EATING NONSTOP in PENANG, Malaysia | George Town Food Tour

EATING NONSTOP in PENANG, Malaysia | George Town Food Tour

Hello everyone, JHMedium here, and today we are in George Town, Penang. In this video, I’ll share with you everything I ate in one of the best street food cities in the world. and we’ll explore the vibrant heart of this historical island. Alright, let’s go eat. We are going to have breakfast.

Most of these breakfast places in Penang are just carts outside a storefront. It sort of feels like a hawker center because you can try a variety of different dishes, but the space is owned by the drink shop, so you have to order a drink to dine in.

They give you this number to place at the table after you order. We got a dry wanton mee, and a wanton soup. At first, I thought they gave us the wrong dish, because it looks like a lo mein with a bowl of wanton soup next to it.

I guess it will make more sense to plate the wantons on top of the noodles but we’ll just keep it like this for now. It’s pretty salty, but the flavor is good. That’s why the wanton soup is such a good combo with this dry dish. It’s a pork wanton, very meaty and delicious.

A great brunch to start the day. Before we head to our next meal, It’s time to explore George Town. If you’re just traveling downtown, you can take the free CAT Bus that loops the central area. We are here at the Esplanade Walkway. The water is so beautiful.

But in hindsight we probably shouldn’t come here in the day time. Because the reflection of the sun off the ground I can barely open my eyes. It got way too hot in the afternoon, literally to the point where my camera had an overheating alert.

So let’s fast forward to the evening and continue this food tour. For dinner today we are at Kimberley Street. It’s sort of a night market, but it’s more like just at this intersection. And we’re going to try some Penang’s best street food. First up, kway chap. We ordered a duck kway chap.

It’s basically a thin sheet of rice and then rolled up and cut into strips of noodles. There are so many ingredients in here. Obviously, there’s duck meat, but there’s also pig’s ear, duck blood tofu, intestines, and a braised egg. We got some intestines here and we’re going to dip it in the sauce.

This kway chap really is the perfect combo of flavor and texture. The soft rice rolls, soak up all the duck flavor from the broth while the pig’s ear and intestines give the whole dish a really crunchy, chewy texture. If you are afraid of that stuff, maybe this is not the dish for you,

But the kway chap itself is so good. For dessert we got a si koh soup, which literally means four ingredient soup. But I think there’s way more than four in here. Nice refreshing way to end the meal. Okay, on to the next dish. Next up, we’re having koay teow soup.

Rice noodles really is such a versatile ingredient. But unlike kway chap, it has a clear broth. There’s a poached egg on top of here, which is really exciting. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to do this or not, but I’m going to break the egg yolk Now it’s like an egg drop soup.

Okay, let’s try. There is a very seafoody taste to it, probably from the fish cake and the fish balls. There’s also some pork patties and some pork liver in here. Very simple, but hearty dish. After eating one dish, I still want to eat another dish. After the main course, I still want dessert.

Every single corner of the street is filled with good food, impossible to choose. The last must try dish on Kimberley Street is char koay teow. But we actually had it when we arrived in George Town yesterday. We ate too much carbs tonight already, so we’ll skip it for now.

We’ve tried all ‘four kings’ of street food here on Kimberley Street. We had kway chap, the si koh soup, the koay teow soup, and we had char koay teow yesterday. But my favorite of those is definitely the duck kway chap. I was surprised by all the ingredients they put inside.

Individually, they might seem a little bit scary to some people, but honestly, the flavor was just incredible. And one bonus dish before we go back home, belacan fried chicken. Day two in George Town, Penang and today we’re going to explore the vibrant Old Town, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

My favorite thing about George Town, I mean, other than the food, is of course all the street art you can find here. And it’s not just in Armenian Street, you can find it all over the city. We’re now here at the Clan Jetties.

The jetties are these houses built on stilts over the water. Each jetty is owned by a family, and this one is the Chew Jetty. The jetties are like their own little town with shops, accommodations, and more. Unfortunately, many jetties were also destroyed or taken down in previous years

Due to their structural vulnerability and the valuable land they sit on. Okay I think it’s about time to go back to the food tour. After some walking around, now it’s time for dessert. And we’re going to try some douhua. My family also makes douhua in Taiwan, so let’s see how this compares.

This is a grass jelly douhua, It’s actually a little bit bitter from the grass jelly, which is nice. Otherwise, the sugar will be overpowering. We also got a butterfly pea douhua. It’s so blue. There’s no extra flavor, I think it’s purely for the blue color. Overall, not bad.

But of course, this is not really enough for a meal. And the rain clouds are warning us to go back home soon. So on to the next restaurant. For dinner today, we’re going to have Hokkien noodles. I ordered a braised sauce noodles and Rika ordered the traditional type Hokkien noodles.

It’s pretty interesting that there’s no seating inside the restaurant. So they just put the table at the side of the road outside of someone else’s store. The sauce is so thick, you got to mix it up really well. Don’t get me wrong, the flavor is excellent.

But I’d say I’m not that big of a fan of this sticky, gooey texture. I guess I shouldn’t have ordered the koay teow because it definitely makes this even stickier than it should be. Now let’s try the more traditional Hokkien prawn mee. Ah, yes, this is much better.

Really strong shrimp flavor, not too spicy. I definitely prefer a more soupy noodle dish. So which one do you prefer? The Hokkien prawn mee. I think in Penang, it is impossible to eat everything you want to try. There are too many choices here.

There are some dishes that you will want to eat a second time. I wish we can have five meals a day. Love it. Good morning from George Town, Penang. It’s another day, which means another day of eating. And our first food stop for breakfast is Hainanese chicken rice.

Very delicious chicken rice. Honestly, it’s hard to go wrong. It’s just brilliant comfort food. So, yeah, you don’t need to be in Singapore to have good chicken rice. Next up on today’s agenda, white curry noodles. I’m so excited to try this. It looks so different from any curry I’ve ever had.

First I’m going to try the broth. What? I can taste the seafood, it’s super, super salty. It tastes kind of similar to a normal curry, but I can’t believe it’s white. Maybe it’s because they put a lot of coconut milk inside. On paper, it’s supposed to be very delicious.

I think the seasoning definitely let this dish down. I feel like the salt just drowned out all the other flavor. So unfortunately, I don’t really like this dish. If you had a better experience at this restaurant, please let me know if it’s always like this or not.

We wanted to explore more of the city, but today it started raining around noon. So I guess we’ll head back and rest. It is our last day in Malaysia. And once again we are at a kopitiam hawker center type of place for breakfast. And before we leave Malaysia

Of course we got to have nasi lemak one more time. The nasi lemak here is green instead of white, probably from the pandan. It’s also served with curry chicken. Can’t really taste the pandan, but the rich curry flavors are delicious. Coconuty, spicy, and just super crunchy with those fried anchovies.

Nasi lemak, you can never go wrong. We also again got Penang char koay teow. It’s not the char koay teow flavor I’m used to. I’m more used to having Singaporean char kway teow which uses dark soy sauce is a bit sweeter. Here in Penang, it’s lighter colored and slightly more salty.

I think maybe I prefer Singapore char kway teow. Sorry to you Malaysians watching. But without a doubt, both versions are excellent. I’m going to miss nasi lemak so much. I already lost count how many times we had it on this Malaysia trip.

I just wish we can find it in other places around the world, because I definitely want to have nasi lemak again. Since this is our last day here, no time to waste. On to our next meal. We were supposed to have breakfast here on one of the days,

But there’s always so many people lining up in the morning. So afternoon tea it is. I ordered a pineapple bun with kaya and butter inside. Let’s try. Kaya butter really is the best form of butter. And it’s so flaky, all of it is falling off. Rika ordered coffee toast with kaya butter.

Looks super crispy. The coffee flavor inside is actually really strong. It’s like biting into coffee, unbelievable. Kaya toast is so simple, it’s just toast and spread. Yet it’s probably one of the best breakfasts or snacks ever invented. We weren’t planning on having this. But we stumbled upon an ice cream shop

And we just have to come in and get some ice cream because it’s so hot outside. We got the burnt butter and sage ice cream. The sage flavor is quite overpowering. I’m quite surprised a spice like sage can be put into ice cream. Really unique.

For our last night in Penang and our last night in Malaysia, we are here at Chulia Street, which is famous for its bars. But we’re not here to drink. We’re here to eat more street food. For our first dish of the night market, loh bak, braised meat.

But actually it seems more like deep fried meat. So this right here is the star, loh bak. It’s a deep fried meat roll. We also got fish balls, tofu skin, and more. This looks more like a snack, but we’re going to have it as our appetizer for today.

Dip it in the sauce and let’s try. We also have here a deep fried siu mai. I never knew you can cook siu mai like this. As a Cantonese, I am very shocked. Living in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province for so long, This is the first time I had it deep fried.

I think it’s pretty good. This is a tofu skin, and it’s already deep fried. Usually we will cook in hot pot. But here you eat it sort of like a potato chip. Tofu chips. Really crispy, but really strange way to eat this.

I think I’d still prefer to put this in a hot pot. Let’s move on to the next dish. And now, sadly, our last dish of the night, lok lok. It literally means to dip. But with a play on words, here they also use the characters ‘happy happy’ with the same pronunciation,

Because this is a fun an enjoyable dish to eat. It’s basically the same concept as satay celup we had in Melaka. But we all gather here around the lok lok stand. It looks like there’s a satay sauce and a sweet and sour sauce. Scoop some of the sauce on to the food.

Make sure that the food is covered by the satay. There are colors on the end of each stick and they correspond to different prices. So for example, the black one is 0.7 MYR. I’m going to try the fish cake first. Satay sauce is still the best.

This really is like the quintessential image of Southeast Asia, standing next to the street, enjoying some good food. This sums up our food adventure here in George Town, Penang. I know Penang is considered the food capital of Malaysia, but I did not expect there to be this much good food.

Unlike many places where good street food is concentrated in one area, Here, there are good looking restaurants or stalls on every single corner. We literally cannot stop eating. There’s so many other dishes such as roti canai and nasi kandar that we wanted to try.

But we do have a limited amount of stomach space. That also means we have a reason to come back. This has been an unforgettable food adventure. I’m not going to say which dish here I thought was the best, because that’s just impossible. Come to Penang and see for yourself.

That’s also it for our Malaysia travel series. Hope you guys liked this one and see you guys soon. Bye bye!

Penang is considered to be the FOOD capital of Malaysia. In this food tour of George Town, I will share with you everything I ate on this four day trip to one of the best street food cities in the world!

#Malaysia #Penang #Georgetown #FoodTour

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Rika: https://www.instagram.com/rikasplanet

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VIDEO CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Intro
00:22 – Wanton Mee
01:12 – Esplanade Walkway
01:49 – Kimberley Street
04:25 – Old Town Street Art
05:08 – Clan Jetties
05:34 – Tofu Pudding
06:08 – Hokkien Mee
07:16 – Hainanese Chicken Rice
07:39 – White Curry
08:27 – Nasi Lemak & Char Koay Teow
09:35 – Kaya Toast
10:20 – Ice Cream
10:50 – Chulia Street
12:42 – Outro

MALAYSIA TRAVEL SERIES:
Kuala Lumpur: https://youtu.be/KWBozJGlMcA
Melaka (Malacca): https://youtu.be/evGrEdRa3IQ
Penang: https://youtu.be/8qgWi1j-NYE

GEAR:
Main Cameras: Fujifilm X-H2s, Fujifilm X-T4
Other Cameras: Insta360 X3, iPhone 14 Pro
Sound: DJI Mic