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| Hawker center- Penang |
After four days and twenty meals (that we can remember), almost all of them street food, I think I have a better idea of what it's like to be Anthony Bourdain (although I don't understand how he stays so thin). Our trip to Penang can best be described as an eating frenzy, full to the brim with amazing meals in what surely one of the foodie capitals of the world.
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| The best Char Koay Teow in the city. This man has been doing business in the area for years |
Penang is made up of two sections, one on the northwest coast of mainland Malaysia, and the other a small island connected by a bridge to the mainland. We spent our entire time on the island, first staying with friends, and then moving on to the beach/Georgetown area for a couple of nights in a resort, returning finally for one last night with our friends and then a flight home.
Immediately after being picked up from the airport, we were whisked away to our first food stop of the weekend. We were just in time for tea (one of the many daily Malaysian excuses to snack), which for us meant Laksa.
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| Our first meal from a Laksa vendor on the side of the road |
Laksa is a slightly sour and spicy but delicious soup in a fish stock with tamarind and lemongrass. We sat at a small table with little plastic stools and slurped our soup as cars passed by only a few feet away. The heat and humidity in Penang is pretty intense (although not as bad as Taipei), but the shade of a big tree and a little breeze made it comfortable. Surprisingly the soup even helped cool us down a bit.
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| A bowl of Laksa. Ours had ginger buds on top (the pink stuff) - a new food for me. It had a strange paper like texture and a little bitter/sour taste. A perfect accompaniment to this soup |
After "tea" we took a walk around the neighborhood and were followed by a pack of stray dogs that wanted to be our new best friends. I think it's because we smelled like Laksa. Then we hung out trying to stay cool, and eventually went to a hawker center and then Nasi Kandar restaurant for our second and third meals.
A hawker stand is a uniquely Southeast Asian thing (at least I've only found them in Southeast Asia), and one of the best food related inventions I've ever come across. The idea is to have several small food stalls, each specializing in one or a couple of things. These stalls surround a group of tables where you can sit and order from any stand (or a number of stands) you feel like eating from. Someone usually comes up to the table for drink orders, and food is brought from each stand to your table. Once you're done eating you just get up and leave, and presumably all the vendors get the correct dishes back.
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| A vendor at one of the hawker centers we visited |
Our arrival at the hawker center coincided with one of the daily calls to prayer from the nearby mosque, a haunting but beautiful sound. Islam is the official religion of Malaysia and it's hard to go anywhere without hearing or seeing its influence. Five times a day the call to prayer is sung out over loudspeakers. Residents say they get used to it and don't even hear it anymore, but I had a hard time not being captivated every time I heard it. Below is a great video of one of these calls in Kuala Lumpur.
Our third stop of the night (what our friends called "supper") was Nasi Kandar, which ended up being one of our favorite meals of the entire trip. It's south Indian cuisine made popular by the Muslim Indians that have settled in the area. It's halal (the same kind of concept as kosher but for Islam) meaning no pork products and no alcohol served. There are probably other restrictions that I don't know about it.
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| Roti stand at Nasi Kandar. The buttery fried bread comes either in small squares of layered dough, or stretched out into unbelievably long cones coated with sugar and condensed milk |
The food was more than amazing. Any number of things are available, including rice soaked with flavor-packed curries, fried chicken, chicken in curry, okra in curry (one of our favorites) and roti canai, an Indian bread that is irresistible, especially when dipped in any of the curries.
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| Large plates of rice are soaked in these curries then, if you wish, accompaniments such as chicken or okra are added |
Our perfect first night ended with some late night drinks and talk back at our friends' house. We got caught up (after not seeing each other for over two years), talked some about politics, travel, and differences between Malaysia, Taiwan, and the U.S. I had trouble going to sleep that first night. The vibrancy of the place was infectious.
All Posts In This Series:
Penang: A Food Story - Day One
