Suckling Pig

Suckling Pig
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Today, lunch at Kovan food centre was a satisfying one without spending much.

ER spotted suckling pig at a roast meat stall from where we were sitting while having our lunch. We were really glad that we could spend a small amount of money and ate this. Suckling pigs are usually sold as one whole and had to make pre-arrangement to order it.

Drunken Prawns

Drunken Prawns
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Live prawns cooked in wine with chicken stock, black fungus, wolfberries, ginger, glass noodles as main ingredients and green onions for garnishing.

I had tried to cook this dish from scratch after eating twice during our December 2005 trip to Penang Island in West Malaysia. Um...not a bad attempt, the taste was very close :) The main point here is to adjust the cooking wine, shaoxing jiu, to your own taste~

While I was entering this post, Rika suggested we had this soup today. Not a bad idea, but the prawns I have in the freezer are not ideal for this soup, I will get some “crystal” prawns for this when I visit the wet market again.

Roast Duck From Penang

Roast Duck
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Yummy roast duck from a mobile stall along New Lane [Lorong Baru]…this is our favourite stall. After our visits, the boss recognized us :) This is also the place where we would eat the stewed "choy giok", mustard green cooked with poultry bones, assam keping and whole dried chillies with a tangy appetizing taste. Sad though, cabbage was added to it during our 2nd trip and this slightly diluted the taste!

Porridge From Penang

Porridge From Penang
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

This was the yummy porridge with deep-fried pork intestine, char siew & pork innards. Serving portion of toppings is generous, do not request for extra toppings. It cost RM$5.00 per bowl with extra toppings. Normal price per bowl costs RM$3.00 to RM$4.00.

KL has it own version of porridge cook with innards which is different from this...no char siew added...just as yummy though.

"Kam Hiong" Crabs

"Kam Hiong" Crabs
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Ordering the meat crabs from the restaurant waiter was an interesting encounter. Due to language barrier, we thought that the crabs had no meat, when he kept saying in Penang Hokkien. What we heard was “wu gou, bo bak” which means the crabs had plenty of roe but not meaty. After repeating our order, he finally realized what we wanted. Later, we were presented with a plate of sumptuous and delicious meaty crabs full of roe. A day before we left the island, we went back for a second meal. The food offered in this seafood restaurant was really good.

Oriental Seafood Restaurant located along Macalister Road is just a short walking distance from New Lane/Lorong Bahru.

Dim Sum From Penang

Dim Sum From Penang
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

We tried these dim sum items during our second trip to Penang Island in West Malaysia. They tasted differently from what we had locally. The fishballs were definitely solid and nice. The cost was only a fraction of what we normally paid. This eatery is located along Macalister Road, close to New Lane.

This photo was taken on request. The lady manning the dim sum section was so nice that she actually rearranged the food in the tray so that I could take in as many items as possible!

Worth to mention, the mobile hawker food at New Lane during the evenings is another “makan place” that one should visit when you are there. Delicious food that we had tried there were “Cheng Teng”, roast duck, “suan chye”, Penang assam laksa, beef ball noodles, “siew cheong” porridge etc.

Dim Sum

Dim Sum
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

These are our favourites that we would always order. Sometimes, new items are on the menu and we would try them after some enquires on the ingredients used in them.

Clockwise from the top: Steamed "Char Siew" Buns, Prawn Dumplings, "Shui Jin" Dumplings, Bean Sheet Rolls, "Siew Mai" and "Char Siew" Crisps [center].