It was an early morning in Penang, Malaysia, and we were up and ready for a day of adventure!
My wonderful wife, Pinky, had arrived to join me on my visa run trip the day before, and we were going to spend a few days exploring Georgetown before heading back to Bangkok together.
It was Pinky's birthday week, and as a gift, I had booked a private morning food tour for us.
We met our guide, Ms. Po Hoo Peng, and set off on foot along the quiet streets of Georgetown towards the first stop.
We sat down in one of Penang's many food court restaurants.
Local shopkeepers and hawkers in Penang will band together to rent out empty ground floor spaces along busy streets and set up their shops inside. In the early mornings, locals will flock to these food courts to buy coffee and breakfast and sit and gossip and conduct business.
We started our morning with a small cup of strong black Malaysian coffee. Malaysia has a really strong coffee culture, and it's almost unheard of to start the day without a cup of joe. Even though I don't usually take my coffee black, I decided to try it this way on the recommendation of our guide.
The first dish to arrive was a bowl of noodles with grilled pork and wontons.
Malaysia is a pluralistic multicultural society (the major ethnicities are Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Eurasian). There are several major ethnic groups that live together in relative harmony under the Malaysian federated rotational monarchy (the sultans of 9 of Malaysia's monarchical states take turns being king of the country in a rotating five-year term).
Penang, interestingly, is the only state that has a slight Chinese majority, rather than a Malay majority as in the other 12 states. This means that Penang has more of a Chinese-influenced food culture than other parts of the country, and our breakfast was no exception! Pork wouldn't be permitted for the Malay majority, but it's super popular with the Chinese-Malay population. In fact, grocery stores in Malaysia usually have a "non-Halal section" where all of the pork products and booze are sold.
Next, we had toast with butter and kaya. Kaya is a type of Malaysian coconut custard that is commonly eaten for breakfast, and it pairs really well with slices of cold unsalted butter.
After that, we shared a plate of Malaysian fritters. We tried a variety of different fried breakfast dishes which were served with a sweet chili sauce for dipping.
Our third and final dish before heading off towards our next stop, was a plate of grilled noodles served with shrimp, sweet Chinese pork sausage, and bean sprouts. This dish was similar to a pad Thai, but had a smokier sort of flavor.
We walked on through the quiet old colonial town towards the old market.
Chowrasta Bazaar, named after the city in Darjeeling, India, is a Penang institution. The old market was established in the 19th century by Indian traders and merchants and is now one of the city's most diverse markets.
We walked through the market, and our guide pointed out one of the neighborhood's legends; an uncle who sells clothes and spends his days making beautiful art in between customers.
We sat down at a tiny plastic table in a small alleyway and our guide went off to buy our next course of food.
Next up was char koay. This smoky wok-fried dish is made from cubed rice cakes wok-fried with tons of aromatic sauces and flavorings.
After eating, we stopped by to watch the local vendor preparing the dish. It was cool to see how he prepared a serving of char koay with perfectly memorized portions of various sauces and seasonings.
We enjoyed our meal with a very special local drink, something that is sort of an icon of Penang: nutmeg juice.
Nutmeg is a small tree-grown fruit that is popular in Malaysia. Now, maybe this is common knowledge, but I certainly didn't know it. I guess I just thought that nutmeg was a seed or bark or something. I had no idea where it actually came from!
The nutmeg juice was bright red and mildly sweet with a subtle spiced flavor that tasted very mildly like Christmas.
The nutmeg fruit is plump and juicy. The seeds are what we are most familiar with in the West; they are ground up into the nutmeg powder that we like to put into our pumpkin pies and eggnog.
The seed covering of the nutmeg is dried and cut into strips to become the spice mace. That's something else I didn't know! I thought mace was its own thing... I had no idea it was part of the nutmeg!
After our nutmeg juice we shared an order of
nasi lemak. This is Malaysia's national dish! Nasi lemak consists of a serving of rice topped with sambal chili paste, fried mackerels, a boiled egg, and other aromatics and spices. It's a super filling dish that is typically served wrapped in a banana leaf as a sort of cheap, quick, and easy "grab and go" meal.
We left the market and walked onwards. We were visiting near the end of August, the traditional Chinese "
Ghost Month".
This Chinese festival is sort of like Halloween plus All Saint's Day. It's considered the time period in which the souls of the departed come back to visit their families on earth.
Because Penang has such a large Chinese population, the Ghost Month festivities are a big deal on the island. We passed several local temporary shrines which had been set up for people to pray and give offerings to their ancestors.
Moving on, we arrived at a local wet market.
It was late morning by this point, and the vendors were already cleaning up and preparing to leave for the day. Most of the activity seems to take place early in the morning.
The market is where local people come early in the morning to purchase fresh fish and meat as well as other spices and ingredients.
We spent a long time exploring the market as our guide pointed out various foods and ingredients and explained their place in Malaysian culture.
Leaving the market, we stopped in at a small shop selling traditional desserts.
We stopped by to try an old-fashioned peanut snack made from ground up nuts and spices and wrapped in a crepe-like dumpling wrap. The outer texture was soft and chewy, and the interior was crunchy and crumbly. I really liked the dessert.
A food tour like this isn't just about food, of course. It's also a chance to learn about the culture and history of a place from a local guide.
Our guide was amazing! She knew so much about her home island and was really happy to answer all of our questions and share the stories of Penang with us.
One of the landmarks that we passed was the old Penang police station.
The police station, which was built by the British, has stood on this location for decades. During the Japanese Occupation during the Second World War, our guide told us, the Japanese government took over the police station. They set out on a campaign to execute anyone who resisted them, with a particular vendetta against anyone of Chinese or English ancestry.
Public executions were held in a local square, and the heads of the executed were placed on the wrought iron spikes on the fence surrounding the old police station. To this day, locals avoid walking on the sidewalk in front of the old police station and will tend to cross the street to avoid the haunted place all together.
The Japanese occupied Malaya (the old name for Malaysia) from 1941 until 1945. The British military had prepared for a sea invasion, and had amassed their forces in Singapore, ready to defend the peninsula. They were taken by surprise when Siam (present-day Thailand) immediately surrendered to the Japanese Empire, joined the access, and gave the Japanese army free passage into Malaysia. While the British navy was prepared for an invasion from the south, they never expected a land invasion by bicycle from the Thai border, and Malaysia and Singapore fell quickly.
After the war, Britain regained control of Malaya and ruled it as a colony through the late 1950s.
After that somber history lesson, it was time to resume our food tour.
We had arrived at one of Penang's most famous food streets, and we sat down for a bowl of laksa.
This noodle dish is made with fermented mackerel, slices of sweet and juicy pineapple, red and green chili, purple onions, and other aromatics. It's served with a spoonful of savory and umami prawn sauce with is poured into the soup to give it a powerful and flavorful kick before eating.
After all of these great dishes, we were getting super full, but fortunately we had still saved room for dessert!
The final thing that we had was cendol, another one of Penang's iconic dishes. Cendol is a sweet dessert made from pandan-flavored rice noodles served with sweet red beans over a dish of coconut milk.
Finally, we ended our food tour with a plate of rojak, a savory fruit salad made from slices of fruit and tofu covered in a sweet and savory prawn paste and topped with roasted peanuts.
Our morning food tour had come to an end, but we had really enjoyed our time. Our guide was fantastic, and we had learned so much about Malaysia and its food culture.
Even though we had only been able to spend a few short days in Penang, I feel like we learnt a lot. I hope that we can come back to visit again soon to learn even more.
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| with our amazing guide |
