Durian season in the northern region has officially ended 2 weeks back .
Somehow , the fruit hawkers here are still pretending like whatever they are selling is all from Penang .
There are still the odd harvests from this farm and that , but to claim that all the thorny fruits are from Penang island , now , that's an outright lie .
However most tourists , in particular , those flying in here from mainland China on group tours , being unable to tell the difference as well as being very hard pressed for time , have been responsible for snapping up every durian in sight ! Bad or good , most times they pay any amount for them and that's so stupid lemme tell you .
Anyway , no thanks to a fastfood outlet promoting a durian dessert which sold out so fast , because I always pop in for some beef burgers , the smell hit me and well ,that just made the craving grow worse !
Since I was not willing to pay another 109 ringgit for one single fruit again , we decided to hunt around for those cheaper prepacked durians that used to cost 7 to 8 ringgit Last Year .
It finally dawned on me that we would have to pay more because now is This Year . And this year's prices will never be like Last Year's !
End up , we went back to the most honest durian seller in town , whom I'm keeping top secret .
That's how we got the 15 , 20 and 30 ringgit packs up there .
Armed with a bit of knowledge from Malay sellers over on the mainland , he still insisted that he sold Penang durians and no Thai durians . Let's see , I'm gonna put these to the test and see how it goes . You can scroll down to the bottom to find out , in case my longwinded yacking bores you to death .
Anyway , I'd rather buy from him than other sellers because from Very Green Durians ( strange , very very strange , too many durians this year that are so green ! ) , we have reverted to Yellowish Brown ones which the Chinese press warned us against consuming last year over fears of chemicals being used to ripen them .
Me , I don't care . I just want to have some cheap durians and despite the price tags you see above , because my partner is proficient in Penang hokkien , we got all that at a discount and it only cost us 50 ringgit for the 3 packs .
Now here's the verdict
$ 15 - can do only if you just need a fix . Last year maybe worth $ 7 max . It came from 2 different fruit combos , probably originated from Perak , one half is not fully ripened
$ 20 - supposed to be D24 but that is utter bullshit . It's got a strange sickly sweet honey like smell and tastes chao cheng ( green and grassy aftertaste ) . Those of you who ate the dessert from that fastfood outlet and commented on the odd taste , well , it's a matter of time before we figure out where these low quality D24's are actually coming from . I'm thinking they're Thai fruits or the final harvests from a very bad plantation in a really baren area with no natural stream water .
$30 - 100% Penang durian . Ah , we hit the jackpot . Life is good once again and thank gawd we kept it for last .
There were the higher end ones of course , costing close to 50 ringgit for a single pack . We'll go back for those another day . Quietly of course .
Location : Penang
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