Previously I introduced KhunThai. Today, I introduce its younger brother – Hun Tai, which selling only two items – Pan Mee and Pi Pa Duck. We went to this restaurant in Lunas in our recent Kulim eating trip.

I couldn’t believe that this place was not in Malfreemaps. Luckily my friend visited it before and knew the way. You may use the expensive Butterworth-Kulim Expressway (BKE) and take Lunas exit. Turn left after exiting highway. Go straight until you reach Lunas town. Wait at traffic light at T-junction and turn right. The shop is just right of you with an ample parking lot.

To order pan mee, one have to fill in the order chit provided on each table. The host won’t entertain you or show you a black face when you personally order them from the stall. Pan Mee (RM3.00 small) was made on the spot hence was quite springy. It was topped with fried fish cakes, anchovies, black fungus, sweet leaves, and minced pork…. typical pan mee’s ingredients yet not to be missed.

The reason I visited this restaurant is because they have “hand tear” pan mee, in which I first found it in Malacca and is called “Mee Hun Kuih” (面粉糕) there. I personally like this kind of tough and chewy pan mee. Also, occasionally they did have Spinach noodle so make sure you ask them if interested.

More interesting is their complimentary anchovy soup in which I found it is quite rich compared to other shops.

Having a bowl of pan mee was usually not enough for me, so I ordered a quarter of Pi Pa Duck 琵琶鸭 (RM7.00 a quarter). For this, you can directly order from waitresses there including the one preparing drinks (it is family business basically). Ducks were fried on the spot hence they were juicy. Sweet sauce provided could be a bit stingy so you may ask for more.

Last but not least, complimentary Cai Boey 菜尾 with Pi Pa Duck is appetizing.

If you are living in Penang island and not sure what to do during weekend, you may make a half-day eating and sightseeing trip to Lunas/Kulim and visit this Pan Mee stall during lunch hour (Don’t worry, mainland is safe). The place can be crowded with workers from as far as Kulim Hi-Tech Park during weekdays. One minor problem is the flies there, which is common around Kulim area.

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It was another evening when I had my Tang Yen at Magazine Road, and noticed that they will be moving on 12-May-2012.

Do not worry. They just move few houses away from its original location – to Bee Hong Coffee Shop 美凤茶室 (Click the image above to enlarge). Operation hour still remained the same – 7pm – 11pm. Close on Wednesday and Sunday.The reason was due to “giving road” for construction in current location.

So, if you can’t find the famous stall in future, just walk a few meters away and you should see the familiar stall with familiar face. Read my review in previous post.

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Quick Link: Download menu here

How frequent you will see this nicely crafted kid’s meal for your kids (or maybe yourself as well) in restaurant? That Hello Kitty is too cute to consume! This is just one of the healthy meals served by Idealite 生命阳光.

Idealite 生命阳光 is located at the same row with Waterfall Hotel at Gottlieb Road near T-junction traffic light in front of Botanic Gardens. The ground floor is under renovation and is expected to be completed in June this year.

By the way, the Kiddy Meal (RM10.70) is only available for breakfast.

What’s so special about this restaurant compared to other vegetarian restaurants? As a starter, they use high quality cooking stuff, such as ultraviolet filtered water, organic brown sugar instead of white sugar, Himalaya rock salt instead of white salt, brown rice instead of white rice, and olive/grape seed oil instead of normal cooking oil. For instance, Dry Curry Set Meal 香辣干咖喱套餐 (RM9.70) above is accompanies with brown rice by default.  The curry mainly consists of potatoes.

Another set meal we tried that day was Eryngii Mushroom Set Meal 特色杏鲍套餐 (RM9.70). Both set meals came with brown rice, salad, tofu, and fruit.

Check this out! They even have Hakka Lei Cha 客家擂茶饭 (RM12.70). It consists of Thai basil, sweet leaves, long bean, carrot, soy bean, bean curd, cabbage, and chickpeas (Phew~).

To consume this, pour the soup provided into the rice bowl. Mix it well before serving.

Whoa! “Coagulated pig blood” in curry noodle! What a famous yet sinful food found in Penang.  However, this is not the case for Idealite. It was made of tofu and the whole dish contains only vegetables, yet it still tastes like curry mee. Each bowl costs RM9.70.

Other than traditional red curry mee, the restaurant also serves Organic Green Curry Ramen 招牌青咖喱拉面 , which tastes sweeter. Notice the egg? Yes, this is not pure vegetarian restaurant but more towards wellness restaurant. However, Idealite does not use milk and coconut milk. It also does not use peanut.

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Are you visiting Penang island and looking for a place with good food, nice beers, and affordable stay? Then you should consider this 3-in-1 Malabar restaurant located at… uh… Malabar road.

The restaurant is located at the intersection of Kampong Malabar and Lebuh Cintra. Best way to come to this place is by coming from Penang Road or Chulia Street. If you come from Chulia Street, at the end of Chulia Street you will reach Penang Road intersection. Turn left, and turn left again at the first junction. That’s Kampong Malabar street and you may park your car there. The restaurant is at the end of the street (or see Google map below).

The building consists of two floors. First floor for dining while second one for accommodation.

My first visit was back in January 2012 for a food review session. That time Malabar Inn at second floor was still under renovation but we couldn’t help ourselves but to climb up and took some photos.

I can’t remember how many rooms they have but according to Agoda, it should be 8. The rooms are clean and neat in general. However, most rooms do not have bathroom attached.

Fortunately the shared bathrooms/toilets are clean. Furthermore, they use Electrolux hot shower, not some cheap shower-and-shock water heater.

Anyway, this is a food blog so I just put Malabar Inn aside. Malabar Restaurant is air-conditioned and consist of two areas – dining area and a bar counter. Since my last visit in January, I noticed that there were some changes in their menu from Facebook. To be fair to the owner and my readers, I revisited it again on Apr-2012.

First of all, you should order its Katsuri Lime with Sour Plum juice Katsuri Lime with Sour Plum 桔子酸酶汁 (RM3.50). Both lime and sour plum are preserved, make this a refreshing drink during hot day. I can easily go for two glasses for this one.

Assam Pedas (RM10.00) is sure able to open up your appetite. It comes with two mackerels in (mild) spicy and sour soup.

Jiu Hu Cha 鱿鱼炒 (RM15.00) is pretty common in Nyonya restaurant. It came with leaf lettuce for you to wrap with Jiu Hu Cha and dip with sauce provided. This dish is up to the standard.

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KhunThai Restaurant is no stranger to Penangites especially those staying in Butterworth. It was one evening I noticed a new branch opened in Penang island at Teluk Kumbar (right before Hai Boey restaurant). Last Sunday, we paid it a visit.

We arrived there around 6PM and surprisingly the restaurant was already 30% full. There were basically two dining area – sheltered and open air. We preferred the later one as it was cozier compared to inside (but be prepared for mosquitoes if you come late). We selected one “Feng Shui” place so that we can watch girls bouncing balls on beach while slurping Tom Yam soup.

Sadly the sky caught some cold that evening and started to drizzle before our food arrival. Thinking whether to move back in or continue sitting there, a waiter quickly rush into the “store room” and grab one big umbrella for us. It was then inserted into a hole on our table. How nice! (By the way, the “store room” is also a cute little bathroom).

Of course, the beach is just a crawling distance from the restaurant. This photo was taken from my seat.

Two of us just ordered three items and were extremely full at the end of our meal. The first one was obviously (Red) Tom Yam with mixed seafood 传统东炎海鲜 (RM20.00). Compared to Bukit Genting’s, this one was kept warm by charcoal and tasted nicer.

Overall, the Tom Yam was not the best we tried but at least better than most restaurants. Small version is suitable for 2-4 persons.

Secondly, Thai Steamed Fish 泰式蒸鱼. This is one of the popular dishes. The fish we ordered that day was Mangrove Red Snapper (Ang Cho in Hokkien) (RM39.00). One good thing about this dish is its herbal soup which was provided separately so that you can pour on the fish itself at your convenience. The soup was not too spicy nor too sour, just perfect for my taste bud. The restaurant put a lot of charcoal to keep the dish warm. As a result, the soup can dry up easily and you will get of wonderful burn smell at the end of the meal.

Last but not least, we ordered this Chap Oong Ommelet 泰蔬煎蛋 (RM9.00). It was a simple vegetable dish with eggs fried with Fern Leaf (Paku Pakis in Malay). We found a way to make it tastier – by dipping it with Tom Yam soup.

For the drink, after considering, we ordered half jug of sugar cane (RM7.00) instead of single glass at a price of RM2.00. It was a bit too much for 2 persons but should be okay if you drink along with spicy food.

The moment we finished our dinner around 7:30pm, whole restaurant was full of people and some were waiting for tables. Perhaps distance is not an issue as long as food and environment are good. Some said that Butterworth branch is slightly better but for me, I definitely will visit this Teluk Kumbar branch again for other items (heard their steamed Lala not bad). Make sure you reach earlier to avoid disappointment.

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It was raining session recently and it would be nice if I could enjoy a hot bowl of soup in cold evening. Yes, you can do so by visiting this Tang Yen (Glutinous Rice Ball) stall at Magazine Road (more known as “First Road” (头条路) by local Chinese), opposite of Traders Hotel.

The stall provides two types of base soup – clear and brown sugar. The soup has ginger syrup added by default. If you don’t like the strong taste of ginger, you can always ask them not to add it.

Brown sugar version is tastier compared to clear soup version due to the brown sugar. Price starts at RM2.20/RM3.30/RM4.40/RM5.50 for both types.

By default, each bowl of Tang Yen came with two big glutinous rice balls with filling (and few plain small glutinous rice balls). For big ones, one contains peanut paste while another one contains sesame seed paste. How to tell which one is which? See the small pink skin on one of the balls? That’s the different.

The one WITHOUT pink segment is peanut paste.

The one WITH pink segment is black sesame paste. Be careful not to chew too hard as the paste is mixed with fine sugar.

I like this Tang Yen because it is simply classic and affordable. Operated for more than 60 years, the dessert is still being hand-prepared on the spot using original recipe.  Operation starts from 7pm – 11pm and close on Wed and Sun. Parking could be a bit difficult (usually I just did some illegal parking or you can come after 10:30pm). The stall is extremely busy during Winter Solstice Festival (冬至).

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I was wondering where to get dry bak kut teh in Penang island, and my friend recommended me this stall located opposite of Tesco Extra Sungai Dua, inside Seong Huat Coffee Shop 祥发美食餐室.

To get to the shop, assuming you come from USM, turn left at the traffic light in front of Tesco ExtraDrive a bit more and you will see Seong Huat coffee shop on your left, next to a vegetarian shop (There is another bak kut teh shop just next to the junction but for now I will just review this stall).

The bak kut teh aroma was filling the air the moment you passed by the stall. The stall started selling bak kut teh in the afternoon til evening. This is another stall requiring you to “take number”  for the food to arrive. Other than bak kut teh stall, the shop has mixed rice, set meal, Wan Tan Mee, chicken rice, duck rice, etc which you are more than welcomed to try them out.

The dry bak kut teh consists of lady fingers, dried bean curd skin, dried chilies, squid flakes, meat balls, mixed pork to name a few. Sweat pores started to open the moment you put the first scope into your mouth… well, at least for me. I couldn’t stop sweating til the end of the meal. You can always ask the chef to make it less spicy (which I did eventually).

Of course, they also provide traditional soup version. Personally I feel that the soup is smoother compared to some other shops.

Other than white rice, they do provide yum rice as well. Too bad it is not always available. The same applied to Youtiao (Chinese oil stick) in which most of the time I couldn’t get it. 

Again, bak kut teh is depended on personal taste bud. Some like it tastes strong, some like it plain. If you are looking for something to spice up your day, you may try this stall. Well mixed ingredients make a yummy pot. The stall opens in the afternoon and evening.

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Located next to famous snake temple in Penang is a coffee shop called Yong Yao 永耀茶餐室 having food stalls which can be counted by one hand. Perhaps the most popular stall is a stall selling steamed rice at RM4.50 each.

It could be crowded during lunch hour with factory workers and cheap labours like me. Sometimes, tables remained uncleaned by stall owners after patrons left the restaurant for quite some time.

The steamed rice was served inside a traditional Chinese soup bowl. They offered three type of steamed rice. The first one is  Mushroom Chicken Rice (冬菇鸡饭).The chicken was made of whole piece of boneless chicken thigh, making this my favorite choices. We couldn’t find any mushroom during our last visit. Perhaps what they mean was that they marinated the chicken with mushroom sauce.

Next is Pork Rib Rice (排骨饭). It only consisted of three chunks of pork rib. Note that the art of eating steam rice is to pour the content into a provided plate, mix it well before enjoying. The rice was usually tastier towards the end. Do not finish all toppings first or else you will ended up eating plain rice in the end.

Lastly is Salted Fish Rice (咸鱼肉饭). It was similar to my family’s good-o-day’s minced pork with salted fish.

More known as steamed rice near snake temple, the food portion is generous… well, at least for its rice. Two of us finished all three choices in one lunch and we were extremely full. Each bowl comes with soup of the day. Not sure whether it opens at night but it is definitely a popular spot for factory workers during lunch hour.

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“Master Huang”, a label telling you which chef prepared this dish so that you can complain to the right chef in case the food suck. This is one of the uniqueness I found in Xuan Xin – a new restaurant (opposite of SenQ store) opened in Queensbay Mall.

The first thing appeared in my mind was the $$ judging on the grand interior. We flipped through the menu and found out that there was set meals available for 2 or 4 persons.

During my first visit, three of us ordered “4 pax Set Meal” (RM59.80++) which included soup of the day for each individual, 1 x vegetable, 3 x main course selectable from a page, and maximum of 8 bowls of rice. The restaurant assumed that each customer would consume two bowls of rice. Personally, I ate three bowls.

Note that even though you have only three persons, you are eligible for 4 bowls of soup of the day based on the package you ordered (e.g. 4 pax Set Meal).

You can select one vegetable of your choice from the menu. We selected 芥兰 Chinese Broccoli during our first visit. Too bad it was kind of old and chewy.

Time for some main dishes. 豉油皇干煎虾 Pan Fried Prawn with Soy Sauce – The prawns were fresh. The only thing missing is someone to peel them off for you.

豉椒炒鹿肉 Sauteed Venison with Black Bean Sauce – Venison is famous with its tender meat. This venison even though still tasted good, was a bit old.

南乳斋煲 Stewed Mix Vegetable with Preserved Bean Curd in Claypot – WOW! This one was too salty! This was the only item we could not finish eating that afternoon.

The restaurant also served dim sum. 蟹皇蒸烧卖 Steamed Pork Dumpling  ”Siew Mai” (RM5.00++) tasted similar to those in morning dim sum restaurants. Note that this item is ala-carte.

The same applied to 莲蓉芝麻枣 Crispy Sesame Balls (RM4.50++). 

With such a price, I rather went for something special, such as this 炫升蟹皇粥 Xuan Xin Crab Yolk Congee (RM16.80++). This was one luxury porridge which was made of crab yolk and meat, making the porridge became orange colour. Tasted good but a bit sweet to my liking.

Perhaps the item we enjoyed most during our first visit was 咸香脆莲藕 Crispy Lotus Ahizome with Salted Egg Yolk (RM8.00++).  The price was reasonable as well.

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What? Another “no camera” restaurant? The door opened at 11:30am sharp so basically you don’t have a chance to snap photos before customers arrival. Anyway, we took most items to our table, decorated, snapped, and shared with you here, including this salmon sashimi which I enjoyed the most.

Kampachi Penang is located in Equatorial Hotel at Bukit Jambul. Parking is extremely expensive (RM5 per entry) but you can fully reimburse it when making payment in Kampachi.

A group of friends including me went there one Saturday afternoon for a gathering. We were lucky enough to be given a VIP room for our gathering. There were tatami and normal table seating as well.

The buffet is only available during weekend (Saturday and Sunday). Lunch starts from 11:30am til 2:30pm at RM65++, while dinner from 6:30pm til 10:00pm at RM89++.

The price different is because dinner has more variety, such as oyster which is not available for lunch.

Above are Yaki Udon and Mussel Teppanyaki. If you asked me how come I got “food in tray” photos above, the simple answer is: Those are photos I took before I was told by a waitress of not taking photo in the restaurant 

Other than Salmon Sashimi, another item I enjoyed most was Idako (Baby Octopus). In Sakae Sushi, the same item was increased to RM8.00 but in Kampachi, it was unlimited (well, sort of. It was a hot item that afternoon and gone before buffet ended).

Of course there were sushi. They looked yummy but I tried to avoid them as the rice could fill your tummy very fast.

Not to forget is tempura which was fried on the spot by chef. Best dip with soy sauce provided while hot.

Above is Seafood Okonomiyaki (Pizza). Personally I still prefer the one in Azuma even though it was pricey there.

Chawan Mushi was rich and tasted good.

Another “main course in a cup” is Tofu Enoki Mushroom Ankake.

If you don’t like raw salmon, there is grilled salmon fish for you as well.

This is on-the-spot grilled Australian beef. I didn’t take beef but according to my friend, it tasted good.

Another item prepared by chef on the spot is Sukiyaki Chicken. The mushroom, grass noodle, chicken, vegetables, and etc were well mixed by the chef.

Takoyaki Octopus Ball. Too bad the filling was minimal.

This is Doraemon’s favorite - Dorayaki with Red Bean Paste or Peanut Butter

Time for some desserts. Above is Oshiruko (a.k.a Red Bean Soup).

The layout in Kampachi was a bit weird such that for some desserts, you need to walk to Sake Bar next to the main dining area. Without noticing it, you may thought that the buffet did not include desserts.

Some desserts were nicely prepared.

We enjoyed eating desserts, including cakes, pudding, and fruits.

My favorite dessert was green tea ice cream, even though it was not as rich as the one in Baskin Robin. Good thing is that you can play around with your ice cream.

At RM65++ (lunch) with unlimited salmon sashimi, Kampachi is worth a visit in weekend afternoon. Of course there are few items which are below expectation but overall food quality is still satisfactory. Make sure you bring along CIMB credit card for 10% discount as well as parking receipt for reimbursement.

You may download one of the buffet lunch below:

Kampachi Buffet Lunch Menu

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