Almost every single friend of my just can’t accept this type of Char Koay Teow. To them, it must be dry, and not wet, most important, it MUST be fried by Chinese. Well, try to be more open minded and be adventurous eh? If not, you will just miss out too many good food out there, and how can life be fun if that’s so? Live to eat, and not eat to live.

Maybe next time I should say, come lets go eat “wat dan hor“.

This time, it’s Abang Ismail Char Koay Teow, located just directly opposite of the big pink colored Bukit Mertajam Post Office.

Malay Char Koay Teow usually taste sweet. Although it might be thought as curry to some of you, but it’s taste totally different than curry. A usual small plate cost RM3, but how can that possible be enough for me? I usually order for the special version, which cost RM5, with extra egg on top and extra prawns. The prawns here are usually fresh and the size is quite big too.

Most people will tend to have some sour chili on top of their Koay Teow, which just totally enhance the taste of it.

As usual, I just love it. It taste so damned good, and I totally finish up all the gravy on my plate. Yummy! 9.0/10

Seriously, I despise you guys out there who say you love to eat and love good food, but dare not try, or don’t even bother to try this version of Char Koay Teow. Try it before you say you don’t like it!

Total Damage: RM5 for Special version

Operating Hours: 6.00PM till midnight

Location: Jalan Pasar, Bukit Mertajam

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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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Hence this explains why restaurants are mushrooming along the East coast of the island, all the way from the start of Jelutong Highway at the end of Pengkalan Weld to Queensbay mall.

However, most of these stalls are just normal road side restaurant, not those classy type that you find in Batu Ferringhi area.

Nearby Queensbay Mall, where Gold Coast Condominium is located, there are few such restaurant, and all of them are selling ikan bakar (grilled fish). This is a place where it attract quite a few tourist bus to visit them frequently.

The one I visiting this time is Hammer Bay.

The first dish that came is the Tom Yam Seafood. Well, although the soup taste OK, but it wasn’t served hot, and Tom Yam seriously taste bad when it’s cold, fail! Besides, the prawns ain’t that fresh too. 6.0/10

Malay style spicy clam is our next dish, which looks very colorful, but doesn’t taste nice. Well, I don’t mean to say it taste really bad, but it’s just so so, a bit sweet, abit spicy, and that’s it. 5.0/10

The crab is cooked almost the same way as the clam, but it’s thicker, and hence the outcome is same – bad. 5.0/10

Some of you might think, had this become a gutterfood post? Nah, it’s not, as this place does not fail 100% yet, due to its ikan bakar. Although the ikan bakar take quite some time to serve, but to me, it’s worth the wait. Although some part of the fish is over burnt, and it looks flaming hot, but it’s actually taste very nice, and not as spicy as expected. A very good dish but a complaint is, since they wrap the fish with banana leaf and “bakar” it, hence the burnt leaf was sticked on to the fish. 7.8/10

Choose which type you want to go with your fish.

Overall, although the ikan bakar here is quite good, but I doubt I will come back here again, simply due to the fact that other dish is not really good.

Total Damage: RM44.40

Operating Hours: 5 PM till late

Location: No 1, Jalan Bayan Bay

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HOWEVER, there is this 1 stall, just outside Cinta Sayang Golf & Country resort, whose business is really growing rapidly. Initially, they are also just another nasi lemak stall by the road side, but their business boom in just 1 year ++ and from just 1 more stall, it became something like this.

Amazingly, all their workers are also wearing uniforms! How professional! Besides uniform, this nasi lemak stall is clean too especially if you compare to their competitors. Well, sometimes I do think, referring them as a stall might be a bit underestimating them, but it’s ain’t a restaurant either.

Anyway, 1 of the reasons their business is growing so fast is because their food is good, and cheap. There are also many choices for you to choose from, as you can either just opt for the normal nasi lemak (just rice, gravy, ikan bilis and kacang), or you can add more dish such as curry chicken, beef rendang, lamb, curry prawns, fried chicken and many others.

There are loads of people flocking here for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Well, they open from early in the morning from 7 am to almost 8 pm in the night (when they start business they only sell for breakfast), and I rarely see them have a off day besides Hari Raya Puasa! However, I only come here for breakfast before, so no comment for their dishes during lunch and dinner time.

Besides, your timing must be good too if you were to come here for breakfast. Coming too early the choice of dishes will be limited as they are still cooking, come too late the dishes are finish. Around 8 to 9 am is the best time to visit here.

All I can say is, most of the dish here is nice, both the curry and rice are very fragrant, very nice. Seriously, just eating the normal nasi lemak is good already, with all the extra dishes, really yum yum!! 7.5/10

Total Damage: Around RM8 for 2 rice above and 2 drinks

Operating Hours: 7AM to 8PM

Location: Jalan Kelab Cinta Sayang, Sungai Petani, Kedah

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And yes, the food served here is good!

Their Biryani Chicken rice come with a small claypot, which is kinda unique. The rice is nice but not as nice as you able to eat it itself. I will prefer to have some curry to go with it. However, the chicken is good stuff, very tender and fragrant! 7.3/10

And finally, the yummy yummy Tandori Chicken with Nan. The Tandori Chicken here is really really good! It’s very juicy and tender, unlike some place where the tandori chicken was dried and hard. With some lime on top, oh mai, it’s awesome!! I can only complaint about the small portion. 8.8/10

For the nan, as always, I opt for the super one, which is garlic butter cheese nan, all in one! Hence, the nan itself is already good stuff and can be eated itself. It’s very fattening though, but….who cares! 8.8/10

However, although the food here is good, I do find that their service is quite bad. Yes, they might be too busy, but sometimes I find that it just take them too long to take your order and for the food to arrive especially since most mamak are fast on it.

Total Damage: Biryani Rice with chicken @ RM7, Tandori Chicken with Nan – RM8

Operating Hours: For both the Biryani Rice and Tandori Chicken, they only served it after lunch time

Location: Lebuh Chulia, Penang

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The scenario was like that, I decided to give this Malay CKT a try since it’s really fragrant when it was cooked. Since I decided to take away, I stand there and watch how it was cooked. The procedure is basically the same like how normal CKT was fried, until suddenly the cook pour in 1 big spoon on god know what sauce into it.

My jaw almost dropped, and was stunned for few seconds….then was like what the hell? However, after ate it, I am in love with it! Hell yea! 

Back to topic, loads of thanks to Vkeong for introducing this, the famous Malay Char Koay Teow at Alma, Bukit Mertajam.

The stall is just beside the main road, Jalan Rozhan. If you pass by, just by looking at the whole stretch of table, you already know that there’s definitely something great here.

Although they had 2 to 3 chef cooking, but seems they still had a hard time to keep up with the amazing crowd, as we still have to wait for some time for it.

Well, this is how the char koay teow looks when served. LY jaw almost dropped down too when she saw it, guess it will happened to almost every Chinese (that never eat the malay version before) if you tell them that we are eating char koay teow but this was served.

However, although it score a great big ZERO on presentation, but the taste is really amazing, SUPERB! A Must Try! food in Penang! 9.3/10

Total Damage: RM5 per plate for the large version

Operating Hours: Dinner (After 8pm to 9pm I supposed)

Location: Jalan Rozhan, Penang

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The place they “bakar” the fish is quite small, but they usually cook it earlier, which lead to most of the time the food is already cold when served.

Some of the choices of fish they have.

Besides those “bakar bakar” food, they do have some other Malay dish, but I never try them before besides the curry, which is just average.

Complimentary vegetables to go with their spicy sambal. You can take as much as you want for these.

My fish, stingray. As always, the fish is over burnt, but I just like it mainly because I love how they marinated it. Eat it with the spicy sambal, it will be great!

The chicken, again it’s was over burnt, but I still love their marination and once I eat it with the spicy sambal, I will totally forget the over burnt part. One shall take note that the marination is a bit sweet, so it might not be everyone’s meat.

The beef is not bad too.

The small plate one the right is the godly spicy sambal that I mentioned. 1 plate is never enough for me. The sambal is just amazing, it’s sour and spicy enough, made almost everything that taste average taste greeeattttttt!! The curry is just average, too watery, as I take it just to make my rice not so dry.

Although the food here is not exactly amazing or good, but they are consider 1 of the best Malay ikan bakar at Sungai Petani, and I tend to patronized them a lot.

However 1 shall take note that this place is dirty, loads of flies at your table when you are eating. Besides, since it’s located by the river of Sungai Petani, where the color of the river is almost black, you should know how bad it is right? For comparison purpose, I shall say that it might be worse than Line Clear Nasi Kandar.  So if you care much about food hygiene, this is definitely NOT a place for you. If you don’t care much, then yes, this is quite a good place to have lunch here at Sungai Petani.

Total Damage: RM15 for 1 person (yes, all above is what I ate alone)

Location: Jalan Masjid 1, Sungai Petani

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Ah’ Basri Satay had moved permanently to D’ Piazza Mall at Bayan Lepas area (Jalan Mahsuri near PISA). Since is located inside a complex, the restaurant feel is something like Old Town Kopitiam now. Well, can’t say it’s bad but I sorta prefer their old shop style. Besides, ever since they move here, their business seems improved a lot, thus lead to customer service become lacking. Now you will have to order and pay at the counter 1st, and not like last time where you can just sit there and wait. This is not a problem for your 1st order, but if you were want to make more order, going to the counter again (especially if you are sitting upstairs) is quite troublesome. Also, the satay served was not hot at all. Sad to say, Ah’ Basri is never the same Ah’ Basri again.

Ah’ Basri Satay, some say serves the best satay in Penang. Besides, they do serve something really special, Horse Satay. Yes, you see it correctly, it’s horse. I personally never heard of any other restaurant serving horse meat, let alone in the form of Satay!

It’s interesting to see someone actually set up a shop to sell satay alone as normally people will just set up a small stall selling it. Besides, Ah’ Basri Satay is quite cozy to dine in if you compare to other place that sell satay. Clean environment with plants around the sitting area is another thumbs up too. Another good thing about here is they do provide a small parking area for their customers, however if you come too late it will most likely full.

You can choose to sit inside of the shop if you wish. Look at the waiter, they do wear uniforms! Really professional huh? Besides, the number of waiter here is also a lot for it’s size.

Every animal that was served in Satay form was shown here. However, I do wonders, what is the animal 2nd from bottom on the left? Tortoise? Nope they don’t serve that….

After we made our order, we were given something we did not order, Tandori Satay. These satay taste good even if you just eat it like that without the sauce. The fat and meat proportion is good. The boss then tell us that it’s complimentary, as they will give out free samples for their customer to see the response whenever they are trying something new. The boss also say that the next satay they are coming up is abalone satay! Oh, the boss do speak fluent Hokkien although he is non-Chinese.

Here comes our satay! Since we order loads of type, the waiter explain to us each type of satay is what before we start eating. From right to left it’s beef original x2 , lamb original, horse, tomyam chicken x2, black pepper chicken, cow stomach, squid x2, prawns, and chicken original x2.

And amazingly, each of the satay taste very very nice! Most of the satay taste nice itself even if you did not go with the sauce. The sauce on the left is the normal satay sauce that you goes with meat. It’s thick and taste really nice, the only one that came close to it is the Haji Samuri Kajang Satay I ate ages ago. The sauce on the left is for prawns and squid. It’s sweet based, and it goes superbly with the squid satay!

The thing good is, they are never stingy with the sauce, onion and cucumber. You can always ask extra for free if you want.

For those people that can’t feel full if they did not eat rice for their dinner, you can always order their set meal (come with rice,soup and 3 stick of satay) or just plain rice itself. Their tomato rice is not awesome, but ok ok lah.

When eating, I am amazed with how they care about the cleanliness of the place. Man, look clearly, they actually use 2 type of detergent and 2 piece of cloth to wipe the table! I am guessing 1 will be soap and the other is normal water.

However, although the Satay is nice, it’s not cheap at all. Normal chicken satay outside is only RM0.50 or RM0.60 max, but at Ah’ Basri Satay:

Original Chicken - RM1 – quite normal, fat and lean meat proportion is not good enough.

Tomyam Chicken – RM1.20 – not bad, LY love it a lot. I find that it’s nicer to just eat it as itself so that the tom yam taste was not spoil by the sauce

Black Pepper Chicken – RM1.20 – normal too

Original Beef – RM1.40 - this is good! The meat is very juicy, unlike most other beef satay where the meat is very dry

Original Lamb – RM1.40 - normal lo

Horse - RM2.00 – not bad actually, taste a bit like beef but not as tender

Squid -  RM2.50 – this is awesome! It was juicy, and goes with the sauce, it’s just awesome!

Prawn -   RM3 – just normal as it’s a bit too dry. Not worth it’s price

Cow Stomach - RM1.50 – ok la, but the smell is too strong even for me

Anyway, Ah’ Basri is a great place to visit, especially for those Satay lovers! Definitely a Must Try! food at Penang!

Total Damage: RM39 for 2 person

Location: 115B, Mukim12, Jalan Dato Ismail Hashim, Sg. Ara, Penang. Opposite Fisherman Grill.

Contact: 012 – 4100 080

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