Malaysia Review

My original intention was to do a bit of posting while I was on holiday, but lack of time and internet access scuppered my intentions somewhat, so instead I'll cherry pick my dinner highlights over 2 weeks on the Malaysian island of Penang.
Unusually for Malaysia where there is a surfeit of places to eat out in the first proper dinner I have is cooked by my Grandma at my Mum and Dad's house. A second rare event for my Grandma to cook for me as she lives in Australia and it's been many a year since that last happened, the highlight being the chicken that had been seasoned for a day, though the local prawns were good too.

Grandma's dinner

 

 

 The next night I had Roti Canai, a simple dish of a rough flatbread with curry sauce and is widely available around Malaysia. I had this at a coffee shop on Gurney Drive and it was merely adequate, you can get better, but it provided me with a pleasing taster.

Taking on a roti canai

The Friday was taken up my the Mother's 60th Birthday Dinner with just the 8 courses! Unreal! This was a feast for the 30 to 40 people that my Mother had invited. It had no rice with it and was very rich. The strangest item was a cold seafood jelly with prawns and squid, but also contained fruit and was covered with Marie Rose sauce! Very bizarre. My highlight of this spread was the stuffed braised duck.

Cold seafood jelly

Stuffed braised duck

 Needless to say dinners for the next couple of days after that were on the light side. However my next dinner, possibly my favourite all trip was at a Japanese BBQ restaurant, close to Island Plaza called Kan Nichi Kan. I've never been to such a place before with a small pit in the centre of every table with an extractor fan immediately above it. We had one of the set menus which consisted of different plates of thin strips of raw marinated meat and seafood. Ah... so that's what the pit and air extraction system is for! The waiter places a dish of hot coals in the pit and places a mesh over it; everyone's a chef tonight! The meat is beautifully seasoned and fresh; obviously freshly cooked, but the best were the meaty prawns with a certain sweetness to them beautiful! Definitely a place worth seeking out if you're on the island.

Japanese BBQ

Everyone's a chef!

Shrimps on the barbie!

 What's a holiday without an all you can eat buffet? We eat like gluttons to the point of excess at the Park Royal Hotel dinner buffet, serving everything from Roast Beef to a chocolate fountain, I'm so stuffed by the end that I have a little play with my (third) dessert plate...

Park Royal hotel buffet dessert (No 3)

Over the next few nights I realise that I am starting to tire of the Chinese food, there are plenty of multi course meals with the seemingly ubiquitous steamed fish in sauce, which was nice the first couple of times, but by the end of trip I realise I'm actually quite sick of.

The ubiquitous Chinese steamed fish in sauce

However, that's not to say that there were not more highlights before the end of the trip. My Aunt's friend made a home cooked meal of Penang style Laksa, Biriyani and Bacang.

Bacang, Laksa and Biryani

The Bacang, the pyrimid of sticky rice containing a filling of usually savoury items was the best of the lot. The filling in this case being pork and chinese mushrooms.

An opened bacang

One more highlight was in the last dinner before leaving, again at a Chinese restaurant (I'll be off the Chinese food for at least a couple of weeks when I get home!), but this time a crispy duck pancake. All the other components are the same except instead of shredded duck meat, a single piece of crispy duck skin is placed in the rolled pancake. This has an excellent crunch to it; a highlight of the meal.

Crispy duck pancake

In general I've really enjoyed the food on this trip, but I've had my fill of Oriental food for at least a few weeks...