EatingAsia

Where to Eat, Caffeinate, Shop and Stay in George Town, Penang: An Opinionated List (UPDATED August 2016)

 

     

    This post was first published a little over two years ago, and it's been one of the most viewed and shared posts ever since. We're still here in George Town, still eating around and taking in life in the city. Sometimes it seems that things never change here, but of course they do. And over five years after moving from Kuala Lumpur to Penang island we continue to stumble across new-to-us spots. So it seemed time for an update:

    Our experience of George Town is somewhat unique; we've been fortunate to know the city as tourists, a writer and photographer on assignment and for the last three-plus years, as residents. We know what we like as folks living right in the heart of the city, right now. But we can remember well what struck us as observers keen on finding a story, and what we wanted from and liked best about the city as travellers without a mission.

    Every week I (Robyn) receive emails asking for recommendations -- for restaurants and hawker stalls, for hotels, for non-street food places to eat. There's already loads of Penang and George Town info on this blog as well as in articles I've written for the New York Times, SBS Feast, Wall Street Journal Asia, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia and other publications. But now, as tourism to the UNESCO world heritage site I call home grows by leaps and bounds, it seems a good time to pull some loose ends together into a post that will hopefully insure visitors make the most of their time here.

    If you're planning a visit to Penang know first that George Town is the place to stay. The island's beaches just don't rate, especially when compared with others in the region. Penang is an increasingly urbanized island half of whose coastline is separated from a busy shipping port by a well traversed strait.-- which doesn't make for pristine waters. And, unfortunately,increasingly larger swathes of the island are falling to unsightly development; head north up the east side of the island from George Town past kilometer after kilometer of eyesores and you'll see what I mean. Sure, there are spots outside George Town worth visiting: Balik Pulau, durian farms (in season), Penang Hill (not on a weekend!) .... but all can be done comfortably in a day trip.

 

George Town: a mostly lowrise, very walkable city. Red tile roofs mark old shop houses.

    Despite gentrification and a serious overstock of boutique hotels, cafes and trinket shops -- and the resultant loss of many long-time residents -- George Town is still, somehow, very 'real'. Moreover it is unique in the region for its historically rich (and fairly intact) cityscape, loads of authentic (ie. not designed for tourists) "street theater" (the Hungry Ghost festival is on as I write this) and fabulous food, especially on the street. 

    Best of all, George Town is completely walkable. A reasonably fit individual can walk the heritage site end-to-end (Penang Road to Weld Quay, Prangin Canal to Fort Cornwallis) in less than an hour.

WHEN TO GO

    Penang's climate - much like that of many other places in the world - is a bit screwy: it rains during the dry season, is dry during the wet season. In short, there's really no bad time to visit George Town (even when it rains showers never last all day), though there are some less-good and times than others. Many Chinese hawkers close during the first week, or at least the first 3 days, of Chinese New Year and February, March and April are often beastly hot (you won't want to be out walking between 11:30AM and 4:30 or 5pm). August is a great time to visit Penang, both for the George Town Festival and for Hungry Ghost month, observances of which reach a frenzy in Penang not seen elsewhere in the region. Photographers flock to Penang for Thaipusam (January or February; the festival is several days long and involves a procession from George Town's Little India to a temple on a hill in the middle part of the island) and the Nine Emperor Gods Festival (September or October), which lasts for nine days and culminates in a night-time procession the ends with small unmanned boats filled with offerings being set afire in the waters off Weld Quay. (Dave  published a multimedia of the event here. Turn your sound on to watch.)

WHERE TO EAT

    This list is far from comprehensive, it could extend for pages. I won't claim that any of these spots are The Best this or that -- isn't that a fairly useless exercise when taste is so subjective? -- but they are places that I, and folks whom I refer, consistently enjoy. There's enough here to keep you busy and well-fed for a good 3 days or so. Addresses are listed or are to be found in links.

Tek Sen

These days you'll rarely find Tek Sen this quiet

    Our first meal here was in 2009, back when Teochew-Chinese-Malaysian restaurant Tek Sen was a glorified stall with tables occupying an alley and a five-foot way, before it had a Facebook page and an illustrated menu and a few years before its mention in a Lonely Planet guide made tourists as often seen here as locals. When Tek Sen tripled its capacity by relocating to its current double shophouse premises we feared the worst. But quality has remained high, probably because the family that opened the place 25 or so years ago is still on hand, in the kitchen and the front of the house, to insure that your bacon candy is every bit as savory-salty-sweet-lardy as it should be.

    These days the queues are gruesome (but it's worth the wait, we promise!), so go early (around 6pm), late (around 830pm but beware -- customers are often turned away by 8:45), or for lunch (11 am to 2 pm). After all these years Tek Sen is still the first place we take visitors for a meal, and for good reason. 

    Some of our favorite dishes from a very long menu: Teochew steamed fish with tomatoes, tofu and sour plum; gully tumis; French beans stir-fried with pork; steamed homemade tofu; pork belly with preserved mustard greens; potato leaves stir-fried with sambal or garlic; bean sprouts with salted fish; tamarind prawns; pig's trotters stewed in Chinese black vinegar and of course -- bacon candy (aka double-cooked pork with chilies). Ask about the specials on the white board (written in Chinese).

Foong Wei, Sri Bahari half a block from Penang Road

    After Tek Sen, the dinner spot we recommend most often is this classic oldish Chinese-Malaysian restaurant just outside the core conservation zone. Expect fluorescent lights, red tablecloths and brusque service -- along with very good kind-of-retro (in a non-hipster way) food. We like the mango chicken, prawn spring rolls, roast pork leg and spinach with century egg. You can also ask for recommendations. 

 Toh Yuen, Campbell Street near Cintra

    Go to this old Cantonese spot for the tea and the atmosphere -- plenty of old-timers while away hours here. There is poached and roast chicken rice which is good but not as good as that at Keng Pin (see below), and the odd dim sum and pork buns which are OK. We go for the handmade fish ball soup with greens, and always ask them to throw in a few sui gao (pork dumplings); 'veggie' (blanched choy sum a drizzle of oyster sauce and sesame oil) and kiam chai boi, a sour-spicy soup-stew "leftovers" dish of meat (duck, here) cooked with mustard greens, chilies, tamarind, asam keping ("sour slices") and chilies. Noodle dishes are also excellent -- try the sang har meen.

Nasi Padang/nasi Melayu at International Hotel

Gado gado on the left, pineapple curry and fried tempeh with green chilies on the right, deep-fried fried fish up top 

    Simply the best nasi campur ("mixed rice", ie. rice and curries) in George Town, perhaps on all of Penang island. The owners of this stall migrated a couple decades ago from Sumatra, and the Indonesian island's influences come through in dishes like deep-fried tempeh with green chilies and dried anchovies, long eggplants fried to silkiness and doused with fiery red chili paste, beef jerky deep-fried with red chilies and an addictive sambal made with grilled green chilies and tiny fish. Pineapple curry, whole round eggplant in an Indian-ish curry leaf-flecked curry, papaya leaves stewed in coconut milk, chicken stewed in kecap manis and red chilies and fresh pineapple achar say "Malaysia", and the Chinese touch can be seen in a mild tofu skin-and-rice vermicelli soup. The amazing spread here includes several types of whole fish (look for deep-fried specimens spilling crispy caramelised sambal-rubbed sliced onions), a few different sambals and plenty of vegetarian options including, occasionally, do-it-yourself gado gado. Open till 4 or 5, but this is really a lunch place.

    Go by noon for the best selection, and know that this place gets really crowded (as in No Seats) on weekends. Note: this stall remains open for lunch during Ramadan.

    

Cozy seating and darned fine nasi campur at International Hotel

 

Woodlands, Penang Street about half a block east of China Street, Little India   

    Our beloved Veloo Velas just up Penang Street, which I included in the original version of this post, has taken such a dive in quality that I can no longer recommend it. Happily Woodlands, a fairly comfortable (yet still ridiculously inexpensive) air-conditioned cafe with a friendly staff, is still going strong. We go Woodlands for tiffin, the southern Indian term for morning and evening meals that do not revolve around rice and curries and other dishes but are comprised of deliciously easy-to-digest specialties made with fermented rice batter: thosai, idli, uttapam, etc.  

Nasi Kandar at Toon Leong Cafe

    Is this the famous Penang nasi kandar stall that Anthony Bourdain ate at? NO. It's better. Run by the grandson of its founder, this little stall is parked at a kopitiam (coffee shop) run by the grandson of the guy who opened it over 80 years ago. Service is mornings only, most things are sold out by ten. I became reacquainted with the fragrantly spicy beef curry a week ago and am thrilled to report it's as tender and delicious as ever. Toon Leong's strong kopi beng (iced coffee with sweet milk), surely one of the best in town, is especially nice sipped while sitting in one of the coffee shop's unironically vintage booths. The coffee shop sells its ground coffee in 10-ringgit bags.

Hainan chicken rice at Keng Pin on Penang Road

    Hainan chicken rice may be Singapore's national dish but we're lucky to have a mighty excellent version here in George Town. If you're one of those folks who doesn't "get" this dish try the version here, served from about 1130am (Mondays off) by an intense couple who don't smile much but do know how to delicately poach a chicken to barest doneness and cook rice in the bird's broth with garlic to perfection, grains tender and separate. The sourish chili sauce is nice too. Specify when you order, breast or leg/thigh, with or without skin.

Oyster Omelette stall, front of narrow shop on Carnavon three doors east of Kimberley Street

    This vendor does not get enough love. It pains me to see his stall so unappreciated when the vendor of the 'famous' oyster omelette of George Town, at a coffee shop just two doors down, does a rip-roaring business. Be bold -- skip the famous version (which is really just OK) and try this one, which is really different. Instead of the usually greasy, gummy pile this stall serves of a thin and lacy, crispy pancake of tapioca and rice starch batter layered with egg, and tops it with a mess of oysters fried with chili and bean paste. The garnish of cilantro leaves takes it over the top. The beef noodles soup served at the other stall occupying this narrow (and, admittedly, hot as heck) shop deserves notice too. 

Note: in September oyster omelette and beef noodles will move down Carnavon west towards 1st Avenue shopping mall to a wider and more airy shop on the same side of the street.

Curry Mee (on the same street as "Famous Cendol" -- see below -- off Penang Road)

    Note: as of two weeks ago this curry noodle vendor was on temporary hiatus. I include her stall nonetheless, in the hope that she'll be back soon.

I love Eng, the bubbly woman who runs this stall, and I love her curry mee even more. She used to park her stall on Cintra Street, but moved when the building behind her was refurbished. I thought she was gone forever until we stumbled upon her current location, in front of a cute little shop house whose three tables offer a cool, quiet respite from George Town's hot noisy streets. Be sure to order the loh han goh, an (admittedly pretty sweet) herbal drink made with a dried medicinal fruit that is said to be cooling -- more so if ordered with ice. Read more here.

Lam Mee, just outside pork section of Campbell Street Market, Carnavon Road

    In a town of curries and smoky fried noodles it's easy to overlook this subtle dish of yellow noodles (or rice vermicelli, or a mixture of the two) with bean sprouts, sliced pork and perfectly cooked tender-crunchy prawns in rich meat broth, but I encourage you to give it a try. This stall parked in front of the pork butchers at the back of dilapidated (but lovely) Campbell Street Market crowns each bowl with a flurry of cilantro leaves and offers alongside an unusually (for Penang) fiery chili sauce redolent of fishy-funky belacan (shrimp paste). The noodles here were a recent 'discovery' of ours (if you can call a stall that you've registered while walking past several times a week a 'discovery') and I deeply regret all the years e've passed not enjoying them at least once a week. The adjacent coffee stall serves an excellent traditional Malaysian brew.

Char Siew on Carnavon (corner of Cheong Fatt Tze / Hong Kong Street)

    Arrive to this coffee shop by 12:15 or you'll end up waiting quite a while for your sweet-sticky pork. All hell breaks loose when this vendor, one of the few in George Town to BBQ his pig Kuala Lumpur-style (with a sticky, smoky glaze rather than Hong Kong style, dryish and rimmed in red) arrives at 12:30, unpacks roast pork, char siew and roast duck from his motorbike and hangs the meat in his glass display case. For my money the roast pork is not quite as impressive as the char siew, but it certainly isn't awful. The duck is very good, but nowhere near as tasty as that cooked over charcoal at Kuala Lumpur's old Sek Yuen restaurant. But then again I'm not sure there's a roast duck in Malaysia to match Sek Yuen's. Served with a kickass chili sauce, cucumbers, rice and gravy (if you want it).

Asam laksa at Weld Quay

    Judgment of whether or not an asam laksa is "good" or "bad" or somewhere in between comes down to chilies, tamarind (and/or asam keping, aka "sour slices") and fish. I like my asam laksa spicy, tart and full of piscene flavor. If you do too get your asam laksa at the stall that parks at the corner of Weld Quay and Aceh from around 2 in the afternoon until 5. (Tip: Go late for a more concentrated broth.) Read more here. If you can score a dozen of the delicious battered and deep-fried bananas sold from the stall across the street you have better luck than I do (customers frequently by them by the whole batch).

Cendol on Burma Road at Lorong MacAlister 

    There may once have been a day when George Town's "famous" cendol, located on a lane just off Penang Road, was famous for a reason other than that it's famous, but that day is gone. Watery coconut milk, suspiciously vividly green mung bean "pasta" and sloppy presentation (the latter due, I suppose, to the need for speed to appease the inexplicablly huge crowds that mob this stall) make this version a No-Go for me.

    Do yourself a favor: bypass the crazy queue. Walk right past and take a right at the flyover. Two or three blocks up Burma Road, on your left, you'll find a cart whose owners dish up a cendol much more worth your time and your money. The wait is short, the coconut milk is thick and rich and the gula Melaka is deep and butterscotchy. After 12pm, odd off days. (Thanks to Bee of Rasa Malaysia for this tip.)

CAFFEINATE

    Over the past 18 months George Town has seen a rash of cafe openings. In the last two years cafes have sprouted in George Town like fungi in a pine forest after a long rain. I'll be honest -- after many dismal cups I stopped trying them. Instead I stick with two tried and true favourites:

    The owner of China House is an Australian caffeine addict and her love of the bean comes through in the coffees served at the cafe. Her baristas know what they're doing and the beans are imported from a boutique roastery in Singapore. (Desserts and homemade ice creams are a bonus.) And if you can catch it open, the owners of Ete Cafe, a blink and you'll miss it spot on Lorong Carnavon off of Carnavon Street, lend their uniquely Taiwanese love of coffee to brewing a very good cup. His beautiful French pastries and macarons and her quiche (both trained at Le Cordon Bleu) are a bonus.

Narrow Marrow, run by a young couple who take their coffee seriously and have a great design sense, occupies George Town's narrowest shop house; it's worth a visit just to take in the space itself. We don't get there as often as I'd like, especially now that the cafe is only open on weekends. But the vibe is very friendly, the espresso drinks are fabulous; the also serve fruit drinks and beer. Carnavon Street opposite the entrance to Prangin Lane.

WHERE TO SHOP

Kedai Kek Sunflower, Hutton Lane a bit north of Penang Road

    Kueh lapis, a lovely cake composed of many many super-thin layers that is made by pouring, baking, pouring, baking, pouring baking and so on for each individual layer, keeps and travels well-- making it an excellent gift or edible souvenir. The good version is made with butter, as is the kueh lapis at this little shop where, the last time I was in, you could watch the co-owner make her cakes up front near the display case. Go for the original version -- not chocolate chip or raisin or whatever other flavours they've got going now. Expect to pay around 20 ringgit for a cake, which is justified if real butter is used.

Chop Kongsi, Penang Street next to Ren I Tang Hotel, Little India

    You never know what you'll find at Chop Kongsi, an artist-run matchbox of a shop right next to Ren I Tang (see Where to Stay, below). Malaysian Foo May Lyn does her own thing with needles,yarn, threads, lace, textiles, pen and pencils. A nice change from the same-old same-old items sold in many shops around George Town. Check out Chop Kongsi's wares on its Facebook page. 

Kitchenware shops, Carnavon Road across from 1st Avenue shopping mall 

    Right next to the fruit store at the corner are two side-by-side shops selling almost everything for the kitchen, including new enamel ware (from China, most likely). Be willing to sweat a bit and poke around in the dust for wooden moon cake holds, colourful melamine plates and bowls, patterned ceramic ware and other odds and ends. You'll find many of these items for sale in cute shops nearer the centre of George Town -- for a lot more.

 

WHERE TO STAY

    I live here so obviously I'm not staying at hotels. I include places that I have either viewed several times, that are run by people who have a reputation for being on top of service, or that have been recommended to me by at least three of my street food walk clients. (FWIW George Town's two oldest, and most 'classic' hotels, consistently get the thumbs-down from folks staying there. No need to mention names, but it seems to be a case of resting on laurels.) My bias is towards smallish, unique hotels that are the result of a sensitive/smart refurbishment of older structures by owners who've really put their heart(s) into the project. There's a lot of sub-par refurbishment going on in (formerly) lovely old buildings around town; know when you book a hotel that the word "heritage" in its name guarantees nothing.

 7 Terraces

    Stunning suites with very cool black and white mosaic tiled bathrooms arranged around a long courtyard on the second story of seven rebuilt terrace houses. Very private (only guests and their guests are allowed beyond the bar and restaurant) with a small pool. Read my full review for Wall Street Journal Asia here.

Campbell House

    I included this early comer to George Town's boutique hotel scene in my NYTimes Travel "36 Hours in Penang" piece, which a few years ago was republished in a book of 36 Hours pieces. As such rooms here can be hard to come by but it's worth trying, because Campbell House is small and intimate and the welcome is warm, thanks to the hands-on management style of its Malaysian and Italian owners. 

    Note: Do not be fooled by the copycat signage of the 'Campbell House guest house' opened right next door. It has no association with this hotel.

Ren I Tang

Ren I Tang lobby

    Fabulously located in Little India, which to my mind is one of George Town's main attractions, the rooms at this refurbished Chinese medicine hall are as beautiful as they are comfortable, and are varied in size and configuration so as to accomodate the needs of single travelers and families as well as couples. The cafe downstairs is a great spot in which to cool off (passion fruit soda highly recommended) while people watching.

Sin Keh

    Sin Keh describes itself as a "guest house" but has all the comforts of a hotel; it occupies a stylishly refashioned old shop house sited in a neighborhood not yet pocked with same-same cafes and trinket stores. There's an arts workshop and performance space in the hotel, which makes for a good crowd. The vibe  is laid back and friendly and the roof deck is a great place to relax at sunset with a drink. As one who often finds that the problem with hotels is not the hotel but inconsiderate guests I appreciate Sin Keh's "Quiet at Night" policy.

Lang Hoose

    More than ten street food walk clients have talked up this guest house located on Beach Street opposite Toh Aka Lane. But it's recently changed hands, and I have no idea how that will affect the guest experience, if it does. Still, if you're looking for something a bit more on the budget side of things it may be worth checking out. 

 

***

When we're in Penang I offer private street food walks in George Town, while EatingAsia photographer Dave Hagerman, who shoots for Saveur, SBS Feast, the New York Times and other publications, runs private and small-group photography workshops ranging from 3 hours to 1.5 days. Check out reviews of Dave's Penang photography walks here. I limit walks to two a week, so I'm rarely available for last-minute bookings; Dave is more flexible. For more details contact us by email: robyn[DOTt]eckhardt[at]gmail.com and drhagerman[AT]gmail.com.

AND HEY! We're both honoured to have been nominated for the Saveur magazine 2016 Food Blog Awards. If you're so inclined you can vote for EatingAsia (category: Eat the World) and David Hagerman (category: Instagram) here. THANK YOU! 

 

Samosa Love in Chennai

     Late last year we spent a whirlwind nine days in Tamil Nadu. I haven't written about it much here ... there were details and photographs to save for a feature story in SBS Feast (it ran in the April issue) and columns about about street coffee, dosa and "risky" eating in Wall Street Journal Asia. Tamil Nadu was one of our most delicious trips of recent years, but it happened not long after we'd returned from Turkey and shortly before Christmas. Discoveries and revelations were lost to the holidays and preparation for travel in early 2014.

    Our journey took us to Chennai, Madurai and Karaikudi. Of course street food was a focus. Ironically one of the most memorable places that we ate at in Chennai wasn't of Chennai at all. Bombay Lassi, opened over 50 years ago by -- no surprise here -- a native of Bombay, came at the end of a long day of eating. Reviewing my notes, I find that we'd started the morning with pickles and sweets at a small shop in Mylapore, and then moved a few doors down for curd vadai (an urad lentil ball soaked in fresh yogurt seasoned with curry leaf and cumin and mustard seeds) and curd rice (steamed rice mixed with yogurt) -- no photos because the proprietor of the mess where we ate would not allow it. Then came coffee and a thali rice meal with 12 components followed by a selection of milk sweets, and then a few hours later MORE sweets at a sweets shop.

    The day was furnace hot; we did little walking. By the time we arrived at Bombay Lassi I was uncomfortable, ready for a liedown. The last thing I wanted to do was eat.

    But, but ..... the place had all the signs of a find. It was well off the main street, several blocks down an alley and then to the left down a narrow lane. Despite this, and the fact that the neighborhood was not densely populated (a large theater occupies the lot facing the shop) and it was at least an hour past work hours the place was hopping, the lane on which the shop sits filled with standing (because there are no seats at Bombay Lassi), happily munching customers.

    Every one of these people would have had to go at least a bit out of his or her way to get to Bombay Lassi. The crowd suggested that the effort was worth it.

     Despite its name Bombay Lassi's biggest seller is samosa (there's lassi too, "savouriest lassi", as the shop's sign says -- and sweets like jalebi, milk halwa, and gulab jamun). These thick-skinned beauties, larger than others we sampled while in India, are made in  a room adjacent to the sales counter and fried by an impressively bearded and bellied man just out front, on the street,

 
from where they're ferried next door to the service counter

where they're smashed, plated on a teak leaves and smeared with mint chutney and tamarind sauce.

    As soon as my companion dug into his somosa I quickly caved and accepted one, then asked for another. Despite their hefty skins the samosa were nearly greaseless, crispy, chewy ... inside I found onion, potato, peas flavored with garam masala, ginger and garlic, the vegetables distinct rather than part of a mush. The samosa's relatively "heavy" filling was lightened by the freshness of the mint chutney and the sweet tanginess of the tamarind sauce.

    Lacking experience eating samosa in, well, Bombay I couldn't say whether or not the smash-before-service technique is common. But it's a brilliant way to release heat while creating cracks and crevices via which the chutney and tamarind sauce can seep into the wrapper and mingle with the filling.

    The proprietor was happy to properly plate a few samosa for a photo,

 
but on my next visit, if there is one (I hope there is one) I'll certainly opt for the teak leaf.

Bombay Lassi, Ellis Road (behind Devi Theater), Chennai.

A Little Love, Please, for Koay Teow Th'ng

Koay teow th'ng, you get too little love.

Rice noodles in chicken, duck or pork broth with meat, (sometimes) offal, meat and/or fish balls and perhaps a wonton or a stem or few of choi sum, depending on the vendor, koay teow th'ng is unloved not by Penang-ites -- who rate it over most any other street food (judging by the number of koay teow th'ng stalls in George Town alone) as a breakfast dish -- but by non-Asian visitors for whom white noodles in pale broth just can't compete with the flash of a sambal-dolloped mound of coconut rice (nasi lemak), the sizzle of rice noodles in a lard-slicked wok (char koay teow) or the wow of a rice flour pancake rolled around a filling fragrant with warm spices (masala thosai).

Poor koay teow th'ng (th'ng means "soup" in Hokkien, a reference to the broth). I've tried introducing you to visitors on street food walks. While some are immediately hip to your simple elegance, most set down their spoon down with a shrug after the first sip of soup (almost no one digs the fish balls). It's true that you're plain and nothing much to look at, a wallflower compared with other prettier local dishes. But when made and assembled with care you are the perfect first-thing-in-the-morning food, greeting the awakening appetite with a gentle stroke rather than a bludgeon.

I have to admit I had my doubts at first; I was visiting George Town twice a month for over a year before I gave in to koay teow th'ng's understated persuasion. I really only truly saw the light once we'd moved into our shop house. You see, our front door sits ten steps from a seller who begins preparing his koay teow th'ng just as the night's last bit of black begins to leach from the sky.

The vendor in question; he runs the stall with his wife and son.

By the time we head out the door with our dogs the vapors rising from his cauldron of duck and chicken broth scent the street. As we round his corner our older hound raises her nose to the heavens, breathing deeply (and always hopefully), and I try not to see the fowl carcasses heaped on his prep table,; the noodles folded over on themselves like silk ribbons, the perky choi sum leaves mounded on a stainless steel table next to the soup pot. If I gave in I might never get past that corner. I might sit down for one breakfast and not leave until I'd had three or four.

It's a good version, this vendor's duck koay teow th'ng. The broth is light but substantial, truly tasting of its main ingredient (I once asked him if he added MSG; he looked stung). His fish balls show resistance to the bite but aren't rubbery, his wontons -- which sell out quickly -- taste home made. Choi sum, in addition to gracing each bowl of noodle soup, is served  (order simply "veggie") blanched and tossed with oyster sauce. Bowls of koay teow th'ng come with the usual accompaniment of chopped chilies to douse with soy sauce at the table, but also with an unusual (in my experience) firecracker of a sambal made with cilantro and green chilies.

Koay teow th'ng, soup and "dry" versions. You can also order your fixings with yellow noodles. Sometimes there are chicken feet too.

The only problem with having such a fine koay teow th'ng so close to hand is that when koay teow th'ng calls we rarely make it further than the corner. Off the top of my head I can think of five other sellers within a three-block radius of our house. I can't remember the last time we ate at the tables of any of them. And many more of them lie further afield (if a 10 to 15-minute walk can be called "further afield").

Our next departure for Turkey is a little over five weeks away. I figure that's good for at least five koay teow th'ng breakfasts. I'll blog them all. It's high time; I owe it to Penang's most unloved noodle.

Duck koay teow th'ng. Kimberley Street, 1 block from Carnavon. Mornings from about 730am. Off days are Monday, and sometimes other days too.

In Taipei, Knowing How Little I Know

We were recently in Taipei, working on a food story.

It wasn't our first time in the city; we spent almost 2 weeks there in 2010 and returned in 2011 for a much-too-short few days. After a decent chunk of time living, eating and cooking in and Hong Kong and China -- not to mention eight years now (!) in Malaysia, home to a sizeable Chinese population, you might think I'd have a pretty decent grounding in Chinese cuisine. I speak Mandarin, and read a fair bit of it (though Taiwan's complicated characters do, um, complicate things). So when it comes to charting a gastronomic path in Taipei I'm pretty much all set, right?

Wrong. For me, to be in Taiwan -- and in this most recent case, its capital city -- is to know how little I know about Taiwanese food and, in many respects, the wider world of "Chinese cuisine". Sure, I know niurou mian and dou hua and lu wei, Taiwan's iconic soy sauce-based braise of tofu, meats and offal. I have eaten many an oyster omelette. I am quite familiar with beancurd in all its myriad forms, including "stinky". (And I know for sure that Taiwan boasts the best bean curd in the region). I know how soy sauce is made, I know the difference between rice wine and sorghum and millet liquors (though in truth I enjoy  none of them). When I eat jiaozi (dumplings) and dao shao mian ("knife-cut" noodles) in Taipei I feel a deep connection to Sichuan, where I first ate these delights more than 25 (gulp) years ago. In Taipei's slippery rice noodles I taste elements of the Fujianese cuisine I've come to know through Malaysia's many Hokkien dishes. Taiwan's sweets -- its shaved ices, its flaky, flat round bing stuffed with ingredients sugary or savory or a combination of the two -- are comforting in their familiarity. So too, of course, is the country's very Chinese obsession with pork.

But I could no sooner define Taiwanese food -- that is, the food of Taiwan rather than the food of its indigenous peoples -- than I could east African or Chilean cuisine. The island has a long history; it has absorbed culinary influences from waves of occupation and migration. Taiwan has a large indigeneous population, the descendents of people who lived there long before the Dutch, Chinese or Japanese arrived. And it is still absorbing influences from abroad as far as I can tell, as island nations necessarily do. Taipei is a large, sprawling, mixed-up jumble of a city -- and an incredibly cosmopolitan one at that, especially when you consider that much of the world (and, ahem, the world's food editors) seems not to know, or chooses to ignore, that it exists.

So, though I eagerly accepted this assignment, I landed in Taipei with some trepidation. Eating for yourself is one thing; "defining" the culinary experience of a city for an audience (many of whom will be natives, many of whom will be eager to highlight what's been left out) is quite another. I knew that I knew too little (and I write that as if I could ever know enough about eating in Taipei, or about the food of Taiwan) to chart my own path. So I threw my hands up and relinquished control. Instead of planning a gastronomic itinerary around "must eat" dishes I simply queried locals about what they most liked to eat.

Surprise! I was not led to one single niurou mian stall (I already have my own favorite anyway). No Taipei-an took me out for stinky tofu, sat me down to a steamer full of xiao long bao (soup dumplings), introduced me to their favorite shaved ice or squired me to a night market.

Instead I was treated to many unknown-to-me yet quite common local specialties. All were fabulous; I write with all honesty that I did not consume a single mediocre bite in six days of fairly full-on eating in Taipei. Yet given my word limit, many of my most pleasurable nibbles did not make it into the article.

Here's one: youyu geng (yoh-yoo guhng), or thick soup with squid. Geng are a class of Hakka soups made somewhat viscous with the addition of starch -- tapioca, sweet potato, corn. They're a common street food, seen everywhere in Taipei. Most contain pork. At this third-generation stall near the Gongguan MTR stop opposite Taiwan University (or Taida, as it's known), the medium of protein is squid, and it appears three ways: dried and rehydrated, deep-fried, and ground to a paste that is then formed by hand into rough elongated ovals.

You might call this dish "squid noodles", for the vendors offer yellow noodles, mung bean vermicelli or ban tiao (flat rice noodles) to add to the thick soup. Most diners order their noodles "dry", soup on the side (something often done in Malaysia with Chinese noodle soups like wonton mee and koay teow th'ng).

Why they do so became evident as soon as I slipped my chopsticks into my bowl of yellow noodles and gently turned, releasing a plume of steam heavy with the scent of shallots browned long and slow in lard. The flavor of this sauce was incredible, richer and meatier than the juices leftover from a roast. Add in the freshness of chopped cilantro and the slow-burning heat of the housemade chili sauce, which I added from a jar on our table, and I was eating my most seductive bowl of noodles in recent memory.

As for the gloopy, viscous geng -- I loved it, especially when thinned and soured with white vinegar. The potato starch-thickened stock tasted intensely of seafood, the squid paste balls (more like dumplings, given their odd shape) were full of fresh fish flavor and texturally interesting, with small chunks of squid (as opposed to the silky smoothness of your average fish ball) and the coating on the rafts of fried cephalopod was neither greasy nor too thick. Bonus: the deep-fried squid pieces soaked up the delicious broth like a sponge. The garnish of holy basil leaves was a pleasant, tasty surprise (the herb is a common ingredient on Taiwan.)

I generally avoid soupy dishes in tropical climates, and in general I don't really recommend visiting Taipei during its hot, sticky mid-summer. I was sweating buckets as we ate our geng.

But I'd jump at the opportunity to hop on a plane tomorrow and happily, swelteringly slurp my way through another bowl at at Li Ji Hakka (the shop's name, from a barely visible sign to the left of the serving station).

Thanks to SL (oh, the wonders of Facebook) for taking us to this little gem near Taida.

Li Ji Hakka, 289 Dingzhou Lu Section 3, Taipei. MTR exit: Gongguan.

Nyonya Fireworks

    Nyonya dishes are labor intensive and time consuming. It's said that the best are served in private homes. I believe that, because in Penang nothing I've eaten in any traditional Nyonya restaurant compares to the food I've eaten at Madame Khaw's cart.

    I last wrote about Madame Khaw almost 6 years ago. Every morning she rises early, prepares a mess of Nyonya curries, stews, vegetables and relishes, and wheels it all over to Pulau Tikus market, where she sells from her cart from 6 or 7am till noon. Madame Khaw is a Penang-born Nyonya (Nyonya are the female descendents of long-ago marriages between Hokkien traders and Malay women; the male descendents are called "Baba") who learned to cook, she tells me, from her Hokkien father. (Her brother mans a cart selling homemade Nyonya kuih, or sweets, which he sets up next to her stall in Pulau Tikus on Saturdays.)

    Madame Khaw's Nyonya delights are transcendent. She cooks with an assured hand, often pushing  the edge of the envelope by upping the quantities of strong-flavored ingredients in an already strong-flavored dish. This is how I cook too, like an addict feeding an addiction: just a few more chilies, another teaspoon of each dried spice, fresh herbs by the handful instead of the quarter cupful and 5 different types of fresh herb when a recipe calls for 2 or 3. I love strong, really strong flavors, and foods that leave me searching for descriptives. After a meal at Madame Khaw's stall the best I can come up with is "fireworks". That's a compliment.

    This morning was no different. Two friends in town, our last breakfast together after almost 48 hours of bordering-on-pathological indulgence. Dave and I love all of Madame Khaw's dishes. But our bellies had been stretched, and our taste buds bordered on fatigued. So we opted for three favorites, all punchy enough to revive faltering appetites.

    First, Madame Khaw's stellar asam fish, a deep-fried whole specimen or steak marinated in turmeric-infused oil and vinegar. Many recipes for this dish call for a few whole chilies. Madame Khaw's version is approximately one third to one half chilies in volume. There's plenty of turmeric in there -- the oil is good and orange -- and finely shredded ginger and sliced garlic and sesame seeds too. It's tart (asam is the Malay/Indonesian word for "sour") with a wonderful hit of astringency. Should you choose to eat one of those chilies (I always do) the jolt of heat will cut right through the vinegar and then quickly subside. It's a powerfully addictive dish, one I'm sure that I could eat every day.

    An appropriately gutsy accompaniment is Madame Khaw's nasi ulam, a cool dish of rice mixed with (she says) twenty or so rhizomes (turmeric, ginger, Chinese keys) and fresh herbs -- including wild lime, turmeric and wild pepper leaves (the latter of which is often mistakenly called "betel leaf") and Vietnamese mint -- as well as sliced shallot. Madame Khaw does not own a food processor, preferring to chop, to the minutest dice, all of her rhizomes by hand. The leaves she rolls and slices into the wispiest of chiffonades. Tossed with the vegetables, the rice remains fluffy, each grain distinct. There is so much going on in this dish in terms of flavor and texture that you have to pause after each mouthful to take it all in. It tastes healthy in a way that no other rice dish I know does and, like the asam fish, is thoroughly addictive. It's also usually the first dish on Madame Khaw's cart to sell out.  

    We rounded out our plate with Penang-style acar, a fantastic relish of fresh pineapple, carrot, long beans and cucumber tossed with a dressing heavy on vinegar and crushed peanuts. Usually eaten as a side dish, acar is one I'd be happy to give star billing to. (I also envision its freshness enlivening slices of roast pork in a Penang Nyonya-style banh mi.)

    Penang's Nyonya food is generally more sour, less coconut milky, fresher (incorporating more fresh herbs as opposed to dry spices) and spicier than the Malacca's -- a result, presumably, of Penang's proximity to Thailand. Madame Khaw's food, and these three dishes especially, embody everything I love about it.

    I understand the occasional desire for a restaurant meal now and again, as opposed to one eaten standing around a cart outside a wet market. Believe me, I do. But if you have time for one Nyonya meal on Penang, make it at Madame Khaw's elbow. (She also sells everything for takeaway, and offers plastic spoons.)

Get Your Grill On: The Liver-in-Diyarbakir Edition

A Diyarbakir kebap usta fans the flames

    If there is a country that loves grilling more than Turkey does, I don't know it. This is a population that stows barbecues in the trunks of cars, ready to be stoked up -- in a park or a parking lot, on a hill, by a river or a roadside, even on a traffic median -- at a moment's notice. In winter of 2012 we passed a group hunkered in a snowdrift by the freeway breakdown lane on Ankara's outskirts. As a middle-aged woman skewered meat, her (presumably) husband fanned the grill's flames. The thermometer on our dashboard read 1C.

     "Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow ...." The old saw about the American postman would apply to the Turkish griller, if it also included a reference to Hades-like heat. Such were the weather conditions at the beginning of last week in Diyarbakir [dee-YAHR-bah-ker], in Turkey's inland southeast, where the skies were cloudless and daytime temperatures hovered around 41C (106F). Night brought little relief.

     After several hours wandering the city's old section the last thing I wanted to do was sit in the smoke path of a flaming grill. But in Diyarbakir the night belongs to the izgara usta (BBQ master). After dusk it's near impossible to walk a block without bumping into a wheeled cart belching meaty smoke.

Assembling a couple to go

     We were there to sample local specialties, and grilled anything -- liver especially -- is one. So we gave in and selected a mobile operation that came with tables and proper seating -- banquettes with backs and cushions, no less! -- set not street-side, but in the street. This was no Penang-style barebones street food operation. The grill anchoring one end of the cart was big, with room for at least twenty skewers laid side by side. At the other end a refrigerated case displayed liver, heart, gizzard, neck, kidney, chicken wings and chunks of beef and lamb and chicken breast, all skewered, seasoned, and ready to char.

     We placed our order (chicken wings, beef chunks, lamb liver) and sat. The usta's helpers layed before us the fixings of a feast: roasted whole small onions and long thin green peppers, sliced tomatoes and fresh onion, two plates of coban salatasi (chopped tomato-onion-cucumber-parsley salad) and a platter heaped with fresh rocket leaves with wedges of lemon for squeezing. We raised a hand to the teenager tending a nearby ayran cart, and soon we held glasses of ice-cold salted yogurt thinned with water and seasoned with fresh herbs.

    Soon the guests of honor arrived, each kebap on a separate platter, another piled with thin flatbreads. The beef was smoky and surprisingly tender and the chicken wings, seasoned with nothing other than salt and pepper, were deeply browned and crackly-skinned with moist flesh that fell off the bones.  

A common night sight on Diyarbakir streets

    To be honest the liver was a bit on the dry side, despite the fact that our usta had skewered it between chunks of lamb fat (a common technique).  There are probably better liver kebapci in Diyarbakir. But I was happy enough to eat my fair share, and I'm not what you'd call an offal obsessive. We ate our kebaps as rolled sandwiches, using our flatbreads to slide the meat off its skewers and then adding salad, a bit of onion and green pepper (the latter surprisingly spicy), a few leaves of rocket, a squeeze of lemon, relishing every bite as sweat ran in rivulets down our backs.

    I've never been much of a liver lover, but that kebap turned me. Was it the liver? Or was it Diyarbakir itself, a city that confounded, challenged and intrigued me all at the same time. I'll return, and I'll order liver kebab again, too. But not till autumn, after the mercury falls.

The grilled kebab capital of Turkey may well be Gaziantep, a great eating city some 3 hours (by car) south of Diyarbakir. Dave spent a few days there in March, shooting a story on grilling for the June-July 2013 issue of Saveur magazine. He shares portraits of Gaziantep's grill masters, and mouthwatering photographs of their specialties, here.

 

 

 

George Town: The State of the (Our) Stomach(s)

    Chicken curry mee (yellow noodles), up the street from "famous" Teochew cendol (which is meh). The slivered torch ginger flower and fresh mint say "Penang".

     We had plans to be in Turkey right now. But two weeks ago we decided to give ourselves more time to settle into our new home and pushed our departure back. Lucky, I guess. Or not. Turkey has become a big part of our lives over the last three years and a big part of me wishes that I was there this week. Not to make some half-baked attempt at "reporting" on the protests -- but to observe, talk to people and get a firsthand feel for the mood. We care deeply about what's going in Istanbul and the rest of the country, and where all this will end. Whether we're physically there or not, right now our hearts are in Istanbul.

    Our stomachs, however, are another story.

Hainan chicken rice at Kheng Pin. We love this vendor's precisely poached bird and the wonderfully grain-y texture of the rice.

    Over the last few weeks we've eased into a routine that we could only dream about as we waited, in our suburban Penang rental, to move into our George Town shop house. Walking instead of driving, almost everywhere. Shopping at the morning wet market just three blocks from our house. Becoming regulars at certain stalls in the market and finding "our" butcher. Exchanging hellos with neighbors. And, of course, breaking up hours in front of the computer with meals and snacks out.

A pretty decent char koay teow and lor bak, on Carnavon at the corner of Malay Street.

    Perhaps we've gone a bit overboard. When all is said and done, a steady diet of hawker food can kill you. (Malaysians are, in fact, the least healthy population in southeast Asia, with high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Their devotion to street food is partially to blame.)

Gado-gado on the left (weekends only), pineapple ring stewed in fragrant curry on the right, sambal belacan front and center. International Hotel, Jalan Transfer.

    But there is so much goodness out there in our new hometown -- much of it literally minutes from our front door. And we've only scratched the surface. The streets of George Town present temptations often impossible to resist.

Wonton mee "dry", super seafood-ish prawn fritters on the side. Corner of Carnavon and Kimberley.

    It's amazing to me, really, that so few travelers outside of Asia are aware of the culinary attractions of this city. Not to pick on Singapore, but the Lion City's self proclamations set it up for the comparison, so  here goes: Southeast Asia's "street food capital?" You must be joking.

A simply superb thosai, or fermented rice flour batter pancake. Location? My lips are sealed..

    Spend a couple days just in George Town -- let alone the rest of Penang -- and such an assertion will come to seem as absurd to you as it does to me. And pesumably, also to the hundreds of Singaporeans who descend on Penang's kopitiam and hawker stalls every weekend.

Breakfast food: duck koay teow th'ng, silky rice noodles in a subtle broth, Kimberley Street.

     I love the street food in Chiang Mai. And Saigon. And Hanoi. And Taipei and in other cities on Taiwan. But the bottom line is this: if you're contemplating a street food-fueled tour of southeast Asia you'd be crazy to skip Penang.

Roast duck, sticky barbecued pork and gravy-soaked rice. Carnavon and Cheong Fatt Tze.

    At the recent World Street Food Congress in Singapore, organizer KF Seetoh insisted that street food "is a cuisine, not a physicality. "To which I say: "Baloney!" You can't take this food, put it in a prettyshopping mall food or restaurant, and expect it to taste the same.

Hokkien mee, mixed noodles in a savory prawn-pork-chili soup. A signature Penang dish that, for some reason, many western tourists end up missing out on.

    (If you're looking for a few more reasons to visit my home town I can -- and did, for Wall Street Journal Asia -- think of five. Read them here. Not to mention the George Town Festival, on until July 7.)

UPDATE: This post generated quite a bit of discussion on a FB page. Among other tidbits, World Street Food Congress organizer KF Seetoh deemed me a "semi-retired auntie" and a colonialist, presumably because I am a foreigner who enjoys local food. Fairly offensive, but we're all allowed our opinion! You can see the discussion here, though the original poster has now closed it to comments: https://www.facebook.com/ivan.ng.56027/posts/279519462193565 

As George Town Changes, One Thing Remains Constant

 

    George Town is changing fast. In the little over four years since we began visiting on a regular basis the city has sprouted  a dozen boutique hotels (with more on the way), a bakery turning out Paris-worthy rustic French baked goods and coq au vin, a cafe where the daily specials might include handmade tamales steamed in banana leaf or a perfectly dressed Caesar salad and a hole-in-the-wall serving delicate French pastries crafted by a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and siphon coffee from a menu with detailed tasting notes. There are new galleries and performance spaces. The George Town Festival, which takes place every summer, has grown from a nice little celebration of Penang culture to a month-long fest that attracts artists, musicians and performers from around the world.

    But make no mistake: George Town is no twee boutique town tarted up for tourists, with no real sense of its old self. For now at least this place that we'll soon call home -- after 20 months (!) of renovations --  is still real. Those new cafes and exist side-by-side with hawker stalls and coffee shops and restaurants that have been around for decades.

    From the latter category, one of our favorites is International Hotel's coffee shop and its famed nasi Padang/nasi Malay stall. This enterprise is decades old and family run. Its proprietors came to Penang from west Sumatra, Indonesia (home of nasi Padang) over 20 years ago. In the four or so years that we've been eating here the place hasn't changed a whit. Nor has the sky-high quality of its food, or the composition of its clientele. Few tourists seem to make it to Jalan Transfer, which sits just outside George Town's UNESCO conservation core. Fewer still make it to International Hotel which, given the dearth of choices when it comes to Malay cuisine in George Town, is a pity.

    Be forewarned: choice here can be overwhelming, especially if you know (and now you do, because we're telling you) that every dish is worthy of space on your plate. Eating at International Hotel as a couple is painful, the decision of what to eat almost too onerous. No matter how wisely you choose you'll walk away wishing you'd chosen differently, or eaten more, and vowing to return.

    If at all possible, come with a group.

    What you'll find, if you come for lunch around noon (and you shouldn't come much later, lest the most popular dishes be finished and the coffee shop too crowded to seat you), is a two-level glass-fronted display case at the coffee shop's entrance groaning under the weight of stainless steel trays holding dishes west Sumatran and Malay, and sometimes kind of Indian and sort of Chinese. Curries, stir-fries, sauteed vegetables, small rectangles of golden crispy deep-fried tempeh that will make you wonder why chips makers don't get hip to the possibilities of this fermented soybean cake. There are salad-y concoctions of morning glory (aka water spinach), bean sprouts, chilies and coconut and sometimes mango, and a lovely refreshing acar consisting of fresh pineapple, cucumber, and mild red chili rings in sweet-tangy vinegar dressing.There is fish stewed (look for the pot of lemon-yellow turmeric and coconut milk fish curry) and deep-fried and sauced. A glorious, truly truly gloriously warm spice and chili-laden beef rendang. Whole long Asian eggplants, cooked to impossible silkiness and slathered with fresh red chili sauce. An unctuous pineapple curry -- yes, you read that right, a richly aromatic, sunset hued cinnamon-heavy coconut curry sauce with no meat or chicken or fish, just thick rings of semi-firm, sweet-tart pineapple. And chicken cooked with kecap manis, its almost black sauce and slightly sweet stickiness countered by chunks of bright red fiery chili.

    There's more. A small table behind the display case holds milder dishes: greens stewed in coconut milk, rehydrated ropes of delightfully chewy dried bean curd with rice vermilli in soup, globe eggplants halved and floating in a delicious but unchallenging Indian-ish curry. This table is also home to what might be considered this family's piece de resistance: whole fish whose split bellies hold a stuffing of chili sauce-rubbed sliced onions. At a cooker just to the side of the coffee shop the fish are submerged in hot oil; they emerge crisp, the color of black coffee, their bellies spilling onions sweetened by the heat and gone to caramel, some crunchy and some still slightly soft. These fish go fast.

    And yet still more: nearby, a 2-tiered shelf displays cooked and fresh vegetables and a few sambal (chili sauces, made with belacan/shrimp paste or just fresh chilies and lime) with which to assemble your own ulam spread (think of it as the Malay version of a crudite plate) .Relatively recently the stall's proprietors introduced a new item: a platter holding the makings of gado-gado (tofu cubes, bean sprouts, chunks of cucumber, etc) and a bowl of chunky peanut sauce to spoon over your vegetable mix.

    This is a self-serve operation. Most diners opt for a plate of rice over which they spoon sauce from a curry or two, bits and pieces from 2 or 3 dishes, maybe a bit of sambal on the side. But to make the most of this stall's vast selection we recommend you accept a plate of rice, then use the empty bowls, plates and platters neatly stacked by the rice cooker to assemble a family-style feast at the center of your table.

    Don't be embarassed to make several trips to and from the display to your table; it's the only way to make sure you've covered all of this establishment's hits. Once you've mapped out your meal let the staff know. They'll come to your table and figure your bill, and even offer to cut some of the more unweildy dishes (those long eggplants smothered in chilies, for instance) into shareable portions with kitchen shears. Order a drink from the coffee shop's Chinese owners (and pay them directly), then pay for your lunch after you've finished.

    In the unlikely event that you're still hungry you're no more than a 5-minute walk from an exquisite walnut and salted caramel tart, and a good espresso is just ten minutes further by foot. All this, and International Hotel's nasi Padang too. Welcome to the new George Town.

Nasi Padang/nasi Malay stall at International Hotel, Jalan Transfer at the corner of Jalan Sekerat. Lunch is the best time to go, as early as 11/1130.

Phở: Not (Just) A Noodle Soup

So sue me. I thought that phở referred to a Vietnamese street dish comprising rice noodles in a rich broth. It does, of course. But phở is much more, for the dish is actually named for the rice flour sheets from which its noodles are made.

So there I was, like an idiot, proclaiming myself to be unimpressed with phở -- it is true that I am not enamored of the dish, but I'm open to being converted -- when by doing so I was unwittingly writing off a whole host of foods made with phở or, to be more precise, bánh phở (those rice flour sheets).

But, before we go there, a quick diversion into the murky origins of Phở the Dish. By now pretty much every phởnatic knows its story: phở is the result of a marriage of French culinary prowess and Vietnamese adaption, an indiginized version of the classic pot au feu.

But not so fast. There is a contrarian take on phở's origins. I was glad to learn of it (thank you Mark of Stickyrice). The pot-au-feu-to-phở tale always struck me as a wee too neat and tidy.

In her book Aspirations and Appetites in Vietnam: Food and Drink in the Long Nineteenth Century Erica J. Peters tells us that phở first appeared on Hanoi streets (the creation of one single cook? or many cooks? the identity of the dish's inventor(s) are lost to the ages) after cows -- not traditionally eaten by Vietnamese but used as draft animals -- were imported into the country and raised for the colonial French table.

"Networks of Chinese and Vietnamese who butchered meat for the French or cooked their meals probably diverted beef remnants to street soup vendors," Peters elaborates in a paper titled "Defusing Phở: Soup Stories and Ethnic Erasures"

And to me at least, this take on phở's origins rings true. Wouldn't Vietnamese cooks, as enterprising as any cooks anywhere, have figured out what to do with meaty bones and scraps? Would they have needed -- or wanted -- to call upon a classic French dish for inspiration? For that matter, why should we assume that phở''s inventor(s) knew pot au feu firsthand? In her book, for which she drew on French writings from the colony, Peters describes French colonials who went to great pains to hold themselves apart from locals, right down to what they ate.

Yet there is still the question of name -- phở' must certainly be a Vietnamese transliteration of feu, right? But the word phở' could have come from fun -- Cantonese for phở'-like rice noodles -- which Vietnamese would have known from the noodle dishes that, Peters observes, were sold by southern Chinese on the streets of Saigon and Hanoi.It wouldn't be the last time Vietnamese street cooks adapted a noodle specialty from a neighboring Asian country (see hủ tiếu).

Whatever phở''s true origin story we know its evolution: from Hanoi street specialty to Vietnam's most iconic dish. Food-focused travelers to the country tend to obsess over it (often to the point of missing out on other, equally delicious Vietnamese noodle specialties) even in Saigon, which lies about 1,780 kilometers south of Phở' Central. (Phở' made its way to Saigon with migrants from Hanoi in the middle of the 20th century, and morphed into a whole other animal. Which version is better? I'm not sticking my toe into that debate.)

Lesser known to visitors is that Vietnam's beloved noodle soup now lends its name to other dishes made from banh phở', those rice flour sheets. A few weeks ago we sampled two, in a neighborhood near Truc Bach Lake that's home to a rash of shops spilling tables streetside and serving all things banh phở'. For reasons I know not of, most of these dishes include beef.

Phở cuốn are rice rice flour rectangles rolled around roughly chopped beef, cilantro and lettuce served with a nuoc mam floating thin slices of kohlrabi. Think Vietnamese fresh spring rolls with a thicker, slicker wrapper and a meatier, heavier filling. Whether it's made from wheat or rice flour I love a noodle or a dumpling wrapper that boasts a bit of heft and chew, but the phở cuốn didn't wow me. The beef was a bit chewy for the delicacy of the wrapper and I missed the in-your-face herbiness of a classic "salad roll". Tasty enough but I probably wouldn't go out of my way for a repeat nosh.

I would, however, travel many hours for another go at phở chiên phồng, a delectable saucy stir-fry of beef, tomato and choy sum or Chinese mustard (thanks Duy, for the correction) ladled over crispy golden rice flour pillows. The rice flour puffs are made by deep-frying squares cut from two banh phở' sheets that have been pressed together.

The puffs are slightly oily (difficult to avoid when you're deep-frying any dough made from rice flour) but boast the most lovely delicate crunch, which they manage to retain even after absorbing some of the dish's beefy juices. By no means a light dish (this meal was one of the few moments of our week in Hanoi during which I was actually thankful for the persistent bone-penetrating cold) this phở chiên phồng was utterly delicious.

The next day I asked Hanoi Cooking Centre's Tracey Lister, author of two cookbooks on Vietnam (Tracey's Vietnamese Street Food is out in the USA as of this week) about the dishes' origins. Almost all of the customers at Phở cuốn Hưng Bền, where we ate our phở cuốn and phở chiên phồng were young, university age or below, and this made me wonder if the dishes were relatively new. Was this a "kids' thing", a group of dishes that Hanoians middle-aged and beyond simply can't wrap their minds around? Tracey dates their appearance on Hanoi streets to fifteen or so years ago, give or take a few, and reminded me that this isn't the first "new take" on a dish made with banh phở: versions of the noodle soup made with chicken didn't appear until Vietnam suffered shortages of beef during wartime.

They're a reminder of the ever-evolving nature of street food, which we tend to think of in terms of Classics. Like phở cuốn and phở chiên phồng, beef phở itself must have once challenged notions of what one should, or would even want to, eat on the street.

Phở cuốn Hưng Bền, 26 Nguyen Khac Hieu, tel. 043-829-2040. Is this place the best of the dozen or so similar shops near Truc Bach Lake? No idea. But we did enjoy our lunch.

 

KL Quickie II: Pan Meen

A quick trip down to Kuala Lumpur by road, three and a half hours down and the same back, two nights.

These jaunts are never initiated in the name of pleasure; there's something to do, an errand (or 50) to run, a bureaucratic formality to tend to. We pack our schedule tightly so as not to wear out our welcome at the homes of the friends who host us -- and, well, because we just really don't love KL anymore.

Meals aren't planned ahead, they're where and what we can squeeze in between stops but sometimes, as in the case of yesterday, geography and timing work out and we are able to revisit an old favorite.

Pan meen -- why oh why don't more foreigners, more visitors to Malaysia, know about this dish? If you order it "dry" -- the best way to eat it, I think -- it's a tangle of sturdy wide wheat noodles slicked with lightly sweet dark soy sauce and topped with chopped pork and slivered mushrooms and/or tree ear fungus. Daun manis, small sweet green leaves, too. The piece de resistance is deep-fried ikan bilis (tiny dried anchovies). A textural wonder that brings so much goodness to your mouth with each chopstick full -- all heightened by the green cilantro-lime-chili sambal that comes alongside.

Like most any "dry" Chinese Malaysian noodle  there's a corresponding soupy version. But we like the way the dry noodles maintain their bite and chew. We take our soup, floating a couple of pieces of tofu skin wrapped around fish paste and deep-fried, on the side.

If you find yourself in KL, seek out pan meen.And ask for extra sambal. There's a good version at the wonderful Imbi market. Our favorite -- because of the fish paste, the mushrooms sliced a bit wider than usual, and the larger ikan bilis which, after a bath in the oil, come out both crispy and chewy -- is in Section 17, a 15 or so minute taxi ride from KL Sentral Stesen. Details here.