EatingAsia

If You're Planning to Be in Penang....

For quite a while I've been meaning to start posting jpegs of our published work, even that which is not focused on food. But then the publication comes out, I get busy and .....

But judging from the hordes of tourists I saw in George Town this morning, this is timely -- a round-up of recent boutique hotel openings within the Unesco world heritage site that appeared in last month's issue of Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia.The 2011 George Town Festival is going on from now until the end of July, which makes it the perfect time to book a stay.

We've got more Malaysia coverage and a bit of Taiwan coming up in near-term issues, so stay tuned.

Why We Love George Town

Dogs in pedicabs and delicious street eats.

The latter, in this case, being 'dry' wonton mee tossed with dark soy sauce, lard oil and a few stems of choy sum (Chinese mustard). Topped with Hong Kong-style barbecued pork and a fluff of shredded chicken breast and served with a deep-fried wonton and a spoonful of sambal belacan soured with kalamansi juice, the nearly translucent noodles display a good amount of 'Q' (springy chewiness). Accompanying wonton is suitably porky.

This version can be found at the coffeeshop on Malay Street (corner of Beach), across from a fruit stand. Mornings and afternoons. George Town, Penang.

The dogs and their driver can be found idling on Jalan Penang and cruising the heritage zone.

 

 

In George Town's Little India, Rice Powder + Jaggery + Steam = Heaven

When up in Penang we tend to spend a lot of time in Little India. That's partly a function of proximity -- we stay just a few blocks away, on Armenian Street, and morning and evening strolls invariably carry us through the area.

Then there's the eats. Honestly, Indian food in Kuala Lumpur just can't compare to what's on offer up north. So we store up our cravings, and then kind of go nuts when we hit George Town.

Last year Kuala Lumpur's municipal authorities 'upgraded' the Little India behind Sentral Station. When we arrived in KL we loved walking the tip of Jalan Tun Sambanthan, with its messy shops blaring music, always-packed sidewalks, and general atmosphere of controlled chaos. In the lead-up to Deepvali there was no better place in the city to be.

That part of town is now very purple, somewhat Disneyland-like ... and rather soulless.

Happily -- thanks perhaps to its UNESCO World Heritage status -- George Town has no similar plans to bland-ize its own Little India. So if you find yourself in the vicinity, devote some time -- preferably early in the morning or after the sun starts to weaken -- to a wander around the patch of city roughly bordered by Chulia, Beach, Pitt (aka Masjid Kapitan Keling) and Bishop streets. They're loud, colorful, and permeated with the scent of steam rising from big pots of curry, incense rising from everywhere, and tasty things cooking on the street and in doorways, on grills and deep-fryers and griddles.

In the evenings, there's puthu. Puthu bambu, to be specific, but for these puthu stainless steel tubes substitute for bamboo.

Rice flour, jaggery, a bit of steam and some fresh grated coconut. Doesn't sound like much, does it? But this sweet snack is what I'd call a sleeper -- divine, in other words.

To make the puthu ground rice and jaggery are pressed into the metal tubes, which are then placed over a steamer. After 5 or so minutes the rice cakes are unmolded and garnished with a bit more jaggery and fresh coconut.

What's special about these puthu is the ratio of jaggery to ground rice, and the quality of the jaggery itself. It's caramel-ish, almost butterscotch-y. The steam softens the sugar to the point that it's almost oozing from the rice cake, which is soft, almost cloud-like, and fragrant.

The vendor always has a few newspaper-wrapped packets ready to go, but the puthu wilt in their enclosure -- best avoided. Instead, ask for (insist on -- gently -- if you have to) and wait for the vendor to pull a fresh batch from the steamer. Ask that your rice cakes be unmolded onto a piece of banana leaf and a plate, if one's available.

Then, dive in directly (with your right hand, please) right there on the street, standing in front of the stall. (Bring some tissues.)

Also worth trying: kolkatai, sweet steamed dumplings made of white rice flour, black rice flour, or gram flour - and coconut. The texture is chewy, a bit gummy, but pleasing. The white rice flour kolkatai are reminiscent of an austere macaroon. Wonderful in their own right but if I'm to be honest, merely a consolation prize if the puthu aren't available.

Puthu stall, corner of China and Penang streets, George Town, Penang. From about 4 or 5pm, most days.

 

Rejuvenating George Town, Penang

Old and older in George Town's Little India

Changes are afoot in George Town, Penang. We reported on the ongoing transformation of this once down-and-out (but always lovely) city, precipitated in large part by its designation as a UNESCO world heritage site in July 2008, for the New York Times.

Amelie Cafe, on Armenian Street, is just one of a number of locally-owned new businesses

Long story short: so far, so good. Yes, boutique hotels and, to a lesser extent, shops and restaurants are sprouting in George Town like mushrooms in a forest after a long rain, but the inner city still boasts a true and truly unique living culture. We hope that, despite all the changes that lie ahead, George Town never loses this part of itself.

Read the article here, and view Dave's accompanying slideshow here. More outtakes from the story on Dave's photo blog, here.

A George Town resident at Nagore Shrine. We hope the city never loses the likes of him.

A Sweet Soup Find in Penang

Whenever we're up to Penang, which is more and more often these days, we lodge at a friend's house in George Town. And because part of the pleasure, for us, of being in Penang is ditching the car for a few days we tend to eat, shop, and hang out within a fairly circumscribed radius -- anywhere walkable within, say, 30 minutes.

Given the amount of time we've spent here over the last 2.5 years you'd think that would mean we've pretty much exhausted grazing possibilities. But no. Every stay, it seems, brings a new discovery.

Like this sweet soup, which its Chinese vendor calls simply "sago".

Sweet soups abound in Malaysia. There are Chinese-style sweet soups called tong sui, made with ingredients like peanuts, white fungus, lychees, and glutinous rice balls, and more Malay-ish sweet soups rich with coconut milk and palm sugar, such as bubur pulut hitam and bubur kacang hijau.

This sweet soup is an intriguing marriage of the two: sago pearls and chunks of softened sweet potato in a broth sweetened with brown sugar and strongly flavored with Chinese medicinal herbs, drizzled with coconut milk (squirted from a plastic squeeze bottle) just before serving. Half health tonic and half dessert, this soup bore an unmistakeable salty edge that made it strangely refreshing in the afternoon heat. A bit strange at first taste, but the sort of flavor combination that grows on you with every bite.

This discovery was serendipitous. There's no signage advertising the stall's presence, just a few tables set up underneath a plastic tarp and a couple of umbrellas in the yard of a tumbledown wooden house on Beach Street. The soup is served only on Tuesday afternoons. When we've journeyed up to Penang we've usually left on Sunday or Monday, and even when we're in town we're not often cruising treeless Beach Street at two in the afternoon, when the sun is high in the sky.

But fate or fortune brought Dave past this house one afternoon while he was shooting George Town for an upcoming article. He noticed the stall and we made a point of returning. It just happened to be Tuesday.

There are two other items on offer here -- a clear soup with beehoon (rice vermicelli) and choy sum (mustard) leaves, and a warm sweet ginger soup with taro and sweet potato that is so forcefully flavored with the rhizome that it almost burns the throat going down. (This is the soup I would want if I were suffering from a cold.)

This stall was started by the current vendor's father over 50 years ago. "You're so lucky to be here on a Tuesday!" a regular patron told us. We'd have to agree. After two bowls of sago (and a taste of the ginger soup) it was all we could do not to order a third.

Sweet soups and beehoon soup stall, Lebuh Pantai / Beach Street. Mon-Fri only from 2pm until the soups are gone. Herbal coconut sago soup Tuesdays only.