Hotel Equatorial Penang is somewhere we often perform at. It's quite an old hotel situated on top of the hill with beautiful view. Usually, during our freetime we will park ourselves at Coffee Garden to have our meal and just plan the night out. They have a small menu with both Western variety and Local delights. Unfortunately usually we don't have time to venture out of the hotel for Penang's famous street food so we just make do with the food here. Luckily, their food is pretty decent. This time I opted for the Char Kuay Teow (surely should be good considering it's still Penang?). Not long after, this plate of aromatic noodles arrived. Looks pretty good! Plenty of prawns, beansprouts, and some cockles buried underneath. But of course it's pork free. No matter though as the noodles actually tasted quite good with fair amount of wok breath. It was a little bit underseasoned but there was soy sauce provided on the side so problem solved. I managed to finish the whole plate. I would prefer to have the cockles slightly undercooked but maybe I should have specify that. Otherwise it's pretty decent CKT. Of course, it comes with a hefty price tag of RM20++. But at least I got to enjoy some local fare during my trip.

The service was attentive and polite and the ambiance was relaxed and cheerful. Nothing to complain about.

Tai Lei Loi Kei is apparently the exact name of the famous Macau Pork Chop Bun. I'm not sure if this is franchise or just a copy but I believe there are already a handful a branches in Klang Valley. This one at Kota Damansara is probably the latest addition, as I only saw them putting up their signboard some couple of months ago. I have not been to Macau thus have not tried the original bun. But I was curious enough to check out what it is all about since I've heard some raving reviews on the cyberspace.

The shop is very clean (being new helps) and has good ventilation, as I heard my friend complaining about another outlet (she came out smelling like porkchop) and it was comfortable enough with some canto pop blasting in the background. Being a first timer, I tried the Set A: Signature Pork Chop Buns with Milk Tea. I also opted for an egg as extra. It was after all my first meal of the day, might as well make it protein rich! This place is self service so you place your order and pay at the counter first and they will call out your name on a board. Very efficient and I received my order within 5 minutes.
The bun did smell pretty good (as usual with fried stuff) and although it's not much to look at, it's packed with quite a large piece of pork chop fried to golden brown, which is promising. A closer look at the pork chop. The inside.

So how's the taste? I added some chili sauce (you have to get your own cutlery and condiments etc from another counter) and took my first bite. I didn't mind the bun. It was quite soft and fluffy and the bottom bun was buttered. The pork chop itself was pretty tender so there was no trouble biting it off. But I felt like it was just what it is, deep fried pork chop. There was nothing significant for me to remember. The additional of egg was good to balance the texture though (and perhaps toned down the saltiness). However it wasn't difficult to finish it. I ordered iced milk tea to go with it and it was pleasant especially for the hot weather. Bonus point for not being overly sweet.

So now that I have given it a go, I guess it doesn't warrant a return visit but I wouldn't stop people from trying it. With the extra egg, the bill came up to RM15.40. Definitely not cheap but not too unreasonable. Now I'm just curious how the original tastes like!

I've been doing quite a bit of outstation gigs lately and Penang is our frequent stop. Last weekend we left pretty early in the morning (for musicians anyway) and by the time we reached the R&R at Simpang Pulai, it's nearly lunch time. It's our favourite rest stop because it's quite large with plenty of things to eat, and most importantly the bathrooms are very clean.

This wasn't my first time ordering food here and I must say the experience has been good so far. Of all the food stalls, the Nasi Kandar Padang Kota is the busiest and of course we usually opt for that. They have plenty of dishes to choose. Our usual favourite would be the naan bread and tandoori. But this time I also order a Mee Rebus because I felt like some noodles. They are quite generous with toppings and with a squeeze of lime, the gravy was perfect with a hint of spice and just thick enough to coat the noodles. There were plenty of crunchy, aromatic fried shallots which was my favourite part. The noodles were just so comforting. I finished this in no time! I think I will order this again next time.

I have lost count on how many burger joints there are in Klang Valley along, and that's not including your usual fast food joints like McDonald's. After the success of myBurgerLab, these burger joints were opening up like nobody's business. But some of them do give more thoughts into their concept and I think this is where Old School has done right.

When you walk into the cafe, you might wonder why there are students there during school hours (or outside of school hours), that's because the staff actually wears school uniform as their 'uniform'. Heck, even their menu looks like our oldschool 'buku latihan' (note book) with rukun negara on a page. Cute. Old School serves pork, so pork burger lovers rejoice! Although they also serves a variety of other dishes other than burgers, which caters for a larger audience I reckon. But of course, since it was our first visit, we went ahead and order the signature Old School Pork Burger and look at this sexy burger:The pork burger comes with a thick pork patty, ham, back bacon, caramelized onions, pineapple and tomato chutney. Porky goodness! I love the pairing of pork with pineapple. The balance of the sweet and savoury ingredients sound very promising. Here's the cross section: you can see how thick the patty is, but not overly dense. The onion relish was done really well, the tomato chutney brought a nice piquancy, and the pineapple was perfect with the juicy pork. I didn't think much of the buns, but it was fluffy enough to carry all the flavours. Pretty decent burger.

Service was efficient enough when it's not too busy, but it does get pretty crowded during weekend.

I think it's quite important to have a local bringing you along when it comes to hunting for Penang food. If it wasn't for my friend, I would never had try this amazing plate of Mee Sotong. Situated at a tired looking food court, Hameed Mee Sotong (squid noodles) is the only stall with super long line. (I gather by now if there's a queue anywhere in Penang, that stuff must be good!)

We send 2 person to order for us while we sat down to relax, and it took maybe around half an hour for our dishes to arrive. Well, you order on the spot and they will fry on the spot for you. Which actually is pretty quick. It's just the lining up. Anyway to the food.Wah... just by judging the look you know it's going to be tasty, in a very messy-gravy-dripping-down-your-chin way. And they weren't stingy with the pieces of sotong either (the redder strips). It was hands down the best 'mamak' type dish I have ever had in my life. There was so much flavours in it. The sotong was definitely the umami factor and also infused in the sauce coating the noodles, along with the aroma of fried shallots and spring onions. Every mouthful was simply heavenly. It also packs quite a bit of heat. I was deeply satisfied.

So next time if I ever have freetime in Penang and has a friend who drives, I will be going there!