Eating in Penang

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 :)

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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.

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

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

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

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 :)

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.

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

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

Did you go to the Church Street Cafe, DD?

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

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.

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

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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.

That afternoon it was curry time :) 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 :( 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.

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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.

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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 :(

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


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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.

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.

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

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.

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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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.

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.

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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.


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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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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.

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


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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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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 :)

here is a picture of one of the baby rats.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by dirtydog

what did suprise me was that the beef was shredded

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

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.

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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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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 :)