipation.


The shrimp dumpling consisted of three or four small shrimps wrapped in a delicate dumpling skin. Mom does not like shrimp dumpling. In the old days, the cooks used to grind up pork and shrimp, and stuff the mixture in the shrimp dumpling. That gave a tastier dumpling. Nowadays, it is just shrimp, and that is her objection. No flavor. I tend to agree.

The Siew Mai is quite good, but nothing out of the ordinary. Ground up pork in spices wrapped in a dumpling skin. The woo kok is good, but not as good as those in the old days. The filling is dry, and sparse. In the old days, there is gravy in the filling, and the yam skin is thinner, and they used to deep fry the woo kok until it is dark brown. I like that because you can feel the slightly crunchy skin when you bite into the woo kok, and right away you taste the fillings, as gravy oozes out of the woo kok. As you can see in the picture, the woo kok is just lightly fried, and the yam skin is too thick, leaving little room for the pork fillings.

The egg custard came, one only, on a small plate. This is the only time I have see it served alone, and so lonely, like that. Usually egg custards are sold two or three on a plate.

The Yee Mee came first. The dark noodles were buried under a sea of egg gravy, with vegetables, sliced fish balls, pork, shrimp, and what? slices of pig liver! This is the first time I have see pig liver this trip. I have all but given up hope to see pig liver in noodles again. I was very excited. I was just about to scoop up a helping into my dish,, when Seng said "Document!". Yes, I have forgotten to take a picture of the noodles. I am always so excited to see food, so eager to taste it, that I forget to take pictures.

The taste of the Yee Mee is good, but in my recollection, the one we had last night, the second vender we went to, was better. I better ask Seng to write down the name of the shop in case we forget. Seng just refer to it as "Number 2", being the second food stall we went to last night. Yes, Number 2 is better, but I give Tai Tong points for pig liver.


The hor fun came next. It is also swimming in gravy, and yes, it also has pig liver. Funny how I only see the pig liver now, completely blocking out the other ingredients. Yes, it had vegetables, pork, shrimps, I vaguely remember, but it had pig liver. An automatic passing grade. We ordered all hor fun. Sometimes, the cook will mix in rice noodles, but I find that distracting from the noodles. This dish must be eaten all hor fun, and no rice noodles. The smoothness of the hor fun must be savored. Having the rice noodles in it is just pesky. Anyway, this dish is good, although I would venture that Number 2 can make this better. We did not get to sample Number 2's hor fun last night because they ran out of hor fun.

Lastly, the Hong Kong chow. This was a disappointment. By itself, it is not a bad dish. The deep fried noodles piled high on a dish, with egg gravy pour over it. It gets a passing grade if I don't compare it with what Tai Tong used to make. For the sake of presentation, this one is all right. But for the sake of taste, Tai Tong used to deep fry the noodles more, until it is browned. Then the cook would make the gravy, and toss the noodles into the wok to soak up the gravy, then scoop out the noodles on a platter, then pour the remaining gravy onto the noodles. The noodles had a chance to soak up some gravy and would taste better. This requires more effort, but the result is worth it. I still would give this dish a passing mark, seeing that it has pig liver in the gravy. :-)

On the way home, we stopped to buy some leong char (cooling tea), and hum chien pang (fried cakes). Seng had also bagged some dim sum paus for the children to eat at school. I must document my very talented niece Theng2, who can eat a hum chien pang without touching the cake at all. She puts a cake on a plate, and holding the plate, she can slide the cake into her mouth, biting off a piece of it at a time. Such talent! Besides this, she is also an accomplished pianist and ballet dancer. We are all very proud of her.

Beef Kuay Teow Soup

I have been very forgetful, the most serious offence of which is that I can never remember to take a picture of what I have been eating, and I am supposed to be documenting the food in Penang!
In fact, I left my camera in Loon's car, so I have no way of documenting food from here on. This picture is downloaded from the Internet. It looks similar to what I had today.

Loon picked me up this morning for the Weld Quay food court. Our purpose? Beef Kuay Teow soup at the food court. This one is supposed to be very famous, so much so they dare to charge RM 8 per bowl. Loon said, at that price, they won't be sold out, so it is no problem getting some. The problem is the food court gets very crowded around 1 PM, when most office workers around the area gets out for lunch.

We arrived at a quarter past 12 noon, and was able to find an empty table easily. Our first order of business was to order a large bottle of beer, which we shared. Then Loon ordered the beef kuay teow soup, and a bowl of just 'liau' (accompaniments, the intestines, the tendons, and beef.)

We called Sui Fun, who works just a few blocks away. Sui Fun ran over as soon as we mentioned beef kuay teow soup, despite that she has already brought lunch from home. Ah, the allure of the beef kuay teow soup.


After finishing my soup, I noticed a lady was enjoying po piah at the next table. Sui Fun graciously volunteered to get me some. On the way, she also brought back a lot of Curry puffs for us to take home.

The po piahs were quite plain, not the best I have tasted. The curry puffs, on the other hand, won accolades from mom and Ann when they tasted them later at home. They are much bigger than usual, and the filling is not sweet, but slightly spicy. Ann thought that is good. Mom was full of praises of the curry puffs as well.


Around 7PM, Ann asked me if there is any food in Penang that I have not yet sampled. I said "Yee Mee". That goes with "Sar Hor Fun" usually, so we set out to get both with Seng. There is a restaurant down the hill from Seng's house called "Sun Kong" (new Kong) that serves respectable Hor Fun, Seng said.

We arrived to find the restaurant sparsely occupied. Seng and I both ordered a hot Soy Milk. When the soy milk came, it came with "Leung Fun" grass jelly floating in it. I have never seen soy milk with grass jelly. This is a first, and believe me, it is not an improvement.

We ordered a Yee Mee, and a Sar Hor Fun. Both dishes came out in a short time. The Yee Mee was some dark noodles drowning in a sea of starchy gravy. There were some green vegetables, some pork, and a few shrimps floating in the gravy. I took a good size helping into my plate, and sampled it. Right away, i can tell, it is not the same as what I had in mind. I am very used to the Tai Tung Restaurant's Yee Mein. This one does not taste like the yee mee I used to know. It is tasteless and does not resemble Tai Tung's noodles in any way.

The Sar Hor Fun is more like it. Although it is also drowning in gravy, the noodles taste good, and it is all Hor Fun, not mixed in with rice noodles. I do not like the combination hor fun noodles and rice noodles mixture. I think that is a ripoff.

While we were eating, Seng thought the shop has changed. It must be under new management, he noted. The Waiter and waitress were different. The cash register has moved to another location in the shop.

On the way out, we past by a food court, just outside of the Sun Kong restaurant area. Seng pulled in, and we went into the restaurant. We ordered our drinks and repeated the same order with the waiter. Seng recognized the waiter, who used to work in Sun Kong. Then he saw a man, whom he flagged over. This is the original owner of Sun Kong! He had just sold the restaurant, and moved over to this new food court. Seng told him "We ate at Sun Kong, but we were not satisfied with their food. That is why we are here."

A little while later, the waiter came to announced that they were out of Hor Fun. I said that is all right. We will just have the yee mee. The owner suggested we try a small order of "Spareribs Yee Mee."

The Yee Mee here is just like the one at Tai Tung. We are used to the Tai Tung food, because my father used to own it. He used to "ta pau" (bag) two bags of yee mee and hor fun home after work. Our family would wake up at 1AM to eat yee mee and hor fun. I can still remember those nights, the family sitting around on the bedroom floor, trying to eat quietly so as not to wake up other people in the house. This yee mee brought back those memories.

The spareribs yee mee is very good. It has good flavor and came with many pork spareribs. I find the flavor a little too strong, and also, in the presence of the yee mee, there was no competition. I much prefer the original yee mee.