#  >  > Travellers Tales in Thailand and Asia >  >  > Malaysia Forum >  >  Eating in Penang

## dirtydog

Now I have to admit the food in Malaysia is a lot better than the food in Thailand, generally it is cheaper and of better quality, although I have to admit I didn't have any lamb chops and I really regret that, I also regret not eating enough Indian food there and loads of other foods that are cheaply available.

Anyway this first restaurant is in Chulia Street, I have to admit it was quite dissapointing but I don't often eat breakfast anyway so maybe all breakfasts are shite.

Welcome to the Ecco Cafe  :Smile: 

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## dirtydog

Anyway I ordered the second option for breakfast, if I had known they used brown bread for the toast I wouldn't have bothered, I mean do I look like I need more roughage in my food? my bowel movements are quite fine thank you, as far as I am concerned toast has to be made from white bread and that is that, must be too many poxy overweight back packers going there I reckon.



I should add that the butter was frozen and I had to wait ages for it to defrost.....

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## dirtydog

Onto the main course, I was extremely upset about the sausages, I mean we ruled their country for god knows how many years and they still cant make a proper sausage, what the hell is wrong with these people? do they have learning disabilities?

Ok obviously the American gritts I didn't bother trying, the ham was a great big thick slice of, erm, I suppose they would say ham, but it was pretty shite, all in all this place is a waste of time, it has one guy working there and he is waiter and chef, so expect long waits if he has any customers...

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## dirtydog

Still, what can you expect for 90baht I suppose  :Sad:

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## Marmite the Dog

Hmmm... We had the breakfast buffet at the Hotel Continental. Just like your breakfast but more of it.

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## dirtydog

I did have a look at the buffet, but a plate of beans and a cup of coffee is hardly worth taking a picture of. that was my breakfast anyway  :Smile: 

This place is famous, the Hong Kong bar in Chulia street, Know idea why it is famous as the place is a foking dump, I should mention that it doesn't sell food either, but it isn't worthy of it's own thread, late last year the place burned down, unfortuneately they rebuilt it to its former lack luster glory, the only thing this bar had going for it was that every evening they took a picture of all the visa runners desperate to get back into Thailand, luckily they were all lost in the fire, my first time there was like 15 or 16 years ago, I asked the guy what the fok we were doing in such a hole, he said it was a great place for a drink.










All I can say is thank fok there are better places nowadays in Penang to get pissed up in  :Smile:

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## aging one

That looked like some kind of hash brown product made from processed potatoes, but that square or wedge was in no way grits.

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## Marmite the Dog

Did you go to the Church Street Cafe, DD?

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## dirtydog

Not sure, some of the evenings ended up as a bit of a blur  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

The Hang Chow Hotel, this place is also on Chulia street which seems to be the main street for back packers to stay, not sure what the rooms are like at this place but going by the restaurant I should imagine they are pretty grotty.

The Chinese owner always seems to have a fag in his mouth, I was a bit put off when he started stirring my beans and still had the fag in his mouth, still ash wont kill you.

They do pizzas here but I have no idea if they are any good.




Anyway I had the beans on toast and a coffee for 4.50 ringit, again on poxy brown bread.




Actually there was an old guy staying there, looked about 55, it was quite sad seeing him struggling up the stairs to his room, I mean at that age you deserve a bit of luxury in life.

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## dirtydog

That afternoon it was curry time  :Smile:  the one I used to goto was the Taj mahal on the corner of Chulia and Penang road, that is now alas a silk shop  :Sad:  anyway next door they got the Nasi Kandar, basically the same but must sell loads more meals, the waiters were wheeling out trolleys with curry sauce in, the bowls must have had about 5 gallons in each one and took 2 people to lift them, yep this place must have a high turnover of customers.




This next picture shows the front case on the left, the food goes back about 3 meters of both sides of the entrance, so as you can imagine there is a lot of choice.




For a change I had the chicken curry with yellow rice, I assume they must pressure cook the chickens as they are so tender, normally the cucumbers should be pickled, these ones werent though  :Sad: 





As you can see they don't have anything over 7 ringit.

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## aging one

Why dont we have good like that here!!!  I would kill for a beef rendang and a couple of rotis or a garlic nan.  

Hell I even like veggie Indian food down in Penang.  Rio Restaurant really good I guess they still serve the food on banana leaves.

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## dirtydog

I quite agree, in pattaya we have quite a few mediocre Indian places, but they are 3 times the price of the ones in Penang.

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## Marmite the Dog

Mmmm.... I might get some tandori chicken later. There's a couple of Indian places within a couple of minutes from here.

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## aging one

True but its not like "diner food"  We have the curry shops where you can eat Thai curries for 25-50 baht, we dont have the Indian curry shops with the same kind of deal. Damn.  I only know one, down on New Road right at the foot of Silom.  Its not as good as Penang but I usually stop in if I am in that part of town.

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## dirtydog

There was an indian restaurant just across the road from the Oriental, looked real classy and the set lunch was like 130baht for several dishes, I shall post about that one later.

Next up we have the Tai Wah Cafe on Chulia Street, this dump,erm, I mean place has been there for over 15 years that I know of, this is the place all the lonely backpackers goto and they all sit in there ignoring each other, it is really quite depressing, I believe the beer is about 10 baht cheaper than other low end places so assume that is the attraction, hard core alchoholic backpackers getting a top up, last time I was there the food came from a trolley cart in the street and consisted of burgers and fried chicken, how they have the front to call themselves a cafe I have no idea.

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## aging one

I can vouch for the fact that it was "part of the in crowd" over 25 years ago.

Back then who had the thickest white toast was the winner.  Sorry about that DD.

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## dirtydog

Hotel Blue Diamond and Coco Island, this yet again is on Chulia street, the front garden area seems to be shared by 2 differant restaurants, obviously the side I went to was the blue diamond side that done the mexican food.




As you can see in the next picture the coco place is mainly international, and I don't go all the way to Penang to eat fish and chips I might add.





The garden in this place is pretty big, but the hotel does look pretty low end, I believe grungy would be a good word for it, but hell I am sure it is cheap, I remember staying in places like these and reading the signs in the communal showers, things like "please don't shit in the shower as it blocks up the plumbing". as you can guess these places do not attract the high end market of tourism.

Anyway here is a picture of the Coco Island area of the restaurant.

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## dirtydog

On entering the Mexican side of the garden it all looks quite nice, nice little bar area, a couple of tvs showing sports that nobody is interested in, and a pool table, the Mexican side has a proper roof over it rather than poxy little umbrellas, and also has some nice groups of pot plants, I got to admit I did wonder about mice and rats as we have the same problem here where I live and I have to keep poisoning the buggers.




Now that list makes you hungry don't it  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

I had the chilli con carne, what did suprise me was that the beef was shredded, This has to be one of the best meals I have ever had for less than 2 quid, it puts the teakdoor chili contest to shame, talking of that, whatever happened to the gay welshmans chili?

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## dirtydog

The rats were there, I had a couple of beers and as it got dark I noticed a couple of what I thought were guinea pigs wandering around, I then saw a few cats stalking them, it turned out to be momma and papa and uncle rat following their offspring, there were foking loads of them, the foking place was innundated with poxy great big rats, the waitress explained that they came looking for food, are they foking Mexican rats? After seeing about 20 of these buggers I thought it best to go back to the hotel and sit on the toilet just in case, but everything was okay and the world did not explode out of my bottom  :Smile: 

here is a picture of one of the baby rats.

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## lom

> what did suprise me was that the beef was shredded


You really can't get any big pieces out of such small rats   :Smile:

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## aging one

Who gives a shit about the rats another true Tex Mex Fan.  Good to hear DD. Throw in a shit load of Tequila and then we are talking.

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## dirtydog

Here is a video of the restaurant, they have live music over the weekends, I was lucky and missed all that  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

> Who gives a shit about the rats another true Tex Mex Fan. Good to hear DD. Throw in a shit load of Tequila and then we are talking.


actually I do fancy a couple of shooters at the moment, maybe have to take the galfriend out again, jees, just took her to a restaurant for gods sake  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

The Ho Ping on Penang road, now this place is really busy, trouble is it aint got the food that appeals to me, I mean beef balls in what?

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## ChiangMai noon

> talking of that, whatever happened to the gay welshmans chili?


I will have to assume you are referring to me in the absence of any other welshman renaging on the chilli promise.
I have decided that Tuesday would be a very good day for chilli as I shall be entertaining my mother and her boyfriend.

By the way, Penang looks like a right dump, is it as dumpy as it looks or are there some nice bits??

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## dirtydog

Well nice bits are a bit difficult, but they do have some tourist attractions that are millions of years old, well they do have Penang hill, I shall be posting about that at a later date  :Smile:  also they now have a good disco area where you can pull the birds, well obviously welsh men that cant cook chili cant but us normal guys can  :Smile:

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## Marmite the Dog

> By the way, Penang looks like a right dump, is it as dumpy as it looks or are there some nice bits??


You obviously didn't take a peek at my Penang thread. I did the more upmarket places while DD did the low end stuff. Teamwork you see.  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

I also went past some nice upmarket places  :Smile:  Here is the Passage Thru India, it's a 2 storey restaurant and looks pretty damn classy, shame I didn't have the time to eat there though  :Sad:

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## dirtydog

Address,
132 Penang Road, 10000 Penang.
Phone, 04- 262 0263

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## dirtydog

Next up we hit some more upmarket places, this is the S3 Bistro and there are a chain of them in Malaysia, I am not sure of the name of the street here, but you need to goto the end of Penang road away from the Komtar building, ie the Hotel Continental end, from there you will see a pedestrianised road with loads of signs for bars and that, this is where all the hiso Malays go out pulling the birds.






This place was real classy, we ate upstairs, all plush furniture, lots of malay couples with laptops on the tables, ie his and hers laptops, I just couldn,t imagine going on a date and your date brings her laptop.
Anyway as you can see the food is as cheap as chips.




I have to admit to starting eating this before I thought of taking a picture, this was pretty damn good, spicey meatballs, bacon, shrimps, egg etc etc etc .



Address
S3 Bistro Sdn Bhd
Wisama Boon Siew
No.1 Penang Road
10000 George town, Penang.
Telephone,
04-250 1331

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## dirtydog

Quick stop off for a beer at the Shamrock House, this place is just off the pedestrianised area and on the main road, nice place but hardly buzzing, got to admit I do like the choice of beers in Penang though.








I went for a pint of Skol, although I don't recall ever drinking it before in the UK but it was quite nice  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

This is the first place you come to on crossing the road, it all seemed to be open air, as the weather was so muggy I needed aircon so I gave this place a miss.





By this time I was getting a tad typsy, so whether or not Carls place was any good or not will have to be answered by someone else  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

Now this place was quite good, downstairs was a bar and dance floor, upstairs the old karaoke, 38 ringit for a big jug of beer.






Also they had a toilet with a bum sprayer in, got to admit I didn't risk using it as the water pressure may have given me an enema.



Star Clubz
Address; 3D Penang Road, Upper Penang Road, 10000 Penang.
Telephone; 04- 2623288

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## dirtydog

The place also has a few young ladies to help you out with your singing.

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## The Gentleman Scamp

On both my visits to Penang I ate at the Kenny Rodgers Roaster.

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## Marmite the Dog

> This is the first place you come to on crossing the road, it all seemed to be open air, as the weather was so muggy I needed aircon so I gave this place a miss.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> By this time I was getting a tad typsy, so whether or not Carls place was any good or not will have to be answered by someone else


If you read my thread, you'll know that Coco's is an indoor place and the other bar is the Uptown Bistro. 'Carl's' is the name of a local beer.

How much did that Skol cost DD. The Beamish was about 27 Ringot!!

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## obsidian

this thread is very helpful. i have been to penang several times and never found some of these places. i'm looking forward to returning.

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## aging one

Yup I dont even need to go there for a visa, but I am feeling the need to get down there again.  Perhaps stop there for a couple of days on the way to Cameron Highlands to beat the heat and play a little golf.

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## Marmite the Dog

> this thread is very helpful. i have been to penang several times and never found some of these places. i'm looking forward to returning.


Some of these places have only been open for a few weeks (the places next to Coco's & Hotel Continental).

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## dirtydog

I am not sure how much the skol was, maybe 10 ringit or so.

Now this place is where it is at.

Slippery Senoritas,





This is the entrance for a big bar and disco complex.

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## dirtydog

I was here quite early so they werent really open yet, but a few of them let me in to take some pictures after I explained it was for Teakdoor  :Smile:

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## dirtydog

This video was taken inside the place, It's like a village of shophouses, some have been knocked thru to make big discoes and some are small bistro type places, it is all really nicely done out and I think in the future will give Soho pub a run for it's money, although now the Soho Pub has expanded to the second floor aswell.

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## dirtydog

This is another club in the complex, they were testing out the smoke machines, alas the bouncers banned us and said fok teakdoor, seems they don't allow pics  :Sad:  anyway don't goto this one  :Smile:

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## ILoveDogs

I had some great food at a Chinese place, although I don't know where I was.  But I had a huge plate of scallops and another of Ostrich, or there is another name for those large birds, I fogot, with vegs, and rice and tea or whatever, for I think about $12 USD.

I didn't really like the city, but really liked this restaurant.  I ate Indian food too, but found it pretty expensive, but I did eat at a place on a main street and didn't look around much or make it into the the Indian area proper, only the edge.  I think I paid about $20 USD for veg only food, and only for one person, no alcohol.

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