House of Annie

We knew going in to Penang that all the famous Penang hawker stalls would be closed for the holidays, due to their owners returning to their own homes to celebrate. We knew that we would still be eating well, with all the big, home-cooked, celebration dishes and other holiday tidbits - such as the rose cookies above and these kueh kapit below - that we'd be snacking on during visits to relatives and friends. We just didn't know how much we would be missing.

Kueh Kapit – Love Letters

You see, Penang has some really awesome food. I've said in the past that Penang has some of the best food on Earth. And Annie and I have been missing that food since the last time we were in Penang, more than 4 years ago. But the problem is, if all the hawker stalls, restaurants, and various food suppliers are shuttered for the holidays, your chances of eating said awesome food are as small as this pineapple tart.

Tiny Pineapple Tart

We did manage to find some good food outside, but it wasn’t Chinese food. The Original Penang Kayu Nasi Kandar restaurant is Malaysian-Indian – they don’t shut down for Chinese New Year.

Original Penang Kayu

It was here that I got to have a few of the things I’ve really been craving while living in Kuching: roti telur (griddle-fried flatbread with egg), teh tarik (pulled tea), and…

Roti Telur and Teh Tarik

…thosai (dosa). Oh, I’ve really been craving a big, crispy thosai! They just don’t do them like this in Kuching (at least, not anywhere I’ve looked). Here at Kayu, they do them just the way I like it. Mmm!

Thosai

Later on that day, Uncle took us to Kedai Kopi Genting, at Lorong Delima 3. This kopitam has a good selection of hawker stalls featuring several popular Penang dishes, such as kway teow th’ng. The thin rice noodle comes in a clear broth, accompanied by some chicken meat (sometimes duck) and a few fishballs. The kids shared this bowl, but I wasn’t having any of it.

Kway Teow Th’ng

I was specifically here for some assam laksa from the Ayer Hitam stall. It was here where I fell in love with the sweet-sourish, fish-filled spicy soup noodle dish for the first time. I was so glad to see he was open on this visit, because sometimes he runs out early.

Ayer Hitam Assam Laksa

Unfortunately, the laksa today was not up to par. The soup flavor was good but not great, and the condiments of shredded banana flower and cucumber were lacking. Worse, the noodles themselves were lifeless. They lacked that nice, springy chew of a freshly made noodle.

I suspect that the regular noodle supplier may have either been closed for the holiday or charged too high a price (the Chinese New Year “surcharge”). So the vendor opted to use reconstituted, dried rice noodles. Whatever it was, I was not satisfied.

Annie ordered a platter of char koay teow, another dish that Penang is famous for.

Char Koay Teow

But, same as the laksa, this dish did not satisfy. Perhaps because she ordered it without chili sauce, but also I think the quality of the ingredients wasn’t there. We were disappointed, because we only had one more day in Penang before we had to return to KL.

Saved

When we were planning to come to West Malaysia, we of course desired to meet up with some food bloggers. I put out some feelers, and made contact with Criz Lai and Lingzie, both Penang food bloggers. But we couldn’t make any more connections, because all the other bloggers were going to be either traveling or tied up with their own CNY family obligations.

We made plans to meet up with Criz on the last day of our stay in Penang. Criz is a wealth of information about eating in Penang. He took us to a new hawker center in town called New World Park, where we were to meet up with Lingzie. I thought the hawker center was a fantastic concept: clean, open air, rooftops lifted high overhead, plenty of food choices and a fair amount of parking stalls so you don’t have to fight to get in.

First thing Criz got us was a Swatow Lane Special ais kacang.

Swatow Lane Special Ais Kacang

It’s basically a bowl of shaved ice with lots of fruits, corn, syrup and a scoop of mango ice cream thrown on. It was a yummy, but a bit too much fruit. I recall having a really good Swatow Lane ais kacang on one of our previous visits here, and it wasn’t nearly as chock-full of stuff.

Criz also ordered an otak-otak. This Nyonya dish is a spicy fish paste that is steamed inside a bamboo leaf. Actually, this otak-otak was probably one of the best I’ve had. Nice balance of flavors.

Otak-Otak

That dish turned out to be the highlight dish. This Chee Cheong Fun (steamed rice noodles) is served with chili sauce and the hae ko shrimp sauce that Penang is famous for. I thought the noodles were again lacking.

Chee Cheong Fun

Lingzie called Criz to tell him that she couldn’t make it, as some out-of-town relatives had just shown up. Argh! Darn Chinese New Year visiting!

We hopped back in Criz’s car and he took us to his favorite cendol stop, the Penang Rd Famous Teochew Ceondol cart. On this hot day, the cart was doing brisk business. Criz stepped up to order some bowls.

Penang Rd Cendol Cart

Cendol is different from ais kacang. Cendol is a simpler shaved ice dish, featuring coconut milk, gula melaka (palm sugar), red bean, and these little green noodles which give cendol its namesake. It was very good!

Penang Rd Cendol

Standing there waiting for my cendol, I smelled the unmistakable aroma of assam laksa. This vendor was serving his laksa in the kopitiam next to the cendol cart. Criz asked me if I wanted a bowl of laksa, saying that his laksa was very good.

At first I was unsure, seeing how much food I’d already eaten just a little while earlier. But the mouth-watering smells called to me, and I answered yes. The vendor ladled his soup into a plastic bag to go.

Assam Laksa Vendor

Boy, am I glad I said yes! The laksa indeed was very good. Simple, yet strong flavors. The chili spice lingered on my lips, tongue and throat. Best of all, the noodles were just right.

Assam Laksa

That was pretty much it for our Penang eating adventure. Criz took us to the Hock Lock Siew bakery, where we picked up some baked goods as gifts to bring back home. Then he dropped us off back at Uncle’s place.

Later on, Uncle took us to a Nyonya restaurant that was supposed to be pretty good. Unfortunately, the restaurant was short-staffed due to the holiday, and were only serving set meals instead of a la carte dishes. The food came slowly, and was mostly uninspiring save for the Chicken Kapitan. We returned to Uncle’s house, where we packed up our suitcases, stuffed them into Dad’s (non-air-conditioned) car, and started the arduous journey back to KL.

Not Going Back

So ends our Chinese New Year eating adventure in Penang. It wasn’t until the last day did we get some decent Chinese food from the hawker stalls and kopitiams. And then, we only got to meet up with one food blogger.

Hardly a successful trip, I’d say. With airfares at a premium during Chinese New Year, you could almost say it’s not worth it to come to Penang for CNY. You miss out on too much.

So we’ve decided. We’re not going back to Penang for Chinese New Year. We’ll go a little bit later, say the second week when more stalls will be open, more food suppliers will be producing ingredients, and more friends / floggers will be free to meet up.

How does that sound to you?

Aloha, Nate

Lup Chong – Chinese Sausage

Perfect for making fried rice or char kway teow.

Belacan – Shrimp Paste

Good shrimp paste is essential to making sambal belacan, for frying with veggies such as midin or kangkong, and for seasoning belacan fried chicken.

Bushels of Biscuits

During Chinese New Year, you see a lot of different kinds of biscuits being sold.

Him Heang Tau Sar Piah

One of the most popular biscuits sold in Penang are “tau sar piah”, a flaky pastry filled with sweet, green bean paste. And one of the most popular bakeries that makes these biscuits is Him Heang.

Hock Lock Siew Tau Sar Piah

Hock Lock Siew is another bakery which makes these biscuits. But they come in different flavors, such as a pandan-flavored one and a biscuit with a spicy shrimp filling.

Hock Lock Siew Pong Piah

Beh Teh Sor

There are other kinds of filled biscuits, such as “pong piah” – biscuit with a sweet molasses filling – and “beh teh sor" – biscuit with a caramelized shallot filling. Of the two, I like the beh teh sor the best.

Ribbon Biscuits

This may be called a “biscuit” but it’s more like sweet, fried won ton strips. The skins are slit in the middle, folded into itself, and then fried crispy. Very hard to stop eating!

Cookies and Chips and Treats, Oh My!

Pea cookies

Made from green pea flour.

Almond Cookies

More like a thumbprint cookie than our own Chinese Almond Cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Annie's aunt in Penang made these crisp, choclatey morsels.

Kuih Kapit – Love Letters

These are pleasantly sweet, coconut-flavored wafers, so thin and crispy they shatter, then melt in your mouth.

Shat Kek Ma

This one is new to me. Think Rice Krispies treats, except they use fried won ton pieces instead of Rice Krispies, and molasses instead of melted marshmallows. Picked these up in Ipoh. Very nice!

Seedless Li Hing Mui

Also picked up in Ipoh. A big bag of seedless li hing mui (dried, salted plum). I am seriously addicted to this stuff. I think it’ll last at least 2 months! ;-P

Durian Chips

And last but not least: durian chips. Courtesy Annie’s sister-in-law from Thailand. These thin crisps have the faintest touch of durian flavor to them. I don’t know exactly what kind of starchy vegetable is thinly sliced then fried to serve as a crispy vehicle for that flavor. But it is extremely difficult to stop eating them!

This was just a sampling of the stuff we brought back. Most of it will be distributed out amongst our Kuching friends. But some of it will not pass back through the doors of our house ;-)

Stay tuned! we’ve got a couple of posts coming which talk about the foods we actually *ate* there in West Malaysia!

Aloha, Nate

We drove toward the Waterfront district, turned in at Jalan Satok, and parked near the Wisma Satok mall. There’s a footbridge going from the mall over Jalan Satok to the actual market site. From there you can see just a small portion of the market, covered by canopies. Underneath the canopies, you will find vendors selling all manner of items. You can find clothes, shoes, toys, plants, kitchenware, books, magazines, and other household necessities.

Satok Market Under the Canopies

There was a cacophony of voices as the vendors called out, hawking their wares. We were undeterred. We were here for the food.

Just as at the pasar malam, you can find all kinds of fruits imported from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, even the US. But nothing compares in freshness and quality like local fruits. These small bananas (pictured below) are small enough that you could probably eat the whole thing in one bite. But they have a pleasant, almost green apple tartness to them. We picked up a couple of bunches.

Another local fruit that we picked up was these jambu air or water apples. They are similar to the mountain apples I used to eat as a kid in Hawai’i. The sweetness of these water apples is muted, but the interesting thing is, there is no seed inside!

Jambu Air (Water Apple) Vendor

There was a large section of the market devoted to fresh meat and fresh fish. Here and there you would also find a vendor displaying bags and bags of dried anchovies, shrimp, and other fishes. I never knew there were so many varieties of dried anchovies. Next time, I’m going to have to get some to make the sambal ikan bilis that will go along with our nasi lemak.

Bags of Ikan Bilis (Dried Anchovies)

We found lots of fresh turmeric root, large chili peppers, and petai (stinky beans) for sale. I like how the vendors lay everything out neatly piled on plates with their prices clearly marked. The freshness and quality (tomatoes notwithstanding) were as good as the best supermarkets in town, but half the prices.

As dusk approached, we made our way to the Ramadan Bazaar to pick up dinner. During Ramadan, observant Muslims fast from eating and drinking from sunup to sundown. You can imagine how hungry people must be by the end of the day. At the bazaar, you will find not just Malay food but halal foods from many other cultures, even Chinese!

The bazaar was crowded with folks buying food to take home for buka puasa – breaking fast. Take dozens of food vendors all boiling, frying, steaming and grilling, mix hundreds of people packed under heavy canopies, add tropical heat and humidity and what do you have? Instant sauna. We picked up our food and got out of there as quick as we could.

On the way back out of the market, we stopped at a stall where they were grilling chickens over a hot charcoal fire. The cook held skewers of butterflied chickens over the coals, letting the fat drip down and the flames singe the skin for some great charred flavor. Every so often, he would baste the birds with his special sauce, kept in a large can on the side of his grill. The aroma was impossible to resist.

As we departed the Satok Market and headed back over the footbridge, we saw rows of food stalls and tables running off into the distance. At each table was a family, but no one was eating yet. Everyone was waiting for the evening call to prayer, which signals the end of the day and the time to break the fast. I can admire their willpower in the face of such a diversity of food available.

There’s a lot more of Satok Market that I haven’t shared in this post. So many sights, smells and sounds remain to be told. But I suppose if I tried to do so, this post would be 4 times as long! So I condensed the images into this slideshow on YouTube.

Enjoy!

Visit to Satok Market

Aloha, Nate

Want to read more about our adventure in our new home of Kuching, Sarawak?  Subscribe to our blog and receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

Hungry for more Kuching discoveries? Click below:

Welcome to Kuching

Visit to a Kuching Pasar Malam (Night Market)

What to do With a Pandan Plant

Cooking with Leafy Midin (Fiddlehead Fern)

Basically speaking, beggar's delights are different meats that have been wrapped and sealed in a clay vessel, then baked in an oven. Chinese legend has it that a beggar stole a chicken but before he could eat it, he hid it from some passing guards in some mud. Not having any cooking utensils, he tossed the whole thing in the fire he had built.

When he pulled the chicken out of the fire, he found that the mud had formed a hard clay crust. After breaking open the crust, he discovered that the feathers came off along with the clay, and what he was left with was a deliciously cooked chicken. Thus originated this classic Chinese cooking technique called Beggar's Chicken.

Get Out of Town

Ijok ("EE-joke") is a small town about 35 km northwest of PJ. It was quite refreshing to get out of the concrete jungle and crowded roads. As we drove out of the city, condominiums, malls and shoplots gave way to acres and acres of palm plantations, as far as the eye can see. Just before hitting Ijok town proper, we made a left turn at the sign at the intersection of Jalan Harmoni 2 and the main road.

Sign for Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, Ijok

Jalan Harmoni 2 is a lonely road, but after hanging a right, we came upon this restaurant compound:

Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, Ijok

Under the corrugated tin roof, the layout is like a typical Malaysian open air restaurant: many round tables surrounded by red plastic chairs, fluorescent shop lights, and ceiling fans turned up high to provide a breeze. Sparse and utilitarian, with not much attention to decor besides red Chinese lanterns and hanging weaver swallow nests. Your focus is on your food and friends at the table.

Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, Ijok

We had arrived at 12:30, a bit earlier than the normal 1 pm restaurant opening. The restaurant opens so late because the beggar's delights don't finish cooking until then.

Can we eat it all?

Our party was only 7 adults and 2 kids. A normal set meal is for 10 people. The waitress was concerned that we didn't have enough people to eat all the food that was coming. She suggested we just order less dishes ala carte, but that would have come out to roughly the same price. "Give us the set," we said, "and whatever we don't finish we'll ta pau (box up to take home)."

Being a nosy American, I asked if we could see the ovens where the food was cooking. At first, the waitress said there was nothing to see. But we prevailed upon her and so three young boys (presumably the owner's sons) led us past the kitchen and behind the restaurant.

The first things you see are stacks and stacks of rubber tree logs, which they use as fuel for their ovens.

Stacks of Rubber Tree Logs

In between these two great piles of wood are the brick ovens. They are loosely built structures. The logs are burned to coals in the spaces between the low walls. A thick metal plate rests atop the walls. The beggar's delights are laid on top of the metal plate, more bricks are stacked up like a dam, and old ashes and coal are poured over the beggar's delights to bury them. At Restoran New Beggar's Delicious, the delights cook in the hot ashes for six hours, starting from 7 in the morning all the way to 1 pm.

Brick Ovens at Restoran New Beggar's Delicious

One of the boys took a long-handled shovel and began pulling down the brick dams.

He then sunk his shovel into the pile of hot ash...

And lifted out one of the clay packages.

He repeated this two more times until we had three packages laying on the ground. Apparently, each packet is shaped slightly differently so they can tell what meat is in what packet. Can you see any differences?

The boy loaded the packages onto a wheelbarrow and brought them back around to the front of the restaurant...

Where he deftly lifted them onto a wooden table and began the indelicate work of breaking through the clay shell and tearing through the paper wrapping.

Inside each package is a foil pouch containing the braised delight. The delight goes onto a serving tray and then is brought to the table.

From the Beggar's Oven

The first packet we opened was a pork shoulder and chunks of chinese taro (yam), whole garlic cloves, and shiitake mushroom halves. The meat fell clean off the bones. This isn't like Southern-style pulled pork barbecue, though. Being sealed inside foil, paper and clay, no smoke flavoring is allowed to penetrate. But it is still good eats!

Beggar's Pork, Yam, Garlic and Mushrooms

The beggar's chicken was stuffed with Chinese herbs and swimming in a delicious broth. The chicken was lean and flavorful.

Beggar's Chicken

My favorite of the three was the beggar's duck. It was melt-in-your-mouth tender, with a rich taste. Besides the herbs, there were also some abalone mushrooms cooked with it that was silky smooth and complementary to the duck.

Beggar's Duck

They also dropped off a packet of Loh Mai Fan, glutinous rice that has been cooked with oyster sauce, salted duck egg yolks, shiitake mushrooms, and pork. Dr G warned, "don't fill up on the glutinous rice! You won't have room for all the other dishes."

Loh Mai Fan

From the Restaurant's Kitchen

We had just finished cleaning our plates of all the braised meats, when they started bringing out the other dishes that were part of the set meal. Here is a beautiful steamed fish, covered in fried garlic, shallot slices that had been marinated in lime juice, slivers of ginger and green onion. This was actually my favorite dish of the meal. The lime-marinated shallots had me craving for more. And the fish was very fresh--delicate and flaky with no hint of fishiness.

Steamed Fish with Sliced Shallots

Next came this dish of fried whole prawns, covered in a sweet, sticky sauce. I'm guessing that the sauce is Marmite-based, but I can't tell for sure. The weird thing about this dish is, I found bits of fried lard among the prawns. I love fried pork bits, but Dr G is allergic to pork, so she was concerned that she couldn't eat this dish.

Fried Marmite (?) Prawns

Next, they brought out a platter of mud crabs, fried with chillies, curry leaves, and lard bits again. What's up with the lard bits and seafood? I didn't quite care for this dish, as I much prefer eating Dungeness crab.

Fried Chilli Mud Crab

They also brought out a platter of stir-fried baby choy sum. One plate of veggies to go with all that preceding meat. I wish we had more veggies.

The final dish was this pork intestine soup. Normally, this soup is flavored with white pepper to mask the smell of the innards. But when I tasted the soup, I was struck by how overwhelming the white pepper taste was. I commented to Annie, "watch out. There's a lot of white pepper in this soup."

"This soup is supposed to have lots of white pepper in it."

"I know, but not this much."

She tasted it. "Whoa! You're right! I can't taste anything else."

The soup was undrinkable to me. Sorry to say, this dish was ruined by the heavy pepper taste.

White Pepper and Pork Intestine Soup

Our final dish was a plate of ice-cold jackfruit. These fruit were ripe, sweet, crunchy, and a fitting end to the feast.

Ice Cold Jackfruit

When it was all said and done, we had finished off everything except the undrinkable soup, half the loh mai fan and half the beggar's chicken.

If you do go to Restoran New Beggar's Delicious in Ijok, do go with a large group of people, and do call ahead to make a reservation. They only cook a certain number of beggar's delights each day, and once they're allocated, that's it.

Aloha, Nate

Restoran New Beggar's Delicious
Ijok, Selangor
Tel: 03-32791936

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