Sri_Malaya Heritage Restaurant

Located right in the heart of Georgetown, Rope Walk was once a place where all the ropes for the mooring ships in the 19th century were produced. Modernization has swept through the times, and things have changed drastically but the row of pre-World War II heritage buildings still stand proud. One of them has been converted into a rustic restaurant by the name of Sri Malaya Heritage Restaurant. This new restaurant is near to the entrance from Chulia Street.

Sri Malaya, with an attractive yellow facade has an inviting warm ambience dining lounge. All the tables are made of teak wood which is rarely found nowadays. They combined the tables with different retro chairs and the old style lamps of the 60s and 70s, added a nostalgic charm to this restaurant.

Address:
Sri Malaya Heritage Restaurant
No. 1 Rope Walk
10100 George Town
Pulau Pinang
Tel : 04 2613763
Business Hour : 12pm – 3pm & 6pm – 11pm
Closed on Tuesday

Ramadhan Special Buffet

Celebrate Hari Raya with your beloved ones at gcafe and indulge in a buffet spread loaded with an eye-popping and appetite emptying spread of local and international cuisines.

Buffet Lunch

Various Buffett Lunch Options with free flow of beer and wine if you pay an additional RM30.00

Buffet Dinner

Come enjoy various flavours from around the world with the generous and sumptuous buffett platters from around the world right here in Penang

Sesame Soy

Asian Fusion Delicacies at Sesame Soy G Hotel Penang

Ramadhan Food Bazaar

The celebration of the holy Ramadan festival brings along a unique experience that can be enjoy by all Malaysian, the food bazaar. During this festive season one can get to sample a variety of authentic and delicious Malay cuisine which is freshly prepare for the Muslim to break their fast.

One such food bazaar in Penang is at Jalan Makloom, parallel road to Jalan Sungai Pinang. The place is jam packed with 50 over hawker stalls and stretches all the way to Jalan Perak.

From the wide spread of food and delicacies, not to be miss by visitors are the Malay traditional kuih, lemang, barbeque chicken, nasi lemak, laksa beras (Kedah/Perlis), rendang, satay, cucuk udang and nasi ulam. Other Malay newly cross culture food is also fast gaining popularity such as the beef and chicken pita, burger, apong balik (Chinese known as ban chang kuih) and chicken rice.

Hainanese Delights

If you’re after the sort of good food from yesteryear, when, with just a stroke or two of their razor-sharp cleavers it seemed like, Hainanese chefs used to knock up any kind of cuisine, be it western – Chicken Chop and Macaroni Pie spring to mind – or nyonya, then head for this place, located on the ground floor of the 1926 Heritage Hotel with its distinctive yellow façade, on Burmah Road.

It’s not a smart, upmarket eatery, but that’s beside the point, because this is where Penangites go with just one aim in mind: to eat the sort of good Hainanese food which has become associated in people’s minds with the colonial days, when a stop at a hilltop rest house would bring not just fresh cool weather but also delicious offerings.

There are creamy thermidors, in this case with using the much more luscious and tasty tiger prawn, salads and pies; Hainanese-style soups, roasts and stews – lamb features significantly here (try their famous Braised Lamb with Lady’s Fingers) – amongst many others. Talk about a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Address
Hainanese Delights
1926 Hotel
227 Jalan Burma
10050 Penang
Tel: 604 226 1926
Opening Hours: Tuesdays to Sundays 11.30am – 3pm, 6-10pm

Tree Monkey

If you’re looking for somewhere special to go, then head for Tree Monkey, one of Penang’s latest wining and dining outlets. This unique “back to nature” restaurant set in the green, tree-filled Tropical Spice Gardens in Teluk Bahang looks like it’s going to become a must-visit place for both locals and visitors alike.

The alfresco outlet is set on a wooden platform, where you can sit at one of the imported hard-wood tables and chairs, and gaze upon a gorgeous view of the Andaman Sea.

The waves crashing on the beach opposite seem just a few feet away. According to the proprietors, the place was constructed using as natural and traditional methods and materials as possible; no trees were cut down, and there are very few nails or wires visible.

It’s all very rustic, and comes complete with a bamboo and thatched roof over the gazebo bar which is made with alang alang grass imported from Bali.

Address
Tree Monkey
Tropical Spice Garden
Teluk Bahang
Tel: 04 881 3494

Uncle Zack By-The Beach at Parkroyal

Things are getting interesting with the great discovery of Uncle Zack By-The-Beach, a gorgeous dining place where you can enjoy meals and drinks whilst admiring the panoramic view of the sea. This newly done up place, with a mixed clientele of tourist and locals alike, is PARKROYAL Penang’s Cool Bananas’ newest extension.

The sunset is spectacular; the continuous changing pastels of colors of the skyline on the horizon are just simply breathtaking.

As the sky darkens, old fashioned electric lamps and small oil lamps light up the dining area and the pathways. The rustic look of the oil lamps charm up the place and create a warm and lovely ambience.

There are several shareable plates that can be chosed from the varied menu. Starting of the meal was the Tapas Platter which was presented in tapas style plates. There was so much to sample in the Tapas Platter as it comes with nine great varieties, with seafood, meat and vegetable.

Address
Uncle Zack By-The-Beach
Parkroyal Penang
Batu Ferringhi Beach
11100 Penang
Malaysia
Tel : 04 8862288 ext: 8207

Eat like a local in … Penang

Melting pot … Penang’s food is a fusion of Malay, Indian, Chinese and Arab flavours. Photograph: Ahmad Yusni/EPA/Corbis

Kevin Gould

Penang has Malaysia’s best food. A pronounced Chinese influence (much of the population has family roots in Hokkien and Teochew provinces) is blended with indigenous Malay and south Indian spicing (the Indians came on British opium ships to become plantation workers) and Arab recipes and techniques. Put all this together and you have rather more than supermarket satay. Against local advice, I eschew taxis and, in suffocating heat and drenching humidity, I hit the streets to find the food: it’s like walking in hot soup.

There are three types of hawker market in Penang: municipal, new development and private enterprise. Of the first, the most interesting I found was at the end of Persiaran Gurney, near the shiny unnecessariness of G Hotel. Gurney is like that – towering blocks and pricey malls – but this market is noisy, smelly and raucous: rough-and-ready-made food, if you like, and the hundred-odd stalls positively pullulate with life. Families shove and tourists are few; you choose and pay from whichever stall or stalls you fancy, squeeze on to a table and your dinner arrives.

This is just the place for your squid and convolvulus dinner, or a plate of koay teow th’ng, a noodle soup with fish balls, thickened with pig’s blood, which you’ll be eating in neon-washed semi-darkness, with baldly staring Malaysian grandmas and (bizarrely) banging acid house music for company.

The new development hawker markets I tried were a disappointment, as what you gain in hygiene you lose in atmosphere. New World, for example, has removed the private hawkers from Swatow Lane and put them in a place that mixes the aesthetic of Brent Cross in north London with that of a hospital waiting room. Still, they do have those nice turbo fans that mist you with cool water, and Celine Dion on the PA.

Much more fun was the Hong Kong Tea Garden, a fine example of a private hawker market, where stalls grow up around an existing restaurant. You can eat all day and most of the night here, either ordering from the restaurant proper, or from the stalls that surround it. As well as just about every food in the Malaysian culinary canon, HKTG is fine place to try teh tarik, “pulled tea”.

This heady drink is a mixture of hot tea and condensed milk, poured from a great height, a technique that both cools the drink and gives it a frothy, cappuccino top. Teh tarik is also the dentist’s friend, being both sweet as fudge and thick enough to coat your teeth for the rest of the day. My advice is to ask for a chilled jelly-nut, the young coconut whose water you sip through a straw before scraping out the soft white flesh inside.

In search of the definitive curry mee (known elsewhere in Malaysia as curry laksa), I find Chinatown to be nicely unaffected, time-faded and gently foxed, like the scent in an old bookshop, or the feel of old lace. Paint is often peeling and shuttered streets and deteriorated niches are now empty of their Buddhas and once-smouldering joss-sticks. Food places abound, but locals in the know go to Ah Lien’s for a bowl of noodles. Here it is – an open storefront, easy to miss, bang across the road from Central police station.

Its punters are police with not much crime to investigate, crime reporters with not much crime to report and a dozen food lovers, young, old, little, large, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian. All groups are delighted to ignore each other in favour of yet another bowl of noodles. You sit at worn clean tables of green marbled 1970s Formica and admire this one woman show. Ah Lien (in Salford, she’d be called “Our Lynne”) is a Teochew beauty who maintains a stream of chiding banter with the many male admirers who come to worship at her table. Her wok and soup kettle are surrounded by shelves of beansprouts, spices and noodles, racks of eggs, bunched herbs and fresh fish.

Curry mee is silky with coconut milk, rich with cockles, prawns, crabstick and cuttlefish, smooth with tofu and thin noodles, bright with fresh mint and beansprouts, tangy with red chilli. It looks good too, being served in a pink melamine bowl, with blue chopsticks and an orange saucer of green and red chillies. Under the gentle overhead fans it tastes bright, satisfying, exciting. I also enjoy a plate of char koay peow, Penang’s famous wok noodle dish.

Glutinous rice noodles, fresh vegetables, prawns and fish ball are briefly fried with chives and chilli to a crunchy, soft, spicy, savoury dish of beautiful balance. Both dishes, plus a couple of glasses of iced nutmeg cordial, cost £1.30. “Working hard today?” I ask a bulky sergeant who’s diving into a third bowl of soup noodles. He hardly looks up. “If you want to commit a crime you’ll have to wait,” he slurps. “I’m busy.”

· Chinese Recreation Club, Jalan Padang Victoria, between Jalans Macalister and Burmah (00604 229 9157). New World Food Court, Swatow Lane, Georgetown. Hong Kong Tea Garden, 162-164 Jalan Macalister (+229 6688). Kedai Kopi Bee Hwa “Ah Lien”, 10 Leboh Dickens, open 7am-5pm Mon-Sat, no cards (+236 6092). Around the corner is Chinatown’s nicest place to stay, Hutton Lodge, a restored colonial house, very simple, very clean, very quiet, very cheap (17 Jalal Hutton, +263 6003, huttonlodge.com, rooms from £7).

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