Cheap rice & dishes place @ Khoon Hiang

If I were to mention Khoon Hiang coffee shop to you, you'd probably associate it with the famous Ah Leng char koay teow place. However, this time I am posting on the "chu char" stall at this coffee shop at night.

My mom was raving about the good food at cheap prices at this place, and I was told to go early to avoid the crowd. So off we went at 6pm. We were the only ones there ... what crowd? Even the kopi seller looked bored. I began to have doubts in my mother's recommendation. Better not put so much hope on this place, I thought to myself.

Amazingly enough, within half an hour's time, people started flowing in, and soon the whole place was packed to almost full! And the "chu char" did not disappoint. We ordered 3 dishes, and all 3 tasted very good. Perfect for a simple meal. When the bill came, I almost couldn't believe the price (RM32++), and actually went to double check with the staff.

Kafe Khoon Hiang is opposite Honolulu Cafe in Dato Keramat Road

Asparagus fried with sambal

Marmite chicken. The best I had in Penang so far (the best is still in Puchong). My only complaint here is they used chicken wings. I'd prefer more meat and less bones.

The "star" of the day, prawns cooked in Indonesian style. Or bamboo prawns. There were 5 or 6 big prawns in here. YUMZ!

Lunch at Edelweiss Cafe

Believe it or not, I have driven past Armenian Street a number of times looking for this place unsuccessfully. It turned out that I was always looking on my left (to reasons still unknown to me), and the only restaurant I saw was the Colonial Restaurant almost directly opposite Edelweiss. One fateful day, I happened to look to my right, and viola! Edelweiss spotted.

This place is so easy to find and yet ... why did I only look to my left??

What a charming little place this is, very "old school"

A mirror gives the impression of big space, and dim lighting adds to the mood

Beer, anyone?

An open space within the building adds natural lighting to the place

If you live upstairs, you can just yell your orders from this window

We ordered lunch sets. For starters, a choice of: soup or ...

Salad. I suggest soup. You'll see why.

The set lunch comes with a drink. This is iced lemon tea.

There are 2 price categories for main dishes. This is meatloaf, the pricier set, but not necessary a good choice.

This is the cheaper set, and a better choice. Giant sausage. Note that they also give salad on the side ... the exact same one for starters. Now do you see why I suggested soup?

Edelweiss Cafe
38 Armenian Street10200 Penang
Tel: 04-261 8935
* Opens daily from noon to 11pm

The beautiful, the confusing, and the ... yuck!

Ladies and gentlemen,

Preeeeesentingggggggg ... The Sire Museum Restaurant!

Okay, you may wonder what's up with the title of my post. In all fairness, the serving staff were really nice and accommodating, the building truly beautiful and the menu offers a variety of food with a good price range. Let me share my experience here with you.

I came across this restaurant when I was reading a few food blogs. So, when a friend, M, offered to treat me and another friend, J, I casually mentioned the name of this restaurant, and it turned out that J had heard about it, too. In fact, J's colleague had tried the food here and highly recommended that we try it. And so we did.

The beautiful.

This place looked so tiny in front, that I was taken aback when I realized ... man, this is a big place!

Spiralling stairway in the "museum"

Interesting walkway. If the weather's really hot, just jump right into the pool of water

Many nooks and corners for hidden treasures

The confusing.

None of the staff there were Malaysians. Or maybe it was just that particular day. Either way, my friends and I had a difficult time understanding what the waiter was saying. J asked about a certain fish dish that mentioned "rice" on the menu, but the waiter insisted they don't serve rice. Anyway, it worked out in the end because J didn't want the rice. Then, we ask a waitress about the museum opening hours. We could see (and hear) that she had said a whole lot of stuff, but we only got "10.30". I assumed they close at 10.30pm.

Complimentary garlic bread. This is tasty.

The ... yuck!

This is my order, also known as "the ... yuck!" portion of the program.

This lemograss chicken was cooked medium rare. And I didn't realize until J pointed it out. I cut a thick piece for her to taste. Her piece was almost full rare. I started on the thinner side of the portion, and noticed something different but didn't say anything because 1) I thought it was the effect of the lemograss, and 2) I didn't think something like this would happen to a fine dining place. When I showed the uncooked meat to the waiter, he was very apologetic and immediately went to change to a new one for me. Unfortunately, in his quest to make sure that the chicken was really cooked this time, he (or the kitchen staff) over nuked the whole plate. The end result: the chicken was very well cooked, but the side dishes were burnt. And to be frank, I was already feeling all sorts (picture of raw chicken pieces swimming in my stomach came to mind) and could not continue to enjoy my food.

M made the best choice. This is caramelized snapper.

J's choice was good, too. Poached(?) snapper.

Still pretending to enjoy myself (M was treating, after all), I said okay to sharing a dessert. This is brownie with vanilla ice cream. The brownie was warm and not too sweet, so it blendly nicely with the ice cream. But it did little to sooth my sotmach and over-imaginative mind.

I avoided chicken (and the mention of chicken) for a week.

We're going to Hong Kong!

This family trip to Hong Kong has been in the talks for the longest time, before I finally decided to "just do it" and made the booking for the CX supercity package with extension. Admittedly, it's not as cheap as compared to getting free flights (minus tax and surcharges and whatnots), but I reasoned that with Rachel tagging along, we all need as much comfort as possible. This will be Rachel's first ever trip out of Malaysia, as well as my parents' first trip to a non-ASEAN country.

After weeks of research and taunting everyone I know to grill them on the information they have, and many hours of research on the Internet, I have settled on the YMCA International House. It's not a fancy place (cheapest among the hotel choices given) but, it's THE most suitable place to stay with the most convenient access to transportation and places of interest. Located right next to the MTR station, this hostel is within a 10-minute walking distance to the famous Streets - Ladies', Sports, Goldfish ... and not forgetting the yummy food!

This trip will cover all the places and food that I missed during my HK/Senzhen trip 3 years ago, plus revisiting the places that I loved (Esprit outlets!) To name a few: Big Buddha, Disneyland, Macau, Tai Cheong egg tarts, portuguese egg tarts, pork chop buns, mangoes mangoes mangoes ...

Okay, I'm officially OVER-EXCITED. I even forgot to mention that, *ahem* Rueben's not joining us.

Wawasan Open University @ Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah

The other day I visited a beautiful place in Penang ...