Next in my recap series from my trip to Penang in October, after sharing my stay at the Blue Mansion and details of my #1 must do recommendation of visiting the street art of George Town, it is time to talk food! During my visit I had a super long eating wish list, and was successful in eating some of it – means an excuse to return right to finish crossing everything off? Here are my food highlights of Penang for you to consider for your list when you visit.
Satay – individually ordered sticks of prawn, beef, lamb, lamb black pepper, calamari, and chicken tandoori at a Satay Specialty shop
In Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur may be the national capital, but Penang is its food capital. Lonely Planet ranked Penang as the #1 Best Food Destination in 2014, CNN Travel named Penang as one of the 23 best food cities in the world last year, and The Culture Trip named Penang one of the best 15 cities in the world for food in 2016.
Street food is such a source of price that the tourism board offers Street Food maps with a list and description of an array of popular street food dishes, along with a handful of recommendations of where to get it, on a free street food map. There are also plenty of blogs by locals with their own lists of where are the top places to get a certain dish.
I divided the foods of my Penang food highlights into two main areas: one is street foods of Penang, which you can usually find at hawker centers or evening markets like Chulia Street, New Lane, Gurney Drive, Batu Lanchang, Air Itam, etc. In this case my intent is to help you recognize some of the food you may see. The other grouping is Peranakan food, which you will have to intentionally search to find where it is offered as it is not as common as the street food offerings.
You might also find some amusement in the WonderFood Museum. It’s mostly lots of plastic fake food, but I was impressed with the first floor in showing some special preparations of a various ethnic cuisines that contribute to Malaysia’s food culture in dioramas along with example visuals of dishes with a legend (like seen below). They also offered an overview of the vast many kind of dishes in Malaysia, even some suggestions on where to go to eat the local dish, and of course, so many silly photo ops. If you’re caught in a rainstorm like I was or just want a break from the sun I recommend an hour here. 
Street Foods of Penang
Street food in Penang is available all day long – from breakfast to late night. Unlike in Singapore where the food creators have been moved to hawker centers and no longer in the street, in Penang you can still dine al fresco from carts that are wheeled into their spot that morning or that evening, as well as from some hawker areas both enclosed or open air. The mix of cultures here is reflected uniquely in the food and definitely has differences from Singapore – there were some options completely new to me despite visiting many hawker centers in Singapore. At the same time, Penang street food is similarly very affordable, and benefits from some stalls that have carried on recipes for decades and through generations. 
Some options for your consideration for breakfast might be Nasi Lemak, a coconut milk infused rice dish served with sambal and garnished with crispy ikan bilis (little fried fish) that is considered the national dish of Malaysia. You will also find some spice in the morning and a lot of carbs via noodles or rice.
Some of my breakfasts included for instance Hokkien Mee (yellow egg noodles and rice vermicelli served with bean sprouts, hard boiled egg, poached chicken slices, shrimp and fried shallots, bathed in a fragrant, slightly spicy stock), Roti Canai (a curry with flatbread – you can see my serving along with some dim sum and a pandan bun shown from a breakfast buffet), Curry Mee (a coconut milk base curry with yellow noodles that is more rich then the Hokkien Mee), or Hakka Pan Mee Flat Noodle soup.
My favorite item that I would get daily was the rice porridge that you can top yourself with accompaniments, especially when there is youtiao, or long fried bread/Chinese doughnut “croutons”. You may find you need this more base meal to start your day after a day of a lot of fried or spicy food that is typical fare in Penang.
For lunch maybe you want to try Char Koay Teow, considered an iconic street food in Penang. This is a dish of rice cake strips with flat rice noodles stir fried in pork fat with light and dark soy sauce, chili, belachan (fermented shrimp paste), prawns, blood cockles, bean sprouts, chopped chinese chives, and egg. Usually this is by default a chicken egg, but you may have an option to upgrade to a duck egg for a bit more richness. There are multiple famous stands that only specialize in this dish, each offering their own take on wok hei, or wok’s breath, that extra flavor of char from a hot wok.
Also don’t miss trying Chee Cheong Fun (a rice noodle roll dish topped with the dark prawn paste and chili that is much chewier and cut smaller so it’s easier to handle then the slippery Hong Kong or Guangdong version you usually see at dim sum), Claypot Rice, or Otak otak (a fish custard in banana leaf). You should also not pass up a stall if you see a line for Mee Goreng (stir fried noodles) or Nasi Goreng (fried rice) or Satay or… any line usually is a good sign.
Don’t forget a dessert of cool and refreshing Ais Kacang or Ice Kacang aka bean ice or Cendol also known as Chendol, aka a dessert made with shaved ice, coconut milk, green rice flour jelly noodles (green pandan jelly is the Cendol), and palm sugar. Other ingredients like red beans, glutinous rice, grass jelly, and creamed corn may also be added as toppings to essentially your snow cone sundae. Personally I’m not sure why creamed or sweet corn is not more of a dessert thing all the time, yum. 
You’ll find the above foods listed available in the evening markets too not just for lunch, along with Char koay kak, a dish of radish cake stir-fried in a thick black soy sauce with preserved radish, bean sprouts, and eggs. Char koay kak is great by day, but to me seems to be the perfect late night after drinking food. 
Something a little bit more unique you’ll find in the evening is Lok Lok. This is a stand where everything is on a skewer, and you can grab whatever you want – options vary from different seafood or meat, vegetables, dumplings, eggs, etc. Each stick indicates a different price, which gets added up at the end when you’re done. Put the stick into a communal pot of boiling water to cook the skewer, and then enjoy with sauce available. There are different sauces so taste them all to figure out your favorite or mix them to your own custom flavor.
Another unique food I first encountered here in Penang is Pasembur. This is a spicy Malaysian salad with a red sauce made from sweet potato and chili paste topping a medley of ingredients like shredded cucumber, yambean, turnip, potato, bean curd, fried fritters, bean curd, and possibly poached jellyfish. Some stands put the dish together for you – like the one at Batu Lancang, or others you pick and pay based on how much you select and the stand then chops and sauces the whole shebang, like these scenes from Gurney Drive. 
I held off on the fried buffet of the Disco Pasembur stand at Gurney Drive because I had my eye on another stand that was more freshly refrying their offerings to ensure fresh crispyness- stall #100 at Gurney Drive Hawker Center. I went for the fried chicken skin and my coworker helped out with a bag of fried crablets. Both were topped with a little sweet chili sauce. I recommend grabbing lil bags of these after a stop at the Gurney Mall grocery store in the basement (next door) to grab beers.
Peranakan Food
Don’t miss a chance if you see them to try the not too sweet (sometimes savory) colorful and dainty little Nyonya Kuih. They are often seen at breakfast, tea, or perhaps eaten as a dessert. They usually have a base of rice and/or tapioca or mung bean, and often flavored with palm sugar, pandan, coconut.
Kuih come in all types of colors and shapes and textures, but often you may see a version of a steamed cake that is soft but firm sort of reminiscent of pudding and jello textures combined, like below. You can find a helpful guide to kuih from Time Out here, as besides this layered kind you may also find filled, coated, wrapped, sliced, or fried kuih in various shapes and textures and more colors. You will find nyonya kuih sometimes at markets but also at specialty shops.
Nyonya Kuih are an example of Peranakan Food. The word “Peranakan” refers to those born in the Straits, generally descendants of immigrated Chinese with the local Malay, and who incorporated Chinese and local ingredients and cooking techniques together. For savory food, this may incorporate really marinated meat and seafood before cooking it in a stew that may use belacan (spicy shrimp paste) or fresh herbs, roots, and chiles.
I went with some of my local co-workers to a Peranakan restaurant called Nyonya Willow specializing in Northern Perankan cuisine. Since they did all the ordering I am not sure of all the dishes names, but here is an example of our Peranakan food spread that I know included Assam Prawns, Lor Bak or five spices meat wrapped in thin bean curd skin, Gulai Tumis Stingray Curry, Jiu Hu Char (Stir Fry Jicama or Yam Bean with Cuttlefish and shitake mushrooms), and dishes of stewed pork belly and a Kapitan chicken curry and I think Nasi Ulam herb rice salad.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to check off all the food on my eats wish list, so still waiting to next time for
- Asam Laksa, a fish curry noodle dish with a base of tamarind that makes it more sour, considered also pretty iconic as a Penang food dish
- Nasi Kandar, rice with a buffet of curries
- Oyster Omelette, also known as Oh Chien
- Rojak, which is a fruit and vegetable mixed salad with a dark colored sweet and sour dressing
- And repeat of more of all the above that I already ate
Which of these dishes do you think you would want to try to eat?
Penang, Malaysia Travel Posts (October 2019)
- Staying at the Cheong Fatt Tze Blue Mansion in Penang
- Best Activity for Penang: Tips for Visiting George Town Street Art in Penang
- Food Highlights of Penang
- Visiting Kek Lok Si Temple
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