Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Lok Lok @ Padang Brown

Penang is a food haven which offers food anywhere and at any time throughout the entire day.
If you are a tourist, you will be surprised by the crowd at food stalls at any time of the day, still beats me too!
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One of their favorite food is Lok Lok; which has fishballs, vege, meatballs, eggs, cuttlefish, prawns on a stick; pretty much skewer-style which you dip into boiling water in a pot and then dip into sauce and into your mouth!
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The favorite and one of the most popular place for Lok Lok during the day is Padang Brown which is at the intersection of Jalan Dato Keramat.
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The Lok Lok starts from 2.30p.m onwards along with the Popiah stalls.
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There are also various hawker food such as Char Koay Teow, Nyonya Kueh, Yong Tow Foo at the other end, and also Pasembur.

There is a variety of food placed at the table for Lok Lok
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Lok lok is also known as Satay Celup in Melaka and other states and the Malays name them as Celup celup which pretty translates from the Chinese meaning as "Dip" as the food on the skewer are dipped into the boiling water to cook and then dipped into the plate of their favoured sauce.

Ice Kacang at Rm1.50 is really welcomed on a hot weather
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And Popiah with crabmeat at Rm1.20 per roll is also one of the favorites here:)
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With all these assorted delectable delights around this little island,
Is it any wonder Penang is the food paradise of Malaysia?

Maa Roy Thai

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An undiscovered Thai food restaurant which I now think is a hidden gem on the island is situated along the Abu Siti lane; towards Burma Road.
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Rather hidden from the other shops, this is a restaurant which was rather empty when we first stepped in.

It was pretty decent and well air-conditioned and just, properly maintained.
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The Thai's Iced Tea had a slightly different taste; a tint of milky coffee in the tea.
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It seems to be one of the Thai's favorite drink in the tropical weather.

Local favorite; plain Chinese tea is also served here.
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The meal kick starts with a plate of ulam; whereby raw vegetables are served with their homemade chilli paste (sambal)
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The fresh vegetables were crunchy in taste and pretty tasty with the really spicy chilli!
It was definitely one spicy start of a Thai meal!:)

When one speaks of Thai food, the first thing that comes to the mind is hot spicy and authentic tomyam soup!
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Maa Roy Thai serves really good tomyam at a reasonable price.
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Our seafood tomyam had a great deal of fish fillets, prawns and squids along with oyster mushrooms at only RM10.

Paprik seafood (RM10) is another dish with an overdose of seafood serving in slightly spicy soy sauce gravy.
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We definitely enjoyed this:)
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Their braised beancurd with crabmeat was one of the disappointing ones as it was served with minced meat. We asked for clarification and they apologized and came back with the same plate of beancurd with minced meat but with additional few slices of crabmeat on top of it. For RM8, I didn't enjoy this at all.
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For greens, they offer Stir-fried Kangkung with sambal belacan for RM6.
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The vegetables were fresh and crunchy and went perfectly well with the chilli paste which added a tinge of spice to the vegetables.
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Another interesting recommendation is the Claypot Glass Noodles with Prawns (RM20)
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You can choose from either Crab or Prawns and we opted for prawns since we had crab the day before.
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Taste was light and aromatic; and not too heavily flavoured with additives.

This is definitely a good and cheap place for Thai food for families.
It is located along the Abu Siti lane:)

Food Loft

The popular food joint in Gurney Plaza is the Food Loft located on the 3rd Floor; above Toys R Us.
Most people prefer to come here due to variety of choices offered and also the spectacular view of the sea (not-so spectacular when it's low tide).

Personally, I find the view and the environment are the only interesting factors as I simply do not find anything great in their food (or perhaps I am too picky)
A friend of mine from KL who was here compared Food Loft to Marche in The Curve.
For me, I came here a couple of times and the food that attracts me are simply the following Food-Loft-comfort food.
Jumbo Ice Kacang for RM5.90
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There's simply so much of red beans, grass jelly, cendol, sweet corn and even attap chee that I was just so happy:)
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Mind you ladies, you may need to share as it is called Jumbo for a reason:)
The size is definitely bigger and priced higher than the mixed fruits ice-kacang at the food court downstairs.
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As for the main course, I liked this; Snow and Salmon(RM15.90)
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It was 2 different fish and cooked in different styles on the same plate as well.
I liked the soft snow fish fillet and the crunchy salmon fillet as you chew on them.
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Perhaps due to my personal picky eats, I am more limited in my choice of selection.
But just for the benefit of your information, they serve Thai, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Western.
Try out this happening food outlet in Penang uptown if you enjoy variety and also great view!;)

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Thai Lunch Buffet @ Prontip

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Located at Peel Road in Pulau Tikus area, this restaurant offers Thai cuisine and late last year, they started their Buffet Lunch in the afternoon.
Priced at RM10.90 (weekdays) and RM12.90(weekends), the buffet seems to attract a crowd of Thai food or buffet lovers.
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I find choices rather limited as there were only about 10 dishes and dessert, fruits and also drinks.
But for such RM10.90-RM12.90, what more can we ask for, right?:)
They have tomyam soup, Laksa Siam,Kerabu, Fried Vege, Stir-fried vege, Fish/Prawns (Occasional), Chicken, Curry,Fish Cakes, Omelette,Satay, white rice, fried beehoon, fried rice.
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Drinks; Chrysanthemum tea, Chinese tea or cordial drink
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Fruits and Sweet Sago Dessert
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I loved the sago dessert; albeit the greenish color and also the slightly sweet taste and also the chunks of yam which i conveniently tossed out!:P
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They have more variety on weekends; since they charge an additional of RM2:)
Not a bad place for a cheap Thai variety for lunch where you can stuff yourselves to the content for RM10.90-RM12.90.

Cuisine Bou

Pulau Tikus in Penang was one of the most happening places and offer a wide variety of food outlets; ranging from hawker food to fine dining outlets.
The most populated offer came from Japanese cuisine, where you see a number of Japanese restaurants residing in the top neighbourhood in the island.

Having tried most of them; or almost all of them, the new Japanese restaurant located along the Belissa Row heading to Cantonment Road caught my eye.
Cuisine Bou was the latest addition to the Japanese Food neighbourhood and we made our way there on one rainy evening.
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Pretty neat and relaxing environment
We were there early and were a little disappointed when they told us that the chef was not there yet and we need to wait for 10-15 minutes for the food to be served. Apparently the chef was stuck in traffic due to the heavy rain. Oh well, that was pretty understandable and we told the owner not to worry over it :)
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We ordered the Teppanyaki Seafood (RM28)
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2 large pieces of Salmon fish fillet, squids, prawns and vegetables were always my favourite type of Japanese food
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*If you have been reading my blog, you will notice the almost-similar food I order each time I am go Japanese...in fact, I am pretty generic huh:p

And of course, the Yasai Itame (RM10) - stir fried mixed vegetables
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And this was the Spicy Seafood Ramen (RM16) ordered by my ever-food-dynamic foodie partner aka Dear too :)
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Pretty nice with the soup and also the fish fillets, prawns and squids...aren't we seafood overdose?:p
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It wasn't too spicy though...so it was okay for a non-spicy gal like me:)

And this was complimentary ice-cream; think this was the Green Tea flavour
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Not a bad choice for Japanese food and the waiters/waitresses were pretty friendly too :)
With complimentary ice-cream, I am sure floggers would flock here to try too right? *winks*