2007 March | Malaysia Food, Travel & Tourism Blog

Penang Chinese New Year Street Festival II

Mar 31st

Posted by vkeong in Event | (1,167 views)

Let’s travel back in time again to 2 months ago lol. It was [tag]Chinese New Year[/tag] and these are some photos I would just like to share.

On that day, all the clan houses were having an open house. The clans are of course the 5 big clans: Khoo, Tan, Lim, Cheah and Yeoh Kongsi. Shown here is [tag]Kew Leong Tong[/tag], the principal association of Lim Kongsi. I suppose Kew Leong Tong is in Cantonese and it means Hall of Nine Dragons. To read more about this clan house, I recommend AsiaExplorers.

I did went to all clan houses for a visit and the most majestic being the Khoo Kongsi.

Hotels in [tag]Penang[/tag] were participating for the best Chinese New Year stand. This was Evergreen Laurel’s creation. Didn’t know who came out as the winner but I remembered Sheraton Hotel’s was creative. They had a big boat with their staff in it singing and promoting mandarin orange flavored cheesecakes.. Talk about being creative lol.

The Dragon Dance performers doing a rehearsal. Although it was a rehearsal it managed to draw a big crowd especially the foreigners. From their facial expressions I can tell they were very amazed. And they couldn’t stop taking photos too.

Beautiful paper lanterns hung up for visitors to ‘cai teng mi’ (some sort of Chinese quiz)

This was called the Scholar Bridge. So I think those who were still studying would find it useful..Walk through it and become a scholar

Array of lion costumes being displayed on the ground before the performance begun..

More lion costumes.. I noticed the performers were all quite young, impressive.

Ahh.. Hakka Village, my village. Funny thing was I didn’t see anyone speaking Hakka at all..

Lastly, one of the main attractions in the [tag]street festival[/tag], the one thing that Penangites cannot live without.. hawker food ~

1-Utama Wong Kok Char Chan Teng

Mar 28th

Posted by vkeong in Food and Drink | (2,328 views)

15 comments

last year I went to KL to celebrate 2007′s New Year celebration. On the countdown day itself, Siang Leng and I had lunch in [tag]1-Utama[/tag]‘s [tag]Wong Kok Char Chan Teng[/tag]. Wow how time flies, it’s been so long already and April is only around the corner.

Their Hong Kong Iced Milk Tea is really nice. Unlike our teh-ais, it is not overly sweet and more fragrant. Bring a birthday boy/girl here and they will serve a gigantic glass of iced milk tea for free. But there’s a condition to it, you must have at least 6 people in a group.

The variety of food to order from Wong Kok is so wide that it can be intimidating lol. And they are all so nicely portrayed in the menu, making it even harder to make up your mind. I can’t remember exactly the name of this, but it should be Cheese Baked Spagetthi.

Let’s take a peek at what’s underneath that layer of cheese.. :drool:

And my order, some sort of pork chop and sausage on a sizzling pan. I made a mistake by asking for red sauce.. It didn’t go really well with the meat. I’ve always reminded myself not to take red sauce but in the end I still went for it, lol.

The food is not great but Wong Kok Char Chan Teng is a nice place to hang out for its Hong Kong style food and environment. It does make you feel like you are dining in Hong Kong in some ways lol. A nice break from our usual mamak and coffee shop.

Jiu Jiu Szechuan Restaurant

Mar 27th

Posted by vkeong in Food and Drink | (2,882 views)

7 comments

[tag]Jiu Jiu[/tag] [tag]Szechuan[/tag] restaurant claims to specilize in Szechuan food, and that their chefs are really from China. Last weekend me and my family decided to choose Jiu Jiu among all available restaurants in [tag]Autocity[/tag]. Autocity is really booming, more and more restaurants are established there, making its mark as one of the best spot to hang out in Penang. In fact, a plan similar to Autocity is being considered in the island!

All restaurants here look good, especially Tao Japanese restaurant. The Seoul Garden under Jiu Jiu is a BBQ-steamboat restaurant.

Interior of the restaurant is very nice but I cannot say so to the attitude of some staff here. You all know la, elder people like my parents seldom patronize these type of restaurants so they might be a bit confused on what to order. So they might ask more questions.. The person who took our order was rude and impatient.. he even raised his voice when explaining the menu to my mom.. Wanted to scold him already.. But that’s only him la, the rest were fine.

Let’s start with the worst food lol. I ordered a bowl of Beijing Special Sauce noodle (zha jiang mien) – RM12.80 that tastes absolutely awful, tastes sourish. Even the ingredients are weird (the pic shows it all.. I really got a big WTF look on my face when I saw it) I tasted once in Serdang and it totally kicks this one’s ass.

Szechuan Dan Dan noodle – RM9.80, which tastes similar to Tomyam noodles, also sucky.

My mom’s order, Yang Chow Fried Rice. This one is quite good but totally not worth its price of RM8.80.

Xiao Long Pau, RM12 for 8. Please pardon the blurry image because of the steam they emitted. They size up to slightly larger than a 50 cent coin.. taste wise.. acceptable la. I heard Dragon-I’s xiao long pau are very good.. gotta try it when I have the opportunity to go KL again.

Xiao Bai Cai with Mushrooms – RM8.80. This is one of the nicer dish we had, reasonably priced too. The mushrooms were really smooth.

Lastly, Sizzling Black Pepper Beef – RM18.80. This was the nicest dish, the beef was tender and the amount of black pepper just perfect.

I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant to anyone for the noodles because they simply do not suit our local taste. And the 2 noodles we ordered were on the chef’s recommendation list! So the others must taste pretty bad eh? But if you are planning to have a course meal then Jiu Jiu shouldn’t be a disappointment. RM107 for our dinner leh, so expensive.. not that I am surprised lol. Tax and service charge already amounted 15%..