It was our last day in Penang… unfortunately. There were many (food) places we have yet to explore but time wasn’t on our side as it was the end of the weekend and we had to get back to the grind the following day. Just like the previous day, we woke up late again since we only had to check out of the hotel by 12PM.
It was close to 1130AM when we checked out and left the hotel. At first, we weren’t sure where to head to for breakfast as we had tried almost everything what we wanted to try in the list. Either that or we were to lazy to drive out far for our brunch. The closest place to our hotel was this place; New World Park Food Court.
Imagine this place as a shaded food court whereby there are plenty of food stalls selling a variety of hawker food. Most importantly, it is a clean place with cool breeze flowing through the food court. Besides, there are parking lots available for patrons.
There were ample of empty tables and chairs when we arrived. Perhaps, it was still early for lunch crowd to kick in. Nevertheless, it gave us freedom to choose where to sit. We selected the one closer to the food stall for no apparent reason. This time, it was me who did the ordering for the first round while my friend waited for the food to arrive.
I knew something was not right when I looked at the stall with bowls stacking up on one another while I was placing my order at an Assam Laksa stall. To my horror, upon ordering, the lady handling the stall took a bowl of ready-cooked noodles and poured the soup into it. That pretty much made me speechless as I knew from that moment that bowl of Assam Laksa won’t be good. And my friend agreed as well. It was lacked of characteristic as it didn’t taste like a bowl of Assam Laksa. As you can see, the broth was rather diluted with little toppings on it. Oh… there’s a big fishball in it. What the heck?! For RM4, it’s not worth paying.
The hokkien mee appeared average. There’s nothing to shout about although we hoped that they are generous with their topping (sliced pork and prawns). But it was way better than that bowl of so-called Assam Laksa although it wasn’t fair to compare them both since they are different.
There’s something about char koay teow with duck egg. They definitely complement one another really well as the inclusion of duck egg adds flavour to the dish. Every time, without a second thought, we opted for duck egg to go along with the char koay teow. This plate though tasted alright. There were ample amount of prawns and cockles in it. Best of all, it came with ‘lap cheong’ but it didn’t really contribute much to the dish.
My friend ordered chee cheong fun (RM2) and or koay (RM2) from the same stall. The chee cheong fun was alright; springy firm texture but the sauce was generic one unlike the one we had from Genting Café.
Or koay is essentially a common Chinese snack called yam cake which is made out of mixture of rice flour, tapioca flour and diced yams. The mixture is then steamed and served with dried shrimps, spring onions and fried shallots. Or koay usually goes well with chilli sauce and sweet brown sauce. This version was pretty good as there were cubes on yam in it while the batter has a firm texture. It costs RM2 per piece. I guess I know why the stall serve both of them since they came with the same type of sauce.
To wash it down, I opted for ice kacang with a scoop of ice cream while my friend went for chendol. There’s nothing to shout about for both of them although there were load of corns, grass jelly, peanuts, banana and red beans on my ice kacang. The chendol tasted normal although they could do more with palm sugar. Both of them cost around RM2 to RM3 per bowl.
Although the food was just alright, we were pretty stuffed by then. We walked around New World Park for awhile before grabbing a cuppa at Starbucks. By 130PM, we decided that we should make a move and head back to KL… with heavy heart.
