If you are from airport (you are actually at Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, after the famous Snake Temple and Wisma Than Siang), when you see the traffic light, turn left to Jalan Tengah. Go straight until you see the next traffic light - turn left again to Jalan Mayang Pasir. Drive further. After the small bridge, keep right and you will see the a T-junction. Mosque is exactly on your right now. Turn right into Persiaran Mayang Pasir. You will notice your left is old terrace houses while on your right is new terrace houses. After terrace houses on your right, you should see the shoplot. At the end of the shoplot - you see a clinic (Klinik Hari).
Get prepared to turn right into small lane where the wet market located - Komplek Makanan & Pasar Desa Mayang. You may face some congested traffic due to motorcycle or crowds walking around. Drive further following the small lane, you will see a small field open for parking. The shop is actually located behind the wet market.
Marketplace I kinda like this place where you actually can have false impression of you are not in Penang island. Beside the wet market, there's a river with open field in green. Sometimes, cows are there to fufill their hunger by eating the grasses. Alright, enough crap of landscape description.
Part of the attraction to this small shop is the Nasi Lemak. Don't get me wrong, I only eat Nasi Lemak occasionally. In fact, I don't encourage to eat too frequently due to the coconut milk. Ms Maria did not prepare this Nasi Lemak. She sells several "kuih-muih" together with Nasi Lemak. Her friend actually prepared this.
My wife introduced me this Nasi Lemak. The coconut milk in rice fragrant able to melt you. The spicy sauce is not too spicy as you can taste. I love the crispy "ikan-bilis".
Delicious Kuih Kodol - ah... this is prepared by Ms Maria!
Most of the shops are selling Malay foods. You can find the "pasar pagi" where seller setup their stalls to sell stuffs. I noticed a few Chinese sellers promote necessity stuffs as well. Multi-racial environment which reflected our Malaysian spirit to live together harmoniously.
Ms Maria
Anything activate your possible hunger?
Try best to go there earlier, otherwise the Nasi Lemak sure "habis-sapu". If you enjoy the noisy marketplace and able to have your breakfast there, this is the place for you to get your simple breakfast - "kampung" feeling - to be precise!
Type: Halal Location: Gat Lebuh China Price: Depends on what you eat
Stall Owner: Mr. Abdul Wahab Stall Name: Kastam Coffee Shop Contact: 016 464 0882
Stall Operation: 1600 - 0100
Parking convenience: Fair Hygiene: Fair
Direction: If you come from Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling, try to check out the landmark - Goddess of Mercy Temple (观音庙). Turn to China Street, go straight until you see Beach Street where CIMB bank is on your 2-o-clock direction. Drive straight to almost the other end, find parking space. The stall is exactly on your right hand side.
If you come from Jelutong Express Way, take Weld Quay direction. Go all the way straight. When you see yourself almost pass by Jetty (on your right), take a look on your left and look for a stall. Once you identify the stall at the corner of turn in junction, turn left and ready to park your car. The Custom Office opposite the other side of building.
I come for Teh Halia Proud Greeting to me!~
Spicing time
In action he goes!
My wife is one of the fan of Teh Halia (Ginger Tea with milk). If you were to ask me, I can't take ginger at all, especially its smell. Kill me with garlic, I love garlic, not ginger :-) Tried several time little bit when my wife specifically asked me to drive for 15km to this stall during cold night time.
Teh Halia - it looks no different from normal Teh Tarik. Put your nose near to it, then you able to smell a strong ginger taste.
This round - I come for Teh Halia! If not mistaken, beside ginger, they put spices as well. A normal teh tarik becomes special for anyone who loves it. Unexpectedly I saw the preparation and enjoy my dinner there.
Fresh Nasi Lemak
Fresh hot rice!
Reaching there a bit early, thus I have opportunity to see how the nasi lemak prepare from fresh. Using uncomplicated way, nasi lemak is still nasi lemak, a simple dish will bring out the fragnant that stimulate your hunger.
Tasty Nasi Lemak If you reach early, you can see the nasi lemak prepared freshly.
Once packed, it will be labelled as "I" or "BT". "I" stands for fish in Malay (Ikan), while "BT" is not Bit-Torrent! "BT" is small fish & egg (Bilis & Telur).
Varieties of choices for whatever-colour-collar If you don't feel like eating Nasi Lemak, you can try out other options. Words are useless to describe, a picture speaks for itself :-)
Pick one please to fill in your stomach!
fried noodles This is Malaysia, consists of several races' cultures mixed and blended into daily life. You can find not only blue collar to drop by for tea time, those managers from nearby office also drop by here to enjoy their break.
Don't care what collar colour you are.
Having good time!
Customer who comes here won't care about the narrow corridor environment the tables setup, you wish to enjoy open air table, take the tables that setup beside the Gat Lebuh China road, just be careful when you make your order as the stall located at the corner of junction where cars and motorcycles will turn sharp.
Food: Mixture of Malay dessert, pack rice and others. Type: Halal Location: Pulau Tikus Price: Depends on what you order.
Stall Name: Relax Coffee Corner (Jones Road) Stall Owner: Pak Mat (Baa) Contact: 016 435 6684 Shop Operation: 0700 - 2100 (Morning until evening will sell different foods, well I never scout that area during night time, only tea break session I visited several times)
Parking convenience: Bad Hygiene: Fair(BAD when cars stopped beside you)
Direction: If you come from town, take Kelawi Road and go to the Gurney Plaza direction. The stall is located exactly beside the T-junction in between Kelawi Road and Jones Road. It is beside the residential building in yellow colour. If you see a group of people sitting under the big umbrella, there it is.
Too Busy Didn't have much time to talk to the employees of this stall. Too crowded and they are too busy to clear tables and serve customers. The boss was not there, only come at specific hours. Every employee call "Baa" to his boss - just like father. I haven't had a chance to meet this stall owner. Owner only will drop by stall during 0700-0900 and 1400-1530. The moment I visited the stall, he was not there as well.
Self Service - don't expect someone to serve you to pick up the snacks. Have yourself served :-)
Several snacks for you to choose. Headache, huh? :-)
Do you love this?
Perfect Place for Tea Time
Happy customer to enjoy tea time
In despite of the long hour opening, if you were to ask me the best tea time location, I would say this personally, thus very subjective. I love the local stall, local Malay kuih and just a cup of thick coffee. Perfect enjoyment for a short period of tea break.
This is my tea time. I said this is indulgence!
My favourite shrimp cake
Indian Snacks
Follow Office Time This stall is exactly following office operation schedule. Saturday and Sunday off. Public holiday also off. The only opening hour is during office hour.
Direction: - If you comes from Penang Airport, go straight until the Penang biggest roundabout, take 9-o-clock turn (means turn left lar). Keep right lane after turn. Go until traffic, ready to turn right. Now you will see Marvest building in 2-o-clock your direction. Once turn right, keep left and turn left when you see small junction. Go straight until you see a Malay restaurant on your left. Now you can look for parking.
VSS Hero It wasn't accident for Abang Joe to start catering business. He took a brave step to accept VSS to challenge himself for life changing style - FIH Catering business. His vast experiences on logistic, F&B field and networking helped to make a solid foundation on his kick-start business. His wife and mother-in-law helped him much on learning fast in catering. Salute him from bottom of my heart.
Abang Joe
** I would like to special thank Abang Joe for inviting and introducing me his unique traditional foods. **
This restaurant covers breakfast, lunch and dinner - handled by Abang Joe's family members. In this hunt, we will focus mainly on breakfast session.
Part (1): Roti Jala Roti Jala is not available at everytime you visit. I suggest you either give a ring to Abang Joe to confirm if you really wish to eat Roti Jala rather than reach there with disappointment.
Roti Jala directly translate into English is Net Bread. This traditional Malay snack is very unique on its taste, process-making and its appearance. If you ever think of the normal bread, please throw away the old impression. It looks like net in round shape. Probably you may argue as thin pancake :-P
According to Abang Joe - old style Roti Jala making used bare hand with fingers to make it like net (jala). But the raw material liquid is more dillute for convenient purposes. First time I heard about this. Now in modern days - they use a special made container to prepare Roti Jala, of course no longer dillute - oppositely it is more thicker in raw material liquid.
Cooking & Organizing
Folding
Storage
Low Cholestrol & Low Fat Snack It is prepared with the composition ratio of 1kg of flour, 1 egg and couple of spoonful butter. It is a healthy food. Why healthy? No palm oil and no coconut milk were added. The purpose of butter added is to avoid Roti Jala becomes sticky on fried pan. According to Abang Joe, palm oil only serves two purposes to make Roti Jalar looks more presentable (shiny) and non-sticky on pan. I personally found the Roti Jala is not shiny at all with what I had seen in other stalls or restaurants. Check the below picture for self-explanatory.
Gravy - Sauce That Probably Rock You Roti Jala tastes little salty in original. Normally eats with chicken or beef curry. During my lucky visit, there was no chicken or beef curry. Abang Joe introduced me to test eat Roti Jala with two gravy - sweetener condensed milk and ikan bilis spicy gravy. He also excited to highlight - there is another special gravy to eat with Roti Jala. It is sweet gravy, made of durian paste! I'm not a fan of durian but I'm interested to try. Will try and share it here if I'm lucky :-)
If eats with sweetener condensed milk, a combination of salty and sweet tastes penetrate your taste bud. You have to try it out yourself. Hardly inexpressible in more detailed description. If you able to tolerate ikan bilis spicy gravy, then it is also a good choice to go for this. This ikan bilis is actually for nasi lemak gravy.
Part (2): Nasi Lemak If you think you have tried enough nasi lemak taste, try here.
The Nasi Lemak itself is already special with coconut fragant. Here - you will find another fragant that recall me of old village taste! This fragant reminds me exactly Nasi Dagang I had in Dungun (Terengganu state). I was over-joyed by the taste discovery. (ok, I'm hunting for Terengganu taste Nasi Dagang in Penang, leave this topic first until I able to hunt it down, so you know what to do - have information, please share!)
The secret ingredient is a kind of oldest spice named "Halba". It is a must ingredient to cook Terengganu Nasi Dagang. The fragant melted me long time ago during my childhood :-) For those "rice-tong", I can guarantee you will finish 3 bowls of nasi lemak.
There are several gravy available - ikan bilis, prawn and so on. Fried egg or full-boiled egg is available. If you look for peanut, check with Abang Joe. Sometimes the peanut finish fast.
Part (3): Roti Bakar
The toasted bread here is totally different from my previous post. No "cotton-bread" supplied here (otherwise I won't write this out). They used a type of roti I frequently pronounced it wrongly. Correct pronounciation is - "Pangkali Roti", not "Benggali". Please take note.
This bread is thick and hard type. NO BBQ here using charcoal like old Hainanese style. They used the same pan to grill for less than 30 seconds. A thin later of butter wiped on the bread surface to make it more cripsy and tasty after grill.
They will put the half-boiled eggs on top of the bread. Served like western style in big plate. So, don't look for cup that contain half-boiled eggs :-P Soya sauce and pepper added based on your personal preference.
Enough complain on me and my photos? Now go and try yourself, don't gulp your saliva over here please :-)
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.
Re-visit this place with my new partner on food hunting, DC.
Humourous Lady Boss - Madam Sexy
Had a wonderful session to eat and enjoy small chat with lady boss. She took order to list out what we able to order in swift tone. Both DC and I stunned to order. She took further decision to place us with one peanut set and one roti kahwin. 2 set of 2 eggs and 2 glasses of Kopi-peng. We felt released by the ordering stress.
Please do not let her know I spyshot her Sexy wear. :-) Otherwise, I will definitely become Kung Fu Panda, I meant my eyes.
Peanut Toasted Bread Tried out the peanut toasted bread. Though I love peanut butter, I still prefer the home made kaya to mix with butter. Probably traditional taste and habit that conquer my preference.
Old Machine Noise
It's good to hear the old ice blender noise. It attracted my desire to shoot it down. Younger age - I hate this noise... Now I kinda miss this very much. In earlier age, I could hear this noise in opposite of shoplot which is 30 meters away, opposite side road. Imagine that :-)
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 :-)
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There is no commission nor any special discount on the foods I tried or visited. The main purpose of this food blog is to promote traditional food to retain their uniqueness and cultures in regards of races or nationality.
