the great penang getaway: august ’08: day one

About a month ago, my dear Pinky was in town for a week for a short holiday before she begins work at a new company. She suggested that we go to Penang, as she’d never been there before. Obviously the main reason she wanted to go there was because she’d heard that they have really great food up North. You can take the Singaporean out of Singapore… 😛

I took a couple of days off work so I could go to Penang with Pinky. We took the Aeroline coach which departs from Corus Hotel at 8.30 a.m. (the ones at BU depart at 10.30 a.m.). While waiting to board, I looked up the sky and felt so happy when I saw this:

Penang Aug 08 - 01 Blue KL sky
Morning sky

Blue skies and nice fluffy clouds do weird things to me.

The journey was quite nice, as my sister had kindly loaned me her neck pillow. We reached Penang on time, and I made a call to HotPenangChick (HPC). She is this really awesome Penangite who reads my blog sometimes. After I blogged about feeling cheated by certain vouchers, she contacted me and asked if I needed help to get a decent hotel room in Penang at a decent price. She’d also offered to take us around in Penang for food and what-not. In short, HPC was a major, major reason why Pinky and I had such a fantastic time in Penang. In case I forget to write it down later (though I don’t think I will), thank you so much HPC. We really, really appreciate everything and more that you’ve done 😀

So HPC picked us up at the bus station and took us to Lorong Selamat for lunch. She, like every other Penangite I’ve encountered dislikes the tourist-famous Lorong Selamat char kuey teow, due to the haughtiness of the proprietress. Turns out that the tourist-famous Lorong Selamat char kuey teow is no longer where it used to be — the proprietress now has her own corner shop just selling char kuey teow. We wanted to taste other food as well, so we opted for the shop where the tourist-famous char kuey teow used to be. We had ais kacang and some lobak, Pinky had prawn mee and we both ordered a plate of char kuey teow each (another dude was selling it). I ordered mine with extra ingredients — check out what arrived on my plate:

Penang Aug 08 - 05 Suanie eating a gigantic prawn
z0mg the biggest prawns I’d ever seen!

After lunch, HPC took us to our hotel at the Hydro Majestic. We got the deluxe room (with breakfast) for RM 270 a night, quite decent. When we arrived to check-in, we got quite a shock because there were police trucks, cars and bikes all over the parking area. Later we found out that there was a police function/ training thingy at the hotel. Well, at least we’d feel safe that night… 😛

For dinner, we went to Gurney Drive and had assam laksa. It was bleurgh. I remembered a grilled cuttlefish stall at Gurney Drive which tasted fantastic when Jaime introduced it to me a few years ago. The stall is still there and we bought our fill.

Penang Aug 08 - 11 sotong bakar, Gurney Drive
Scrumptious sotong bakar/ grilled cuttlefish

We walked to Gurney Plaza and shared a bowl of beef noodles at a Taiwanese beef noodle shop, as recommended by HPC. Not bad. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant now though. Maybe later.

After loitering about at Gurney Plaza (including getting lots of stuff from Cold Storage and chilling out at Starbucks), HPC and her boyfriend took us to Restaurant Kapitan at Chulia Street. HPC claimed that they serve the best tandoori chicken ever, and ordered one to share along with a garlic cheese naan. Her boyfriend got a claypot briyani; we had a taste of it and it was absolutely delicious! I know I always claim that there’s no better briyani than Mat Shah’s in Batu Pahat; guess I have to revoke that one. But it’s different lah, as Mat Shah’s briyani is more Malay kampung type, and Kapitan’s claypot briyani is… uhm, more Indian, I suppose. Both are awesome and I wish I could have either one just about now.

Then came the garlic cheese naan and tandoori chicken…

Penang Aug 08 - 13 cheese naan and tandoori, Kapitan, Chulia Street
Hands down the BEST tandoori chicken I’ve ever had

OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG.

(That should be indication enough on how out-of-this-world the naan and tandoori were)

After supper, HPC suggested that we check out Momo, a popular club along Upper Penang Road. She parked her car at Cititel so we walked along a road dotted with eateries and pubs. Then out of nowhere, I heard someone yelled out my name. I looked around and saw Patrick! Hah! Of all places!!! Turns out that it was his last couple of days in Penang; he had been there for some time now to shoot for a movie, The Funeral Party.

Penang Aug 08 - 15 Pinky, Suanie, Hot Penang Babe at Momo
Pinky, Suanie and HPC at Momo

After a couple of hours at Momo, we decided to call it a night. Lots of activities planned for day two!

*Click here to view the entire Flickr set for ‘Penang, August 2008’, which includes photos not published here.

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Comments

  1. Hi Suanie, the garlic cheese naan and tandoori chicken looked super yummyyy.. *drool* btw, this is my 1st time viewing your blog.. and i love your entries… will visit your blog more frequent 😀

  2. arghhh i miss penang food!

  3. kapitan’s tandoori ftw!!!11111

  4. I thought most people went to Penang to find the rooms with little plaques in them saying, ‘Dabido Slept Here’, and ‘Dabido went to school here’ and stuff like that.

    I used to like the milkshakes at the King St Restaurant in Georgetown. Wonder if it is still there.

  5. The last time I had cheese naan was probably 10 years ago at the mamak stalls in SS15. Actually I wouldn’t mind driving up to Penang to stuff ourselves silly …

  6. aMy: thanks! that garlic cheese naan and tandoori chicken was.. out of this world. amazing! You must try it when you go to penang next time!

    KY: ME TOO!

    winsern: heh it’s awesomeness tak terhingga!

    dabs: you can get cheap souvenirs anywhere, all made in china 😛

    AT: let’s go!

  7. The Taiwanese beef noodle shop is called “600cc”.

  8. I love blue skies and fluffy clouds too…

    Yah it’s true, Lorong Selamat lady with hat is uhm… haughty as you say.. never really thought of Gurney Drive hawker food as all that great, though maybe I never got to the right stalls all this time?

  9. Oh. Aeroline in BU now got buses to Penang? Woot!

  10. HPC: ahhh that was it! 😀

    Suertes: nah gurney drive was just convenient. i only like the sotong bakar there.

    simon: indeed 😉

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  1. […] Peter Tan’s wedding dinner. I asked my dear Shirley to come along with me because we were in Penang the same time last year and it could be an annual thing! Provided she doesn’t do something like migrate to somewhere […]

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