For TC, har mee or udang mee, which was not spicy enough and not nearly as red as the version seen at Satay.  He thought it was only OK, sadly.

An order of roti canai, as is my usual. Crisp, pillowy, chewy, and just all around great, I do really enjoy their version.

Trying to be healthy, we went with green beans sauteed with belacan – slightly spicy but very flavorful, lots of umami taste from the ground shrimp paste.  Really good and properly cooked, I enjoyed this a lot.

And for me, I forget the name of this dish (TC, help?!) but it was basically udon stir fried in a soy sauce gravy. I really enjoyed it, even if he chided me for it not being a real Malaysian dish… and not particularly unique, haha. Still very tasty!

Last but not least, our beef satay, which was meaty, tender, fragrant and really good. I enjoyed it a lot!

Funny enough, a few short weeks later, FeistyMom wanted Malaysian for her birthday, so Snorlax, FeistyMom and I headed to the same location for dinner.

We ordered half a Hainanese chicken; the meat was slightly warm, and FeistyMom suggested it was freshly poached (this is a dish normally served cold). To no detriment here – the white meat was juicy, tender and delicious – and you know I don’t eat white meat normally, but I found myself gobbling this up. Fantastic; I’ll have to order it by the half more often… so good.

As I said, my standard order of roti canai, and it was great as usual.

Clay pot noodles served in a clay pot (who knew?) in a thick broth that was reminiscent of egg drop soup, with a lot more sweetness from the corn than you might expect. Shiitake mushrooms, strips of chicken, squid, and big shrimp – just a fantastic dish. I found myself eating bowl after bowl of this long after my stomach requested that I cease & desist… chewy egg noodles coated with that broth, I really must order this more often as well.  (TC… when are we going again?!)

My choice of char kway teow went mostly ignored in favor of the other noodle dishes. I asked for this to be slightly spicy, and it was pretty spicy for my sensitive palate.. but still good.

Snorlax requested and received ‘wat dahn ho fun’ or something (slippery egg broad noodles) – underneath the pool of sauce, which has a beaten raw egg mixed into it, are stir-fried broad white rice noodles. Though those fake-crab looking sticks on the side were awful (tasted like rice cakes but bad), the rest of the dish was absolutely delicious. We both had a lot of fun ‘fighting’ over bits from the plate, and just eating this happily… so good.

Then our beef satay came out; the only fail of the night. These were mushy and tasted OFF, like weird and bad. We did not eat more than a few bites each before we decided it wasn’t worth the stomach space; sadly, FeistyMom suggested something had gone wrong with the dish or maybe it’d turned. Regardless, the rest of the dishes were so great that I didn’t really notice the lack of satay in my belly that night.

As you can see, I visit Penang fairly frequently and really enjoy it; I don’t foresee that changing any time soon. That location has been there for a while, and while the quality has been inconsistent over the 15 years I’ve been visiting – I think they had a bad chef at one point, who appears to no longer work there – it’s now returned to serving some really excellent food.

I’m already planning my return visit! Clay pot noodles, yum!

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: feisty family, noodles, roti, satay

Our meal started with an order of roti canai, a thin, crepe-like pancake that, when done well, is chewy, soft, but crispy in spots. This was definitely a very good roti, served with a side of slightly spicy curry for dipping.For veggies, we ordered green beans with belacan, a dried shrimp paste that is extremely fragrant and almost fishy-smelling.  The green beans were cooked perfectly – slightly crisp, but cooked through – and the shrimp paste added a really nice dimension to the dish, a bit of umami and the pungent taste was great.

DLS mentioned always wanting to try ‘har mee’ (also known as udang mee), so we ordered this. This was the only miss of the night – neither of us liked it that much; though it wasn’t particularly spicy, it also wasn’t particularly flavored strongly. I had a little bit and relinquished the rest to him.

One of the dishes I’d long remembered from my first visit to Satay was the Malaysian cheong fun, which essentially is rolled rice noodles served with a delicious, slightly sweet sauce, a bit of hot sauce on one side, and a piece of eggplant stuffed with fish paste, a long okra stuffed with fish paste, a piece of tofu stuffed with fish paste, and this interesting crispy bit. While I really like the slippery noodles with the sauce, the eggplant was tasty, but the okra and tofu didn’t really add anything to the dish. I think I would be just as happy – possibly happier – getting this as a street cart dish with fishballs (Cantonese style, in Chinatown) instead of at a restaurant.  Does anyone know where else I can get this – I’ve only ever seen it on the menu at Satay?

At the last minute, I added a half a Hainanese chicken to our order, just to try it and be able to compare to other Malaysian restaurants. (Yes, one of the reasons DLS is a great dining companion is his ability to not hesitate and agree when I ask if we should order another dish, even though there’s only two of us and we’ve already got a LOT of food.)  The chicken was smooth, sweet, and balanced perfectly with the sweet soy sauce on the bottom of the plate – very juicy, tender chicken.  Yum.  I almost wish I had more stomach room to eat more of this…

DLS also ordered a lychee drink, and myself a soy milk. Both were good.

The last dish to come out was satay, which I found super tender – not like jerky at all, which sometimes I find satay can emulate when overcooked or over-marinated.  I was impressed with just how tender it was, though as it cooled, it began to toughen up a little bit.  The peanut sauce was delicious as well.

We wound up taking a lot of the food to go, but the server (who I think might have also been a manager) was pleasant about it and did a really good job packing it all neatly – including all the sauces – in a bag so that it wouldn’t spill on our drive back.  Really friendly and pleasant service, though the place was only starting to fill up when we were leaving around 8pm on a Tuesday.

Yvo says: Everything we ate was enjoyable (though I didn’t like the har mee that much), and I would have no problem returning. I might opt to get the cheong fun somewhere else, but all the other Malaysian dishes were delicious – and I really want to try their rendang as well!  I’ll be back.
recommended

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: DLS, roti, satay

Our first dish was roti canai, of course, though we were surprised when the waitress asked us how many. Since I always order one and it’s enough for everyone to share, we said one, but when it came I think I understood: instead of thin, stretchy pancake that we could pull off and eat as we pleased, this came as one thick pancake that was… different. Neither of us preferred this to the other type, but we ate it… it was only okay. Maybe that’s personal preference or what we’re used to, but when I order roti canai, I definitely expect thin pancakes.

Next, of course the rendang I’d been seeking. I thought this was good – TC REALLY enjoyed it, while I thought it was simply good. It didn’t hold a candle to what I’d been eating, which might not be fair since those were all made by Top Chef caliber chefs… but it was just okay. Meat was tender, fragrant and flavorful, but not quite what I sought.

TC also ordered the ‘char kuay teow’ or seafood stir fried noodles, and asked for it to be spicy. It wasn’t very spicy – I was able to eat some without a problem – and while I thought it was sufficiently tasty, TC said it definitely wasn’t the greatest and he’s had better around the corner at Penang. Ah well.

And the last dish to come out was beef satay… which was again, sufficiently tasty, but not the best satay ever. I’d order it again if I was here, but I don’t know that I’d return here any time soon… no hurry.

Yvo says: While TC really liked the rendang, nothing really stood out. I thought the food was tasty but there was no benefit to going here over going to Penang around the corner (Penang even has a parking lot). I might return to see why everyone raves about this place and order different dishes, but honestly, it was on par with/slightly ‘worse than’ Penang (in quotes because it wasn’t bad, just not quite as good)… which means I’m more likely to return to Penang instead.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: rendang, roti, satay

A while back, I wrote about Nyonya in Brooklyn, which prompted many people to comment that I should plan to go to the one in Chinatown for comparison’s sake… and invite all of them along.  Due to schedules shifting etc., we wound up with just TT, Gary and DLS joining me, but it was plenty as the place was pretty crowded on a Friday evening.  We waited about 10-15 minutes for a table, but luckily, it wasn’t too cold that night so waiting outside wasn’t painful. 

When I saw Malaysian iced tea on the menu, I had to order it, as I’ve ordered Thai iced tea at Malaysian places to have them correct me… and then bring me Thai iced tea anyway.  This begat a long discussion about the differences in the two, until mine appeared and I scowled.  Thai iced tea is orange, and this was definitely not the same… and drinking it was just iced tea.  Boo. 

Roti canai was dispatched rather quickly, and I found it tasty enough – not above or below what I expected it to be.  Chewy crepe with a curry dipping sauce. 

Hainanese chicken, white meat – something was missing with this dish.  I didn’t make much comment but it just wasn’t as tasty as the one I’d had in Brooklyn, I don’t know, not flavorful enough.  It was leaps and bounds better than the one I’d had Jaya just a few short weeks prior, but I think anything would have been… 

…and of course, the rice that came with it, which was rather tasty. 

DLS ordered a noodle dish whose name I didn’t catch.  I tried some and thought it was OK, but not something I’d want to order again.  Slightly spicy, but difficult to eat while wearing a white shirt, that’s for sure… 

Gary ordered the nasi lemak, which he seemed to enjoy well enough.  I didn’t try any, and I will never be able to order this, sadface, though I love the idea of a bit of a couple of dishes to make a well rounded, varied meal… Alas, my coconut allergy does not permit me to eat these things. 

TT chose a squid dish with hot chilies, and I totally tried this and loved it.  The squid was cooked perfectly – slightly chewy, with enough give so it wasn’t like eating bubble gum – lots of heat but not uncomfortably so, just right.  The evil glow of red in the sauce was deceiving, and I put some on my rice to eat, loved it.  Super flavorful, just great.  I think he definitely won the ordering game this dinner. 

For comparison’s sake, char kway teow, which I eat at a lot of Malaysian restaurants, and here was good, but not wonderful.  Just sufficiently tasty.  It quickly became apparent that this was considered the most boring dish, as everyone ignored it in favor of the more flavorful dishes on the table. 

The first thing I ordered when we sat down was the satay, but the server told us it would take 10 minutes.  That’s fine – I’m used to satay taking a while, actually.  So it came to the table last, and while I thought it was very good, again, it wasn’t stand-out good.  Just standard level of good, because I like beef satay…

Yvo says: Our meal overall was pretty tasty, but I didn’t think oh my, this is fantastic Malaysian – it was just very standard.  The place was super busy though, and a lot bigger inside than I thought it was from the outside – tons of people waiting for tables when we arrived and still when we left.  I would definitely go back, and feel comfortable saying it’s very good Malaysian, but I didn’t notice such a great improvement from the Malaysian place I normally go to that’s in my neighborhood that I’d only go to Nyonya again. 
recommended

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: DLS, roti, satay

First up, beef satay, which I love ordering at Malaysian restaurants (especially the first time I visit), came quicker than I expected.  And way more… charred… Some pieces were pretty burnt.  There were cubes of white stuff on the plate that we weren’t sure what it was – like rice cake, with a soft texture, very interesting.  The beef was OK – the parts that weren’t burnt – but nothing I’d order again, especially given that after a few minutes, I realized the peanut sauce must’ve been made with coconut milk.  I’ve encountered this in the past, and just soldier on – some places add it for some extra creaminess I guess? – but my mouth was displeased.  No big deal as the beef satay wasn’t that good anyway, but it definitely needed sauce to make it sort of edible. 

TC ordered the char kway teow, a stir fried rice noodle dish that is generally filled with a variety of seafood and slightly spicy.  He added chili sauce to it though, because it wasn’t spicy at all… and had an interested assortment of proteins, including Chinese sausage, fishballs… no scallops, no squid… hmmm.  I think he thought it was OK… but I’m sure he’ll pipe in with his own comments. 

After waiting… and waiting… and waiting… my Hainanese chicken finally arrived.  I’d asked for white meat only because I am lazy, it was late at night, and I didn’t feel like dealing with bones.  I like the plate they used. 

But what’s that… it’s not white meat.  I think they gave me the back or something because there was very little meat and tons of bones.  Eek!  I struggled to get through it – I wasn’t even that hungry to begin with, honestly – but was really annoyed.  When it was served, the guy had said something to me about not having white meat so they gave me half/half or something… nope.  There was no half/half.  Not even a single piece of white meat.  And the chicken itself was only OK… nothing special.  Blegh.

Yvo says: It was open late, which was nice since we wanted food and every place on that block was closed, but otherwise, the dishes we had were big fat fails.  I don’t even know what to tell you because we ordered pretty standard Malaysian dishes, nothing crazy or unusual… stuff that they should just know how to make properly.  Not having white meat could be forgiven, but the odd array of stuff in the char kway teow and the over-charred satay just don’t sit well with me.  Oh well.  Next time, I’ll look for another place.
not recommended

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: satay