New Lane Hawker CentrePenang, Malaysia
Penang is known as THE place for hawker food in Malaysia - and in fact one of the best places to eat in the entire Asian region.
We were visiting Penang and one of the top hawker destinations in Georgetown was around the Sunway Hotel - which was fortunately just down the road from where we were staying.
We strolled the short distance and saw a sea of tables along the edge of the road and heaps of stalls selling all types of local delicacies. The aroma was amazing - and it was packed too. The stalls were doing good trade but there weren't any real queues as the food was moving fast.
Mlady spied a stall selling durian. It's a local delicacy that is in extremely high demand. It's a strange fruit too. The fruit part inside looks cheese-like. The locals say it smells like gas and tastes like a sweet mixture of garlic and onion. Sounds weird doesn't it - but it actually tastes really good. It's something every visitor to Malaysia should try.
There are heaps of stalls selling freshly cooked satay sticks at the roads edge.
The cooks turn the sticks by hand as the flames fly up around them. It looks dangerous but they've clearly done this for years and don't ever seem to get burned.
You can get a very wide variety of meats as well - beef, boar etc - but by far the most common is chicken - which is what we decided to have.
The minimum quantity most places will sell you is 10 sticks for around 1 Ringgit each - so 10 costs around $4 Australian.
We grabbed 10 chicken sticks which were put on a plate with some side bits and then slathered in a ladle full of steaming satay sauce.
Our next "course" was a familiar and old favourite - char koay teow.
Its a typical combination dish that's served as street food everywhere here.
Char koay teow is a mix of noodles, bean sprouts, meats and sauces that is cooked fresh in the pan in front of you here and served onto your plate to eat straight away.
This dish was probably one of the best char koay teow's we've ever had. It had great flavours and a lift from the slivers of Chinese sausage in the mix.
It also had some decent sized king prawns too and only cost 6 Ringgits - or around $2.40 Australian. Bargain!
Hawker food is a must try in Penang - it's one of the main things this area is famous for. The quality is fantastic and the tastes are even better.
