Penang Delicacies Trail @Macalister Lane; Penang

The Penang delicacies that my aunts had kept recommended was Char Koay Kak by Eoh’s sisters at Seow Fong Lye Cafe; Macalister Lane.  According to them, my dad and them used to have char koay kak during their early 20s and it is one of the best local delicacies they used to eat. The stall which was located at Macalister Lane was run by the Eoh sisters for nearly 40 years.

Okay, so what’s char koay kak? In case you don’t understand Hokkien language, it refers to fried radish cake. The raddish cake or carrot cake is made of rice and corn flour, basically tasteless and being flavorful after cooking with seasoning, egg, bean sprouts, chai poh (菜圃), dark soya sauce and chili. Despite being soft and silky smooth in texture, it’s somehow tasted like char koay teow except that it has no cockles and prawns.

The next scrumptious food you could have at Seow Fong Lye Cafe is the Penang style Chee Cheong Fun. It is not hard to spot this stall as you could see a long queue most of the time. The name of the hawker is Lim Mei Fong if I wasn't mistaken. She put a spoonful of sweet and slightly spicy shrimp paste dazzling over the rice rolls after pouring a dash of sesame seeds and chili paste.

The sauce was so pungent that its aroma flew into my nostrils.

Just a simple dish yet it made remembrance after eating. 

Kim Lee Coffee Shop which is just few shops after Seow Fong Lye Cafe has the famous kuay teow teng which I love it very much! The silky smooth, thin and flat rice noodles garnished with sliced duck meats, fish balls, fried crispy onions and chopped scallions.The nourished full-bodied soup must have been boiled for hours as it is so flavorsome. From the hawker's hunched back, it is obviously to see how much efforts and hard work he has been succeeding the stall. The stall's name is Ah Hai Koay Teow Teng.

Hokkien Prawn Mee that doesn't fail my dad's expectancy! As you can see from the photo, a bowl of hokkien mee which is rich with ingredients i.e. prawns, slices of pork meat, bean sprouts, egg and regular portion of noodles. The soup stock here is rich and made from pork ribs and prawn heads. It may not be the best of Hokkien noodles we had eaten, yet it's definitely one of the good ones!

Nevertheless, Char Koay Teow with large prawns are relatively commonly found in many places in Penang. The char koay teow at Macalister Lane; Penang is also worth trying. I shall say any char koay teow in Penang is much tastier than in Kuala Lumpur due to "wok hei"

Last but not least, the mummy otak-otak in Penang is definitely savoring! We came across this woman who named herself as Madam Fang and her otak-otak is the best in town.Well, why not try one?! It has substantial pieces of fish and some leaves which my aunts said that those are daun pulut,daun kaduk or peppermint leaves, lengkuas, shallots, lemongrass, chilies and coconut milk. The nice aroma of otak-otak could be smelled once unwrapping the banana leaves of otak-otak.

At the end, we ate without taking a photo and regretted over it. Before leaving Macalister Lane, we requested her to provide a name card so that we could visit the stall again. She provided the small piece of paper as per below：

A quick recap of the famous food you could have dined at @Macalister Lane; Penang:

1. Char Koay Kak by Eoh’s sisters
2. Chee Cheong Fun by Mdm. Lim Mei Fong
3. Kim Lee Coffee Shop's Kuay Teow Teng
4. Hokkien Prawn Mee
5. Char Koay Teow
6. Mummy Otak-otak

~The end~