Penang - Street Side Curry Mee

Street side pavements and food stalls hark back to the past two centuries on Penang Island, Malayisa.

I was recommended a terrific and worthy dish of curry mee noodles ala Penang style if I went early to Air Itam Markets by dawn on a Saturday morning in February 2011. Penang's curry mee offers a unique taste in the soup that you cannot get elsewhere - neither Sydney, Kuala Lumpur nor Singapore. I found my delight, beside a bridge, where eager customers waited right in front of the elderly ladies

preparing the stuff. (above)

What's so special, you may ask? The dish is not overly rich, only with hints of dried shrimp paste (belacan), a dash of palm sugar, prawn and/or chicken stock and light coconut milk, but gentle with a kick of flavour. The garnishings are also important - for this stall, it is the marinated dried cuttlefish (jee hu in Hokkien) that obviously stands out. Also tasty ingredients are deboned chicken breast cuts, cockles, deep fried tofu squares and chicken blood clots. The last mentioned ingredient may be a shock for the uninitiated, but you have to try this at least once. You can choose just to have the yellow Hokkien noodles, or white rice vermicelli, or a combination of both, cooked with the soup.

Elderly lady (above and below) is apparently the mainstay of this stall for a few decades. With two other women, she patiently prepares the garnishings and ingredients that are served with the soup and noodles. Ah, the soup, made as an art with a blend of juice from blended prawn head shells, a sprinkling of shallots, a touch of peppercorns, a sharp kick from cut lemongrass stalks and a toss of coriander powder.

Notice that charcoal (above) is used for the cooking, and this may be the critical factor that enhances the flavours of curry mee from this particular stall.

The customer-focused lady (above) also sells stir fry rice vermicelli, but she stands out in having a nice word with every customer, no matter how busy she is. Her piece de resistance, I reckon, is the

pan roasted chili condiment, a necessity to complement the soup. Garlic, chili paste, dried shrimps are pounded by mortar and pestle to a fine consistency, before being deep fried with vegetable oil and an inch square of dried shrimp paste.

Home Made Breakfasts

Ah, the glory and joy of an easy morning meal, when I wake up with no commitments and just look forward to how the day flows along. I like slurpy egg yolk meandering through a textured bread slice, carrying with it the infused aroma of freshly cracked pepper, a hint of light soy sauce and with a dollop of olive spread below.

Then there's Dairy Farmers Thick and Creamy country vanilla yogurt - not too much, but just enough to savour them with blue berries (above). This combination refreshes and is such an appetizer. No streaky bacon, no overcooked mushrooms, just plain and easy.

And I won't forget getting the navel orange slices being crushed through the juicer.

Bon appetit!

Penang Street Foods - A Sampling

With names like poh pniah, lam mee, chee chong fun, tom yam mee and more, the labels on the variety of street food on the island of Penang, Malaysia can be simply bewildering. Above, the food court in New World Park, along Burmah Road in Georgetown. The variety available is astounding - and even if servings can be relatively small in the perception of the Australian, American or British visitor, the price asked for is only a fraction of what is required back in the Western countries. The dishes are an evolving result of the fusion of different cooking styles, traditions and ingredients - when they all meet up on the island. The trick is not to over indulge, go for the widest choices and take a break of at least three hours before starting to snack again. Most of these dishes come served with various sauces and condiments to enhance the experience.

Deep fried yellow-striped scad (above), or black pomfret, with the insides stuffed with spicy mixes, are a feature of Malay and Straits Chinese based family cooking. The fish are rubbed with yellow ground tumeric, a dash of salt and given a light batter of flour before they go into a thoroughly cleaned and oil heated wok. The idea is to turn over the fish only once for a perfect finish. Another marinade choice is tamarind juice.

Such prepared fish are normally eaten with nasi lemak, the coconut milk flavoured savoury steamed white rice that are a favourite at breakfast time.

Ice kacang, what more can be said (above). On a humid, sweating afternoon, the ice shavings are soaked with syrup, accompanied by nuts, beans, fruit slices, mashed corn, black jelly bits and palm sago - whatever you fancy, really! Then you have a choice to top up with the ice cream flavour of your preference, over all this heaving and delicious cooling stuff. Who cares if it is thirty degrees Celsius outside?

Kaya spread is put over the Straits Chinese glutinous rice cakes (above, also known as pulut tai tai) slightly coloured by the aqueous extract of the vivid blue telang flower. (Clitoria ternatea ).

For a quick snack, try the "carrot cake" (below), which is not a cake at all, but a quick stir fried concoction of radish based cubes, bean sprouts and omelette eggs, best eaten hot with a dash of pepper.

A satisfying entree is the shrimp fritters, doused with hot chili sauce and complemented by cooling cucumber slices (above). Dough with fillings are prepared in a hot boiling pot (below) to result in sesame seed crunchy and crispy snack balls (last picture in this write-up).

A delicate stew of the Fujian inspired sweet and savoury peanut soup (above).

For a quick reference, poh pniah (meaning "thin biscuit") are Fujian based cylindrical shaped spring rolls that have fresh and cooked ingredients wrapped inside the delicate skins - firm soya bean cake strips, small cooked prawns, crab meat, julieanned cucumber, shallots, sliced green French beans, cooked belly pork bits, chopped carrot cubes and the necessary item of bangkwang ( yambean ).

Lam mee are braised yellow noodles traditionally served to mark key birthdays, with garnishings of crab meat, pink dyed omelette egg strips, chicken strips and a really rich stock of a gravy.

Chee chong fun can be peculiar to Penang and normally are available at yum cha restaurants or cafes - and they are flat rice rolls served without nothing more than a few tasty sauces. Their Hong Kong cousins have fillings inside and doused only with a light marinade.

Tom yam mee comes from Thailand, where the prawn and shrimp paste are utilised to flavour noodles, not just in soups but also come stir fried.