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.