Saturday, Day 10

Ann said the most beautiful thing to me this morning: "Come, Pau. Let us go get some food."

I immediately dressed up and was ready at the door within five minutes. Our target this morning, Kuay Teow soup. This hawker is one of Seng's favorites, and apparently he is a regular customer, because he even has his favorite table picked out.

At first glance, this is just another kuay teow soup, but upon closer inspection, you can see it is not. What stands out from the ordinary also run beef kuay teow soup is the pig intestine, shown here at the bottom right of the bowl, at about the 5 o'clock position. By itself, the pig intestine does not add any flavor, but just that it is different. What adds to the enjoyment in the flavor is the meat balls. There are three different meat balls. The first kind, a larger, white fist ball, about an inch in diameter, is firm, and slightly salty. When dipped into the accompanying soy sauce and chili peppers, gives a very tangy taste. Another one is smaller, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, appears to have mixed into it minced salted fish. This is nice and salty. The hint of salted fish is there, and it makes you wish there were more of it, so you have to roll that around a bit. The third is a minced beef ball. Its texture is unlike that of the fish balls, soft and chunky, yet when you start chewing it, it is smooth, as in that flour has been added to the meat. The taste is not salty like the fish balls. All in all, a very nice experience. No wonder this is Seng's favourite kuay teow soup place.

Since we are not far from Odeon theatre, and we have been talking about Loh Bah, and we all agreed that the hawker next to Odeon has the best Loh Bah, we decided to pay him a visit. We parked out car nearby, and walked towards the restaurant. Along the way, I noticed a road sign, I suppose it is for Pedestrian Walk.

Here it is:

Now I am no artist, but look at the smallness of the head. It is so out of proportion from the body. Who drew that picture? and who approved that sign? I think that may be the size of the artist's head, and this is his self-portrait.

Oh, never mind. Let us focus on more important things, like food. I have tried this loh bah before. In fact, it was just yesterday when I came here with Kong Chan. Ann heard that I like the squid, so she ordered squids, loh bah, shrimp cakes, tofu. It was a wonderful snack. We went home after this with very full stomachs.

In the afternoon, Ann decided we should try the Laksa in Balik Pulau. Balik (Malay word for back, go back), Pulau (island) is the town in the back side of the Penang Island. This used to be a one-street town, but is now full of new housing developments. I cannot recognize the town as we drove into it.

I asked Ann what is in store at the place we are headed. "Laksa and Laksa only." Well, that better be good then. And good it was.

The Assam Laksa (or sour Laksa) in Balik Pulau is famous throughout the island, and has been there for many years. It is said to be even better than the famous Laksa in Ayer Itam. The coffee shop that serves this laksa actually also server Hokkien mee, but who needs it, when the laksa is available?

We ordered three bowls of the assam Laksa, and sat down to enjoy it. What makes this version good is the soup. It is a rich blend of fish and sourness (from the assam fruit) over the white noodles that makes it so memorable. The vendor also give us a spoonful of shrimp paste on the side. Shrimp paste is a must for the die hard laksa lovers. It adds a unique flavor to the soup.

We swallowed the soup in no time. For encore, Ann ordered three more bowls of laksa, but this time she asked for the soup to be half and half. Half sour soup, and half santan (coconut milk flavored) soup. I have never had this before, and don't particularly like it. I think the sour flavor is better. Ironically, I do not enjoy sour food usually, but with laksa, i will make an exception.

When Seng was going to Southeastern Massachusetts University, he stayed with me. Some nights, when he comes home from school, and I am in the mood, I used to make this noodle soup. Of course, I don't have any of the ingredients, so I have to fake it. For the fish soup, I would blend up a couple of tin cans of "sardines in tomato sauce", and boil it with water. You have to be careful to add just enough water to make the consistency of soup. For the sourness, I add a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. I would chop up some cucumber, iceberg lettuce, and sliced pineapples. For noodles, there is no way I can find the white laksa noodles in the States, so I would just substitute with spaghetti noodles. The concoction turned out to be quite similar in taste, if not in looks, and we would polish up the entire pot of soup and all the noodles in one sitting.

On the way home, we travelled back through the old cross-island road from Balik Pulau back to Bayan Lepas. We were able to see some of the new roads that were being built to straighten the winding road that was famous for Balik Pulau.

After all the food I have eaten in the last few days, we thought we may want to at least pretend to exercise a bit, so we went for a 'hike' before sunset. Ann's idea of a hike, of course, is not what Seng and I consider a hike. "It is more a walk than a hike," teased Seng. We set out from Seng's house, and walk up the street, took a couple of turns, and up the hill, all in the same housing neighbourhood of Sungai Ara. Fortunately, even though it is a short walk, the weather is hot and humid, so by the time we get up the hill, we are sweat drenched. I like to sweat when I exercise. I feel cleansed.

Now that we did our token exercise, Ann suggested we go for supper. She knows of this place that serves the best "dry fried beef ho fun", so off we went. This is a restaurant on the ground outside a housing complex behind Tai Tung Restaurant. Sui Fun, Peter and I had tried to come here last night, but found it closed. We asked the waitress why they were not open, and were informed that they were open, but at 6PM. We were just a few minutes early.

We ordered four dishes: "Bitter melon with beef", "ginger and scallop with beef", "dry fried beef ho fun", and "stewed duck".

The ho fun (pictured above) came first. This is their signature dish, and it was amazingly good. Seng remarked that the noodles is not oily at all. We know you have to use some oil when you pan fry the ho fun noodles, or else it will stick to the wok. This version with the two noodle blend of ho fun and rice stick, is not burnt or sticky, yet it does appear to have any oil on it. The beef is very tasty, though Seng found it a bit tough. There were a couple of stray cats handing around our table, and we fed some of the beef to the cat.

The "bitter melon with beef" (picture left) was my favorite dish. The melon stir fried with beef was still crispy, no soggy at all. When you bite into it, it gives a crunchy feel, and was not at all bitter, as some version would be. I only wish there were more gravy with the beef. I like to put gravy on my rice, as would some people like gravy on their mashed potatoes. The beef in this dish is soft and tender and marinated with some (oyster sauce?) kind of sauce.

One of the problems I have with documenting the food I eat in Penang is that I get so excited when I see the food, that I start eating right away. Sometimes when you see pictures of food, and it is already half (or totally) eaten, it is because I forgot to take the pictures first. This night, Seng had to remind me to take the pictures before we completely finish the food.

The next dish is Ann's favorite: ginger and scallions with beef. I like Ginger and scallions. I have like them in lobsters too. This version is about just as good, with an egg thrown in for good measures. The meat is soft and tasty, and the ginger and scallions tasty. A wonderful dish!

Lastly, there is the stewed duck. Seng keep saying it comes from a can, and you can see why. It does taste like one of those canned meat, but I assure him that it is not. The duck bones are still hard and intact. If it were from the can, the high pressure cooker would have pulverized the duck bones. The duck is stewed in some dark sauce, with some ginger in it. It is very tasty, and I was happy to see that it has some gravy, so I added some to my rice.

On the way home, I stopped for some "leung tea", or cooling tea. I chose "Jok Chay water", bamboo cane drink, a kind of sugar cane, only thinner and not quite as sweet. It still gives off a nice sweet taste, and is supposed to be able to keep our heat (not temperature heat, but the body fever kind of heat) down.

Next stall from the tea is a stall that sells "Hum Chien Pan", or salty deep-fried cakes. There are several varieties. We bought some plain salty cakes, and cakes with gluttonous rice, and some cakes with red-bean paste, and some white sugar cakes, a steam cake that is fluffy and white.

When we past by a bakery, we went in and bought some coconut tarts, heung pans (fragent cakes, actually not cakes, but dollops sized cookies with dark sugar in it).

Across the street is a shop that sells "oil fried devils", or twin fried doughs. This is very similar to the Portugese Malasadas, but without the powdered sugar. It is just two plain thin pieces of fried dough. Molly loves this, so we bought some for Molly and visited her on the way home.

(p.s.: If you notice a better format with the pictures interspersed in the text, this is all due to Sarah. She clued me in on how I can cut and paste the pictures into different parts of the blog, instead of lettinng the blog software put all the pictures at the beginning of the blog. Thanks, Sarah.)

(p.p.s: both the last two pictures show half-eaten hum-chien-pan and twin-fried-dough, due to my forgetfulness. sorry)

(p.p.p.s.: the twin-fried-dough appears to be a single fried dough. This is because I separated the twin sticks of dough, and have eaten the other half. Ha, ha. can't wait.)