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Wantan noodles or more popularly known among locals as Wantan Mee. The ‘Wantan’ word sounds something like ‘one tonne’. Wantan means chinese dumpling. You can also refer this as Dumplings Noodles.

This local favourite can be easily found in most places in Penang. Wantan Mee is originated from the local Cantonese folks. This Cantonese egg noodles is usually served dry together with some sauce made from soya sauce and also thick dark sauce. It is also sometimes served in soup. It’s very much dependent on individual’s preferences. The dish is usually garnished with vegetables, char siew (sweet grilled pork meat), wantan (dumplings which is usually shrimp or pork balls wrapped in a thin dough) and some stalls add mushrooms for variety.

Some stalls served fried wantan as opposed to the boiled ones. Variations of wantan mee is in the sauce with which it is served. This simple dish is also a favourite among kids as it isn’t spicy. For those who prefer a touch of spiciness, try eating the noodles with green preserved chillies :-).

The police will be setting up roadblocks at the Penang Bridge as well as the ferry terminal at Weld Quay in order to prevent the Mat Rempits (illegal motorcyclist racers) from entering the island and create havoc on New Year Eve.

A crowd of about 10,000 people is expected to converge to Gurney Drive. Various uniformed personnel and policemen will be stationed at strategic locations to ensure all will be well for the countdown to the New Year celebration.

Roads leading to Gurney Drive will be closed from 8pm onwards on Sunday. The Gurney Drive roundabout will be closed from 4pm onwards.

Massive crowds are expected to converge to Gurney Drive for the Penang Golden 2007 New Year Countdown. Thousands of balloons will be released into the night sky at the stroke of midnight. The public can donate RM3 per balloon at specially set up kiosks which the money collected will be donated to the flood victims in the country.

Various celebration activities will start from 5pm onward. So, get ready, have fun, say Goodbye to 2006 and a BIG HELLO to 2007.

Well, I’m not sure if anyone realise this or probably everyone is just ignoring it since there isn’t much that can be done. Anyway, lately or should I say since ages ago, the ga’ment has been decorating our roads here with traffic lights !!!

Can you imagine driving on the road and braking not once in a while but pretty regularly. It is like on an average road, you’ll definitely pass if not stop at a traffic once like every 200 metres when you drive. And you’ll notice that the ga’ment is still actively decorating our roads with traffic lights nowadays. One good example is the Yeap Chor Ee Road. If you were to travel from one end (at Bukit Jambul) to the other (at Green Lane), you’ll need to pass by like 5 traffic lights. And it’s already like a norm to everyone that this road will come to a crawl during peak hours.

I’m just wondering that are we running out of plants that we can use for our roads? Frankly, we are getting lesser and lesser of greenery from day to day, you know? So Doc (you know who I’m referring to), do something about it ! We don’t pay you to enjoy yourself. Duh !!!

Fried Kuey Kak is another popular dish of food available in Penang. The main ingredient of the dish is white radish cake. The white radish cake is usually made up of a mixture of white radish and flour. The mixture is then steamed to create a piece of soft-textured white cake.

The white radish cake is then cut into smaller pieces and with added ingredients like bean sprouts, eggs and soya sauce, all of those are then fried together on a black flat frying pan.

When the dish is ready, it’s usually served on a piece of banana leaf. My tips here is to go for stalls that serve the dish with banana leaf. This will futher enhance the smell of the fried kuey kak.

You should be able to find this at most places around Penang. You can easily spot a stall selling fried kuey kak because the stall will have a large black flat frying pan.

So, give this dish a try when you are around.

Hokkien Noodles or Prawn Noodles is one of Penang classic popular dish. More popularly known to the local as Hokkien Mee.

Hokkien Mee usually consist of yellow noodles. One can also request to add vermicelli to the dish. Beside this noodles and vermicelli, most stall will put in egg slices, prawns, slices of pork, kangkung (water spinach) and deep fried onions as the side ingredients.

The main and most important ingredient of Hokkien Noodles is not any of those listed above but it’s the soup that comes with the dish. The soup is the main factor to determine whether the dish is nice or vice versa. The soup is cooked with blended prawn shells together with prawns, porks and some other special ingredients by the stall owners. The combinations of ingredients will give the soup a unique sweet taste.

The dish is usually served hot and served with some specially blended chili sauce which will give the dish the extra ooommphh & aroma. At certain stalls, you can also ask the stall owner to add in the gravy from Lor Mee.

The dish is widely available in most food court as well as coffee shops. You must remember to try Hokkien Mee when you are in Penang.

Last week we had a friend who got back from Singapore for a short holiday and we decided that a group of us would meet up somewhere for a meal and chat.

A friend suggested that we meet up at the Northam Beach Cafe & I was like whooaah … is he sure? Hey I have my reason here. This place to me is pretty much ‘historical’. This is one of the spot which was pretty much badly hit by the tsunami which hit Penang like 2 years ago. Anyway, what the heck, we just went since he said it’s there. Oh by the way, the food court is located at the beach front along Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah. There’s a small turning leading to this place which is directly opposite the Northam Hotel.

When we were there, my first impression was this place is not bad at all. They renovated the place after the disaster and worked on the deco and this place is as good as it was before the tsunami struck. It’s an open air concept food court and being at the beach front, this place is real windy and relaxing.

Lightings are litted up which gave the place a more relaxing ambience. Hey, no expensive deco here, ok ? It’s a food court, remember? Well, there’s a range of local food available here ready to keep your taste buds busy. Some not so common stalls I noticed here is that it has a seafood stall and also a japanese stall that sell sushi and sashimi.

So, pay a visit to the Northam Beach Cafe when you drop by to Penang. It’s a pretty relaxing place to enjoy some local delicacies with the wind softly blowing at your direction and accompanied by the sound of the waves from the sea . Cheers.

Wat Chaiyamangalaram Thai Buddhist Temple or more popularly known to most as the  Temple of the Reclining Buddha is one of the more popular tourist spot in Penang. It is located at around Pulau Tikus.

The piece of land which the temple was built on was donated by the late Queen Victoria to the Thai residents of Penang. The handover ceremony of the land was done by W.L. Butterworth on 22nd July 1845.

As you enter the main entrance of the temple, you’ll be greeted by some beautifully crafted statues of the devas (gods) and also multi-headed serpents. One will be fascinated by the fine design works done by the statue crafting artists of the yesteryears.

Inside the temple, there is a statue of the reclining Buddha, Pra Buddha Chaiya Mongkol which measures at the length of 108 feets. The statue was built in July 1958 to commemorate the 25th century of the birth of the Buddha. The cost was at about RM100,000 and the statue is said to be one of the largest in the world.

On the walls inside the temple, there are areas which store the ashes of Buddhist devotees which has passed away. The walls’ design and decoration follow those of the traditional Thai design. There are also Buddha statues covered with gold leaves being used as interior design inside the temple.

There are also paintings on the life of the Buddha painted by well-known Thai artists hung on the walls as part of the interior decorations. Next to the temple, there’s a five-storey Thai pagoda measuring at the height of about 165 feet high.

This is one of the must-go destination if this is your first visit to Penang. This is a place you wouldn’t want to miss

This is the day
the Earth gave us the Richter 7.1 magnitude quake
This is the day
the internet connections break

This is the day
our highspeed broadband has a downgrade
This is the day
our connection speed is as flat as a pancake

This is the day
a lot will curse sea & moon, throw shoes and clog
This is the day
it feels like forever just to update this blog

This is the day
a lot will ask low and high
This is the day
we wonder when our connections will again fly

Well, by the time you have read till this point, my snailband connection has finally loaded my yahoo.com request … Ouch!! .. BIG THANK YOU to you Mother Nature !!!

Claypot noodles is a common dish among the Chinese folks in Penang. The noodles used are called yee mian which are usually deep fried until the noodles are crispy before they are used in the dish.

The noodles are put into a clay pot with some vegetables, fish balls, crab sticks, mushrooms, pork cooked together in a clear chicken soup. It’s usually an optional item on whether one would like to add an egg into the dish or not. Personally, I would recommend that the egg to be added into the dish as the egg will improve the taste of the dish and give it an additional nice aroma.

Clay pot noodles are widely available at food courts all over Penang and it usually cost you around RM3.50 - RM4.00 per pot.

Remember to try claypot noodles when you are in Penang next time.

 

Kebab or grilled meat is one of the popular food sold commonly by the Muslim folks in Penang. It’s commonly available in Malay’s food court as well as pasar malam (night market) operated by the Muslim folks.

Kebab is usually made up of lamb, beef and sometimes chicken. Pork is never used by Muslims because of religious belief but you can find pork kebab at stalls which are operated by non-Muslim sellers.

The meat is usually finely minced and marinated. Then, a big chunk of the meat are then put together on a skewer and grilled over coals.

Kebab is usually served wrapped in a Lebanese bread or pita bread together with some fresh vegetables & tomatoes. It goes well with some special sauces cooked by the seller as well as ketchup. It a simple yet enjoyable piece of food.