Penang - Campbell Street - Roti Bakar

Food: Roti Bakar (Toasted Bread)
Type: Halal
Location: Campbell Street
Price: 1 set of bread (2 slices) - RM1.60 | 2 half-boiled eggs - RM1.20

Shop Name: Toh Soon Cafe - Ooi (016 496 4586)
Stall Operation: 0800 - 1800

Parking Convenience: Fair
Hygiene: Fair

Direction: -
You only have one way to enter Campbell Street from Penang Road to reach this shop. Just about 5-10 meters distant, you can see a backlane in between shop lots, Toh Soon Cafe is located there. You hardly miss this shop as you will see crowds over there.



Turn Back The Clock
Lots of food bloggers wrote about this shop. Lots of reporters come here for tea time. In despite of shop location and narrow environment at backlane, loyalty customers still enjoy their breakfast and tea times at this shop.

Crowded



I targetted this shop mainly because of the variety choices of breads. "Roti bakar" is local Malay term. I'm attracted by their old way of "BBQ" the bread. You can imagine almost 50 years of operation, they still retain the real old way to prepare all these. Fully manual to take care of toast timing. Once wrong timing, the bread over-toast, this requires skill :-) Nope, you won't see any toast machine we normally use at home. Here - you can see they use charcoal to boil water, looks like space ship (I'm too imaginative). Lower compartment - the space for toasting the bread.



The Attraction
For normal stall or shop doing Roti Bakar - they normally use "cotton bread". Why I name this weird term? When you put the bread into your mouth, you feel like eating cotton. In addition, you hardly feel filled-up at all. If I take "cotton bread", I can easily take more than 6 slices - now you fully understand what is meant by cotton :-) This old shop serves like-home-made bread. Personally I prefer solid bread.



Well, the owner has own bakery factory, thus it is not surprisingly to see they able to choices of bread, namely choco, normal (toasted or steam), wholemeal and Hainanese bread (I probably forgot what shape it was) - You can't expect me to take 4 different sets eating alone, can you?



You can select whether you prefer Kaya with butter, kaya alone, butter without sugar, butter with sugar OR just peanut butter. Yes, sounds dizzy? Make it simple. Just order "Roti Kahwin" - Kaya dances with Butter.



Half-boiled eggs need timing too. Depends on luck. If too crowded, the timing may drag longer, then your eggs (please, not your ball!) will be more solid. Have understanding on this! The moment I visited this round with my shift partner, CS. There were too crowded.

My shift partner, CS



Kopi-peng, anyone?


For drink, normally I prefer "kopi-peng" (Ice coffee with condensed milk, not sweetener) - this is the perfect combination.

Nasi Lemak that able to melt you!


Don't under-estimate the "Nasi Lemak" as well. Very tasty indeed. I don't think they prepare the "Nasi Lemak", should be outsourced one :-P

In conclusion, I prefer morning period to visit this shop though probably crowded environment. This is Penang and this is exactly old local shop. What'ya thinking? Buy me a "kopi-peng" please :-)