Sri Sentosa is a coffee shop full with hawkers selling different type of foods in the morning, and it’s always crowded with people especially on Sunday mornings that finding a place to seat do require some luck.

A bowl of Dry Hokkien Mee came with many ingredients if you asked for extra, such as pork ribs and chicken feet. Oh, this Dry Hokkien Mee is also different from the usual Hokkien Char you will find in Penang, where the sauce is black in color since dark soya sauce was not used. It also makes it taste much like a bowl of normal soup based Hokkien Mee.

The mee is really delicious very tasty. Besides, the pork ribs are very very tender and soft, tasty. I wonder why they only give me 1 piece when I asked for extra extra. 8.1/10

1 shall also take note that there are 2 Sri Sentosa Coffee Shop in Bukit Mertajam, and both stall are located very close to each other, and both also sell Dry Hokkien Mee. However, I was told that this is the famous and real one. So don’t go to the wrong one. The one I went to is quite hidden inside many new shop lots, while the other is facing the main road of Jalan Kulim. Refer the maps below for more idea.

Operating Hours: 7 AM to 12 PM

Location: Jalan Maju, Bukit Mertajam, Penang

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But…..what are we waiting? It’s 12PM, the whole restaurant is full of people, but there ain’t no duck??!! Everyone is waiting….wait what?

Finally……the long waited delivery boy is here!

What delivery boy? It’s superbly roasted duck, perfectly roasted under the hot sun!

After the duck arrived, we still have to wait for sometime since there are many orders ahead of us. The perfectly roasted duck is just awesome! It does look messy, but the skin is very crispy and fragrant, and the duck meat is tender and taste great! Besides, the duck taste even better when ate it with the dark black sauce. Awesome!! 8.5/10

The chili is a let down though, maybe the taste of the black sauce is too strong.

The rice goes well with the sweet sauce too.

Star Hotel, the hotel where the great roasted duck located at, just at Carnarvon street. This is one of the few eatery place in Penang that you don’t have to worry about parking space as there’s a huge parking area just opposite to it. How I wish it’s the same thing all over Penang.

Total Damage: RM16 for 2 person

Operating Hours: 12 AM to 3.00 PM

Location: Carnarvon Street, Penang

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The restaurant name is Tan Kee, and it’s roasted duck had been permanently glue to the town Lunas. When mentioned Lunas to any Chinese, surely they will say, oh the roasted duck there is very very good!

The roasted duck here is really good. The skin is really crispy and the meat is tender and taste great! Although there’s only 2 of us, but I also order for half bird. Their duck sold off very fast as most table will order either 1/2 bird or 1 whole bird. It’s amazing to see how fast the duck was being chop chop off and served. 8.7/10

To make the duck taste even better, you definitely need the chilies! Oh yummmy…..

“Chai Boi” was served here to add some greens on all those meatttts! 6.5/10

Total Damage: RM20 for 2 person

Operating Hours: 11 AM to 2.30 PM

Location: Lunas, Kedah

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It’s Sin Hwa Char Koay Teow, 1 of the top 3 in Char Koay Teow Penang according to some folks. This small old shop is located directly opposite of the Pulau Tikus Police Station.

Unlike the other 2 famous one – Ah Leng and the one in Lorong Selamat, it’s considerably cheap at only RM3.50 per plate. Besides, when I reach there at around 10 AM, the waiting time is zero as I am the only customer there.

The koay teow here is good and with enough wok hei, and very fragrant. Although the amount (and also size) and cockles is quite minimal since we order the normal version, but we still enjoy it. The prawns however taste like normal prawns, unlike the 2 premium one which is super big and sweet. 8.0/10

All in all, the Char Koay Teow here is really good stuff, and come with a cheaper price. You can also opt for the duck egg version by paying an extra of RM0.50 only.

Total Damage: RM3.50 per plate (Normal Version)

Operating Hours: 10 AM to 4 PM

Location: Jalan Burma, Penang

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As the name says so, it’s an cafe with a theme of traditional design, antique style table and chair, with air conditioner on the ceiling, resembles the feeling of modern vs traditional.

All these with the quiet environment certainly makes this place a good cafe to hang around, chit chatting with friends and such, but how will the food fares?

Chrysanthemum tea and Dragon fruit juice.

Since it’s a cafe, choices of food is very limited. First dish, Fried Sugar Pea (tou miao) @ RM10. It does taste not bad, nothing special, but OK. 6.5/10

Braised Black Vinegar Pork Knuckles (Too Kar Chor) @ RM10. Again, another average dish with limited meat, as most of them are actually ginger rather than meat. The soup itself is not sour enough though, as well as the meat is not tender enough. 6.0/10

Braised meat rice @ RM7.50. Personally I hate this dish, it’s not interesting at all. The chicken itself is sorta tasteless…..grrr. Besides, the rice is also too sticky to my liking.  5.5/10

Curry chicken @ RM12. So little portion at such price? If it taste good it’s still ok, too bad it’s not. It seems that they cook the chicken and curry separately as the chicken itself doesn’t have any curry taste inside, and actually taste more like steamed chicken. Sigh. 4.0/10

I think you guys will also notice, the price here is quite steep for the serving. Well, it’s a cafe ma, what can you expect? Cafe food is usually priced higher, but taste average.

However, due to it’s environment, it’s still a good place to hang around, just that I won’t come here for my main meal and that’s all.

Total Damage: RM45 for 2 person

Operating Hours: 11 AM to 10 PM

Contact: 04 – 2622 113

Location: Kimberly Street, Penang

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Since both me and LY are extremely thirsty, we order 1 big bottle of fresh sugar cane water to share among. It’s extremely refreshing, and we finish the whole bottle even before our dish came. Hence, 2 person 2 bottle, fair right?

Some vegetables to go with some Thai sambal, which taste very good and spicy. Yummy…I love it.

One of the recommended dish by the boss – Roasted duck sliced. The name is roasted duck, but I find that it taste more like ham instead of duck. Nevertheless, it’s still good as the meat is tender.

The meat itself taste a bit salty, and eat it with their special sour spicy sauce, man this is good! 7.9/10

Tom Yam, Tom Yam, Tom Yam!

We opt for Tom Yam seafood, which is very good. The seafood used is very fresh, and the soup taste great. Sour, spicy, hot, all in perfection, hence appetizing. We basically drank dry the whole bowl of soup! 8.0/10

This dish is definitely great for crab lovers – crab meat with curry powder. When eating crab, I think most people will hate the need to take off the shell right? Well, in this dish, the shell was taken off already! You can enjoy the crab meat with the flavorful curry powder. Just great as I don’t need to have my hands dirty for enjoying it! 8.2/10

Total Damage: RM49 for 2 person (If you using Thai Bath, just times 10)

Operating Hours: Lunch and Dinner

Location: Ban Dan Nok, Songkhla, Thailand

And yea, Bukit Kayu Hitam is the place always being mentioned by folks here. People always say, let’s go to Bukit Kayu Hitam for some little shopping, and have some really authentic Thai food. However, little to be known by folks here, Bukit Kayu Hitam is still under Malaysia, as it is Kedah’s main border town on the Malaysia-Thailand Border.You don’t need to pass the border, or use your passport to visit Bukit Kayu Hitam.

However, since Bukit Kayu Hitam is not their main destination, passport is needed to enter the town of Ban Dan Nok in the district of Sadao, Songkhla province in Southern Thailand.

Like in almost every border, the immigration area is always packed and full with people queuing up. We queue up for more than 30 minutes, and since it’s open air border, there ain’t any air-conditional to cool us down. So once we pass the border, the 1st thing that came to my mind is to have some coconut jelly!

Ice cooled coconut jelly @ RM2.50 is really superbly refreshing for us.

Pork knuckle!!!

And yea, the famous pork knuckle rice @ RM4 which you can find easily in the town of Ban Dan Nok. The pork given is a bit too small for me though, but the meat taste superbly nice, and with the great amount of fat-lean meat proportion, it’s just yummy! Ate it with the spicy Thai chili, orgasm!

Another stall that you can find easily here is these fried chicken stall. However, the one here is a bit more extreme as they even have crabs on their menu! I simply love the fried chicken from these stalls as they are cheap and good. However, for health conscious people it is not a good choice at all. Reason?

First, the oil was being reused for countless of time. After the food was fried, it will be placed on the stall (which is by the road side) without anything to cover it. Imagine the amount of dust flew on it before you consume!

Another version of coconut jelly @ RM1.50 per box.

And finally….Kung Fu Panda! Guess where is this panda at?

Location: Ban Dan Nok, Thailand

The most famous Kedah Laksa is Laksa Teluk Kechai, and Zakaria Laksa is the best according to many people.

According to what I understand, Kedah Laksa is supposed to be very similar to Asam Laksa in Penang, and the only difference is the garnishing used.

However, it doesn’t taste the same to me. Well, yes it taste the same if you were to compare it to those really lousy Asam Laksa in Penang. The soup is sorta tasteless besides salty, and I can’t taste any fish on the soup. It was so bad that I almost want to stop eating it after 1 spoon, but looking at the crowd there, I find that doing it will be too insulting to them.

However, although the laksa soup is very very bad, but the noodle is good. It’s much firmer and also taste nicer, and better to bite it compare to many other places. 2.0/10

The Lai Chee Kang is ok though, although I don’t really like it especially they have peanuts inside it. 3.0/10

This is also the 1st time I saw a laksa stall actually selling laksa based by weight. RM10 per kg! This is madness.

Look at the crowd, it’s 3 PM evening, not during lunch or dinner time. When I pass by them during dinner time later, the road was full of cars parked by people who are dining there, which I totally can’t understand, what so good about it?

Total Damage: RM2.50 per bowl of laksa

Operating Hours: 12 PM to 7 PM

Location: Jalan Kuala Kedah, Alor Setar

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As for my experience, this is by far the tidiest Malay version Char Koay Teow that I ever had.

But who cares? Most important is the taste right? Hm… it actually taste OK la, but also because it seems it was cooked till too careful, until the taste and “wok hei” is not there. Maybe I am used to really really good one already. 6.7/10

Zai Char Koay Teow, citarasa from Pulau Pinag, even Malay version are claiming themselves are from Penang!

Total Damage: RM3.50 for 1 person

Operating Hours: 7 PM to 11 PM

Location: Jalan Lencong Timur, Sungai Petani

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Since it’s Taiwan cuisine, here are the pearl milk tea. From left to right it’s yam, original and champagne, costing RM4.90 each.

Taiwanese style clam @ RM12.90. Not bad la….. 6.7/10

Oyster and pork intestine mee shua @ RM9.90. I personally much much prefer the one from Shilin snacks, which has a stronger vinegar taste, with bigger and fresher oyster compare to the one here. This one is just very average, and definitely not worth the price you paid for it. 5.2/10

3 cup chicken set @ RM18.90. The 3 cups are rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil that were used to cook it. Although the portion is quite small for me, but the gravy is very thick and taste very nice. 7.5/10

Salted pork and fish with white cabbage @ RM18.90. Another average dish. 5.5/10

Braised beef and duck platter @ RM13.90. It may look nice, but actually quite tasteless, utterly disappointed. 4.5/10

Yam cake @ RM7.90, which is quite good, how I wish the yam proportion is a bit more than flour, but nevertheless it still taste great. 7.8/10

Overall, like most franchise Chinese restaurant in shopping mall, Xian Ding Wei do have some signature dish taste good, while others taste either below par or average. So you just have to choose wisely.

Total Damage: RM118.45 for 4 person

Location: 2nd Floor, Queensbay Mall, Penang.

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