All About Food

There are a million reasons why I love Penang and the good FOOD is one of them. There are so many yummy bites around and last week, I revisited an old love plus found a new one.

The Pulau Tikus night market serves an amazing array of Penang hawker food at its best. Seriously, what other place serves lok lok, laksa - both assam and Siam, char koay teow worth waiting for ... no wonder it's packed every night.

 

It's impossible for me to turn down a stick of lok lok, or two, or three ... oh what the heck, I usually just dip a whole bunch in at a go. Since these are all sliced in tiny bites, they don't count as actual food, right? I usually drown them in a mixture of peanut sauce and garlic ;)

 

A delicious bowl of ice kacang is simplicity at its best. The auntie is always very accommodating to let me pick my own toppings.  

 

Poor Bubs - I'm still a little iffy about feeding him street food so I usually bring along dinner for him. He eyed the ice kacang longingly and I lied that the red sugar syrup on it is chilli sauce so he didn't dare try it.

My friend was raving to me about Oink Oink pork burgers which used to operate in a van at the Jelutong night market so when I heard that they have moved to a shop, I was more than excited about giving them a try.

The shop is now called Ric's Burger and it's at the One Terrace Plus. It's no frills though it has air conditioning and service is fast. A basic pork burger starts at RM5 and you can add on extras.

 

We went all out to make our burgers decadent by adding cheese, a fried egg and bacon slices. The result? It was sloppy to eat with bits and pieces of the burger falling apart but we fell head over heels for it at first bite. The patty was very flavourful and juicy, though a tad on the greasy side.

Ric's Burger
2-1-28, The One Terrace Plus, Tingkat Mahsuri 4, 11950 Bayan Lepas, Penang.
Tel: 012 - 405 1586
Business Hours: 11:30am - 2:30pm & 5:30pm - 9:30pm (Closed on Sun)

Cruise Day

It's no surprise that I'm forever looking out for family activities that keep Bubs away from anything that has a screen so when I spotted a cryptic looking banner for Penang Cruise Day at the pier, I gamely dragged Hubs and Bubs along.

Stopped for a quick outfit of the day photo outside Fort Cornwallis. Hubs gave me a this-is-a-very-significant-piece-of-history-that-you're-using-as-a-background-prop? Vanity, thy name is woman ;)

These are actually Bub's sunnies but since you can't get him to keep anything on apart from his clothes for longer than 15 minutes, they became part of my outfit for the day.

We went up this flight of Hello Kitty stairs because we thought there there was a boat tour or something for the day and we already promised Bubs that we'd be going on a ship. It turned out that the cruise ship wouldn't be ready until late afternoon but they promised us that we could go on a tour on a small boat.

That sounded promising so we walked a little further.

This was the boat - a Malaysian Maritime boat used for patrolling. It was a lot smaller than what I'd been expecting but we were pleasantly surprised that the crew went out of the way to help us on board, explain their roles.

Teehee - I found this tiny kitchen onboard so cute, plus it was clean as a whistle too.

Aye, aye, Captain Bubs! He had so much fun looking at all the levers, buttons, screens and was thrilled to bits to be allowed to play with the steering wheel. The crew was so patient with all of the kids and answered all our questions about the boats, patrolling duties.

One thing's for sure, Hubs and Bubs had a good pair of sea legs. The boat was bobbing from left to right very persistently. Even the refreshing, salty tang of the sea breeze couldn't help ease my nausea :(

Arm Candy

I'm taking baby steps towards building up a wrist party by mixing and matching the Vincci bracelets I got in December. Couldn't resist wearing it with all of the new clothes I got as well ;) The navy blue Padini top with exposed zip details at the end of the 3/4 sleeves has a roomy structure that goes well with a fitted pencil skirt.

It's been a while since I've last worn stilettos this high. The sensible part of me says it's an extravagance and it's going to be hell to walk in ... however the lil devil sitting on my shoulder (looking at you, Stacey!) told me you only live once. These will be strictly meant for occasions where I won't have to totter around much on these.

Wrist party of the day includes the same set of Vincci braclets with Thomas Sabo turqouse beads and a red, enamel heart. The navy top is incredibly versatile and works well with a casual pair of faded denim but the lining makes it far too hot to be worn to anywhere that doesn't have air-conditioning.

Are you all prepared with new clothes for the coming Chinese New Year? :D

Xiao Fei Yang and The Alley Revisited

Hubs and I still rave about that fantastic steamboat we had in Hong Kong years ago on our honeymoon; the soup was top notch, the meat was fresh and everything about it was perfect. So when we drove past Tanjung Toking, I was ecstatic to spot a newly-opened branch of Xiao Fei Yang in a standalone building next to the drive through Starbucks.

Be warned that unlike many restaurants in Penang, Xiao Fei Yang doesn't do sets. You got that right. You have to pay separately for the soup and each dish. And yes, you've to pay for water as well. Soups come only in 2 options: herbal and ma la (its loose translation of mouth numbingly fiery hot does not disappoint) and you can pay extra to have a combination of both. Both soups come studded with lots of Chinese herbs, plenty of wolfberries and red dates to add sweetness and whole garlic cloves.

I'm a bit of a chilli addict so I had to have the super spicy soup. The first few mouthfuls were okay, so I shrugged and heaped more dried chilli to my soup. Big mistake. I begged the wait staff for refills of ice water with Hubs looking pointedly at me "have we learned our lesson now?

Here's a little tip - everything on the chef's recommendation page from the menu is reallllllly good! The lamb slices were tender and mouthwatering, I quickly found out why the "exploding beef balls" were named so with a bite into the succulent meat and the freshly made noodles were so perfect, Bubs demanded a second plate of it.

Xiao Fei Yang Steamboat Restaurant
3-X, Jalan Pantain Molek
10470 Tg Tokong
04-8900053 (closed on Tues)

Dessert was at our favourite haunt: the Alley. Hubs was talking incessantly about churros, I was salivating over the thought of cronuts while Bubs demanded for "cake". I told you we're big on desserts here in our family :)

A place like this that can be creative with just the little things in life definitely deserves return visits.

Unfortunately, they ran out of cronuts (which are baked twice daily for optimal freshness) when we were there so we had churros, a latte plus a slice of  s'more cheese cake that tastes as perfect as it looks. All three of us were fighting each other for more bites of this luscious chilled creation, the cheese was so smooth, it was almost like eating chocolate ice cream sandwiched between layers of fluffy marshmallows and a delicate crumb base.

Happy campers with bellies full of good food :)

The Bollywood Wedding

I was soooo excited when I received Sabrina's wedding invitation, I've known her half my life plus there was a very enticing Bollywood theme, yay! My cousin, Joey, very kindly gave me this beautiful piece of saree material from India in a bright red fabric embroidered with teeny tiny mirrors all over it edged with a forest green border. Given that I'm hopelessly uncoordinated, the tailor sewed it into a ready to wear saree for me.



Not sure if this came from the Savage Garden song or a quote from Bub's favourite book Guess How Much I Love you. I wish I could have pinched this back!

The Bollywood wedding was a very colourful affair: a lot of care and love went into all the little details. Instead of a guestbook, we were invited to write well wishes on the fabric painting. I scrawled a bold, swirling message in bright orange ... until I turned around and realised that people were writing discreet small words. Opppps ...

It was so much fun attending the wedding with Stacey. Hubs looked after Bubs for a bit while the both of us got dressed in our sarees at the hotel. We chatted, we laughed together and kept peeking out of the window to look at all of the guests. We stuck on identical red bindis and piled on bangles. Stacey's saree was an ethereal looking white chiffon with sparkly silver beads and a delicate silver border. Bub's eyes went o-so-wide when he saw me all dressed up in the red saree, complete with jewellery that tinkled as I walked.

We spent most of the might nudging each other to look at all of the the sumptuous fabrics and dazzling array of sarees donned by most of the wedding party and guests. I was fascinated with the heavy embroideries, the glittering jewellery - it all brought out my inner magpie. 

Love was written all over the happy couple's faces :)