Here's the final moment we're in Pulau Tikus, one last shot at one of the traditional coffee shop. After I've been walking around the street at the midland for about an hour, finally home minister out from church, so we decided to have our breakfast here.
For your convenient to understand, Penang speaks majority Hokkien Ban Nam, it's a southern Chinese dialect. If we have to use US as an analogy, then Penang is Brooklyn with Texas people speaking in Texan accent 🤣 The name of the restaurant is how it looks like. Heng, Ong, Huat brings the meaning of Successful, Abundance, and Prosperous. 1168 if read in Hokkien, it sounded like day day road prosper. Which means everyday walking towards prosperity 🤣🤣🤣
I used to spend time diving into coffee knowledge, learning about the roast, the grind, how water temperature affect the taste and smell. However, in the local coffee shop, it all boils down to how sweet they are. And generally, most if not all these coffee shop likes to use sweetened condensed milk, asking for less sweet would mean less milk. I've mentioned previously, Penang is generally using high heat fast roast, bitter but fruity at the same time. The guy who mix the coffee really need to find a balancing point of how much milk used to avoid each part of the taste bud get triggered. In this case, it's a little too sweet for my liking, but it does reduce the fruitiness of the drink. I will rate this coffee above average for the price I pay.
Curry noodle is another major attraction in Penang. They call it white curry because it was infused with enormous amount of coconut milk extract. Some "outsider" find the coconut taste over powered the curry spiciness, but it's a blessing to the people who has low spicy tolerance, to have a chance to enjoy curry taste. I love it for a fact that each of these curry bowl also came with a mountain of sambal(chili paste), so I can decide how much more spiciness I want my noodle to be. Not forgetting a dash of mint leaf elevate the entire spicy experience. Best of all, RM5. Less than a dollar yo!
I think I made a pretty bad decision on getting a Chat Kuey Teow in this coffee shop. I looked at all the hawkers, majority of them are busy especially after the church morning mass was done like 10 minutes ago. This CKT hawker seems taking his sweet time enjoying his cigarettes. It's not really bad, but it was slightly below my expectation. Eggs are overly cooked in my opinion and it's a little dry and less oily. If anything taste good is unhealthy, then this CKT to me is on the healthy side.
Last but not least, prawn noodle is a must have when I'm in Penang. I can have this noodle every meal of the day and not feeling disgusting. I ordered it with roast pork and the price is absolutely mind blowing, RM7. Taste is above average, and the biggest attraction on this will be the price tag. I'm definitely coming back here next time!
Additional info
Heng Ong Huat 1168 Coffee Shop
https://maps.app.goo.gl/r9TeHD3uN7xDrL8D6
Address: 304, Jalan Burma, George Town, 10250 George Town, Pulau Pinang
The Exodus
It's the weekend trip. And the ending of the weekend, is the same as ending of the trip as well. Immediately after our heavy breakfast, I don't even have the time to make a crap and we're rushing back to get the kids ready, so we can beat the traffic, rushing 350km back to Kuala Lumpur so the kids can go to school the next day.
You see, I don't usually pay a premium for hotel room unless it's a super luxury accommodation. To quote Adam Sandler, does Sting come and play a song in my room? I'd like not waste my welcome drink voucher. So we headed to he cafeteria and drop the voucher and all we got is 4 glasses of powered premix lemon tea. Well, what can I say. It's a peak season and everyone is in Penang for the St.Anne feast. We didn't finish our good bye drink and left the hotel.
On the way back, I asked the kids to give their grandparents a nudge, and setup a quick lunch on our way passing by my home town. The folks are happy to see their grandchildren and got a shock by my new hairstyle.
We went to this fusion restaurant Sheng's cafe, some 20 over years ago I almost landed myself here to become a kitchen helper when I lost everything when I lost my business to a fraud commited by a staff back then. Well, that will be entire different chapter, but I'm glad the cafe still survived and it is being back a lot of memory.
I also packed a small dessert, coconut caramel sugar pudding we call it "bowl pudding" 碗仔糕. I'm sure it's different than the Hong Kong style, because this has a strong smell of coconut to it. Absolutely amazing to have this after 6 hours of slow drive in heavy traffic.
Finally, after spending hours cleaning the house, and I had to take 2 burgers to curb my hunger and tiredness. And that sum up pretty much the rest of the crazy weekend getaway trip.