That’s right it is all about the food in Penang.
As most of you know I am travelling around the globe with my partner in crime Dean. We have taken 12 months off from our normal life back in Brisbane, Australia to explore the world. So we are now into week 11 of our trip and have made it to Penang in Malaysia, the food capital of South East Asia. Upon leaving Brisbane, we have been to New Zealand and then Perth in Australia.
We first visited Penang in August 2015 and only stayed for 4 days, but we both loved the people, the culture and most importantly the food of this bustling island off the coast of Malaysia. We vowed to one day come back. Little did we realise that it would be sooner, rather than later. This time we are here for 4 weeks in total and are now into week 3 of our stay.
The food here is simple but very good. Our favourites so far are Char Kuey Teow (a must dish to try and one of the most famous Penang dishes), Claypot Chicken, Salted Fish Rice and Mee Goreng to name a few. My favourite is the Claypot Chicken with Char Kuey Teow winning hands down for Dean.
On every street corner you will find little old (and some not so old as well) Malaysian women and men selling their dish and these are known as street hawkers. We have come accustomed to eating from these vendors for two main reasons, we are supporting the local small business and most importantly the food definitely tastes better and is cheap.
There are all cuisines here in Penang ranging from Malaysian, Thai, Indian, Nonya, Japanese, Chinese, to name a few and there are plenty of western restaurants as well. We like to steer clear of these and soak up the food and culture of the place we are staying at the time. To be honest have not missed the western food at all, which is surprising.
We look forward to every day working out where we can find some new street hawker to taste their lovely food. Because the food is cheap here you can afford to eat out for every meal.
So if you ever get the chance, you should definitely put Penang of your list of must visit cities of the world.
It will be sad to leave this lovely island in paradise, but our next stop is another place we visited last year called Chiang Mai in Thailand, so looking forward to being able to explore this great city in more depth.
Just some photo’s of the food that we have been enjoying.