Midnight disciple of the Ikan Bakar man

Some Penangites pop cili padi like kacang puteh .

We go for our fix after midnight at Song River Cafe . Strange timing right ? Not really when you check out how many disciples are willing to make a beeline here and wait with the patience of a saint just to pay homage to this fiendish dish .

Seoul Garden Sunrise Tower 2015

Not that I'm complaining about the price....

Mee Rebus and Pasembor Edgecumbe Road

Mee Rebus is not one of my favourite dishes , and yet I found myself raving stark mad, hopelessly hooked over the one sold here.


 

" Neh, this is the beef right ? " ( it's got an awesome smoked flavour to it lemme tell you )

" What style is it cooked in ? "

His reply tells me it's a Top Secret recipe.So forget it, his trap is shut.

One bite of the squid and all the fibres unravel. Omg, damn addictive. Damn, damn addictive.

Sushi Tei - Set Lunch revamp

The darnest thing about this place, is that it remains open even during the odd hours, when other restaurants have gone on break shift . So yeah, while I said I might not return the last time, in the end, I had to eat back my own words .

This is exactly the same set as we ordered on our last visit, on an overhaul.

Learnt to eat Cha Soba noodles while in Japan, as I am absolutely and completely NOT ....a fan of Ramen. When I returned, I taught shortie and that's how you always see on our table, whenever we go Japanese. 
Basically, it's a cold dish that's an acquired taste.

Sakae Sushi - Gurney Plaza ( PF )

Today, let's compare the pictures of dishes from the menu, to the actual item sent to your table.

Fire Engine kids meal ( RM $9.90 )

Chicken Nugget, Golden Fish Cake, Panda Fish Cake, fries, assorted vegies

Reality : almost the same in terms of presentation.

( NH ) Seoul Garden,Sunrise Tower

The leaf you see floating above this Gopchang Jeongol is called Perilla. It's an incredibly delicious tasting vegetable, which the Korean community in Malaysia have managed to cultivate locally .
Though rougher in texture, darker in colour and not as fragrant as those grown in Korea, if you're craving for it, this will do just the job in satiating your appetite.

If only you could smell the tripe, bits of beef, red chillies....perilla leaf and perilla seeds, boiling in this glorious red cauldron....really good !

Set Lunch at Sushi Tei, Penang

Sushi Tei has everything going for it.

Exciting open sushi kitchen, classy looking interior accentuated by massive mirrors and panels, beautiful food, great lighting .

But my goodness, I sincerely hope someone from their Singaporean head office reads this review of mine, because their local ushers and local floor staff have got a huge attitude problem. They absolutely hate interacting with customers and are reluctant to help. 

Luckily I sat in the area where foreign staff were assigned to. Now, these foreigners, on the other hand, were sincerely welcoming and incredibly nice .

Seoul Garden Korean Restaurant,Sunrise Tower (NH)

If you've been to Korea before, you'll know how massively good their street food , as compared to their restaurant fare , is.

But airfare costs good money, so whenever a craving for Kimchi Jeon ($18 ) or kimchi pancake, pops up, I come here.

The obligatory spread of condiments( lobak sweet pickle, small ikan bilis, bean sauce, taugeh, watercress,etc) and salad leaves.

Kimchi is as expected, of any respectable Korean run restaurant.

Still incomparable to my former flatmate, Robert's Korean wife's recipe ( her kimchi is so addictive, it is to die for !!!)

Ah yes, I have had some good fortune to meet such people in the course of my life.

Seoul Garden is a specialist when it comes to spicy korean soups .

Delightfully teeming with full bodied, rich and very satisfying flavours

Xuan Xin Restaurant - Gurney Plaza ( NH )

Every dish here, bears a sticker with the name, of the respective Master who concocted it.
Most dishes start off nicely, only to turn unbearable before you're even halfway through .

Lotus root fried with mok yee, snowpeas and carrots. Although everything had a nice crunchy texture , it was a sad case of taste overload.
Too much wine, fermented red bean overdose.

3 quarters left uneaten.

So many rude hawkers at Gurney Drive

26th October - Public Holiday.... yet I suffered from temporary amnesia when I suggested that we eat here tonight.

As we walked from Gurney Plaza towards the hawker centre, it became apparent that I had chosen the worst possible time to eat .
Scream ! Look at the crowd ! All I saw was a sea of heads bobbing up and down, ahead of me. Still we dove in.

Passing the first koay teow thng stall, I witnessed a drink stall hawker forcing a 20 something non customer, off a chair that he said belonged to him. Where did he expect him to sit ? He didn't care if he had to stand eating. Oh boy.

Weaved our way out of this mad sector and finally found a space somewhere in front of  Pasembor stall in front of G.P.Soon Rojak ( my fav) . Only problem was, the table was laden with every kind of dish, bowl and utensil which remained uncleared.

A 'looking' match began between us and the drink hawker next door to the pasembor. After a while it became obvious that they DID NOT want to clear the table for us and we had to do it ourselves. Giving up, we used a tissue to wipe the surface clean .

While my partner,  joined the queue at Stall no 71 (nice ckt for $5 with 3 huge prawns ), the owner (male) finally came over and showed me the menu.
Still seething over the 'waiting game' which I had lost earlier, I told him I didn't want to order. It was then he unleashed his barrageful of nonsense in Mandarin ( 3 quarter of which was lost on me but not the meaning ).

"You mean after having to clear the table FOR YOU, you now want me to place an order ??? LATER ! I'm waiting for someone to return "

He backed off leaving the menu behind on my table. I must have been loud as the table of Ah Bengs across me had begun grinning, after seeing our 'little exchange' as though I was some Ah Cher about to parang him in half and they were just waiting for action to unfold or tables to topple . Whatever.

Undettered by the promise of fat profit, this time he sent his wife in to eyeball me. I swear she looked deep into my iris to come to some sort of analysis.
" Wait ..." I told her. She swiped the menu. Someone's pissed..... No, She didn't take it out on me since her hubby probably warned her about my ' nice mood ' . Probably she saw the growl in my eyes . Instead, she took it out on a new arrival in front of G.P.Soon.

" Are you ordering any drinks " she asked them . I didn't hear their reply but I soon heard her banging plastic chairs she had pulled from them to stack up . She even went to the extreme extent of folding up the table,right under their noses as they looked on in shock .
Wow....real gangsta this woman. Repulsive behaviour.

It was only later, that I discovered that they had the audacity to compell me to order drinks, even though the table I was sitting on, belonged to the Pasembor stall ....not them. While that explains why they refused to clear the table at the time, it's certainly no excuse for them to force drinks down our throat.

So how'd I not get the short end of the stick ?
First of all , I was sitting on another person's table.But most important of all, when in Penang, you have to show some balls and give a loud rebuff with a good measure of outrage thrown in.
It's perfectly acceptable to show and sound ( don't bang, don't get physical, just use verbal)  your displeasure publicly , especially to hawkers or traders who like to shortchange or ill treat their customers.
Or else you will be clearly bullied like that family and man above.

Location : Gurney Drive Hawker Centre

Chowtime : night

Ship off Gurney Drive

Snapped this on Monday morning. Looks as if the ship is polluting the air off Gurney Drive.

Except that it isn't. It's about to pour. That's all . Which makes it hard for those who like to take their morning walk on this stretch. Oh well....

T.G.I.Fridays ( PF )

How to spend what the courier brought in. 



Head here

80 Sen Ticket on a Lamborghini

Caught this on my camera as I scanned the Gurney Drive strip.

Spot the pink parking slip on the windscreen.

Ridiculous isn't it ?

Morganfield's Feast Platter, Gurney Paragon ( NH )

Hard luck trying to land a table here, if you walk in without reservations .

As opposed to a diner's corner , this place is by and by a drinker's heaven.

Very nice for slouching around on a high stool and getting hit on even .

Lean Huat for 6am Hokkien Mee ( NH )

Everyone refers to this famous stall as Swee Kong hokkien mee .

So did I until I snapped this picture and realised that they DO have a name after all ! 

Max Gourmet,Gurney Plaza ( NH )

Take Note : This Outlet Is No Longer In Operation


Although Max Gourmet has been around for some time already, I'm trying it out for the first time today.

At first we sit outside with the crowd, but then I spy some box seats inside, so we shift inwards.

Sotong Boat - Gurney Drive ( U )

There I was in Gurney Drive. About to start on this yummy sotong bakar below

When all of a sudden .... whoooshhh......the wind came. "Lai liao lai liao !" the hawkers yelled as they looked in the direction of the roundabout

Things went helter skelter when the sky opened up.

My boat almost overturned, the filmsy sauces spilled blood red ketchups and bits of pounded peanuts onto the rickety plastic table.

Drat ! Had to sprint for cover.By the time I was in the car the sotong was limpish and not as crisp as when it would have been when it was hot. Damn it.

Chicken Nuggets - GSC Cinemas

Came here to watch Men In Black 3 tonight.

That was just the pretext.

This is the real reason why I chose this place over others.

Chicken Nuggets

Can't get enough of the hard, crunchy, puffed up crust.

Large size please.

We settle into our seats in the cinema hall .

Noom noom noom....until we realise that we've finished them even before the show has started.

A quick run outside for a second order, soon fixes that.

Happens that I was seated next to a girl with 3 kinds of odours. That kind of spoilt it for me.

Till it didn't matter if I thought Josh Brolin's acting was like kayu. Nor that Will Smith's timing seemed a little off.

Everytime she bent forward, she released the heat from the drawers she had soaked for 3 days before washing.

And when she lifted her right arm,every now and then, I smelt car freshener.

She also bought a box of popcorn with her.
I was ok with that.
It was when she opened her mouth to pop one in, that the right side of my body wilted from her garlic breath.

Maybe next time we should get Premier Class tickets.

Either that or she was really Boris the Animals sister in disguise.

( NH ) Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant - new look

It's been ages since I've been here. They've closed for renovations for so long, I've almost forgotten they even existed on this floor .

We followed the waitress into the area where the cushioned seats were.

Nando's Cataplana feast, Gurney Plaza ( PF )

Penangites have fallen hopelessly in love with this Portuguese chicken franchise from day one.

Us included.

 We want to try out their signature dish, served in this very cute but strange looking copper/brass like container.