Penang Diaries: New Lane Hawker Center

You must visit a hawker center (or a night market) in Asia — in the food capital no less!  Why bother visit Penang if you don’t?

One of the more popular ones with tourists and locals is New Lane Hawker Center on Lorong Baru.  This is the same place Bourdain went to have his share of Char Kway Teow¹.

We start off with some Penang Curry Mee.  It’s bihon, tofu, shrimp, and some coagulated pig’s blood served in a curry soup.  Awesome.

You can’t pass up the Satay.  You have your choice of chicken or pork and they only cost MYR1.00 each.  You cannot go wrong here.

The Laksa is pretty good as well, but it’s a tad different from the laksas we know.  They serve it Asam style in Penang, which is similar to the fish head curry in Chee Wah.  It’s a mix between Malay- and Chinese- style with that sour component, most likely from tamarind.

But the dish I came here for is the Char Kway Teow.  There isn’t a decent plate here in Manila².

This felt like fucking nirvana.  Fried in lard, fried with pork fat, shrimp, cockles and their juices and served on a banana leaf — this was the best char kway teow I’ve tasted³.  The secrets to a good char kway teow are the cockles, the soy sauce they make, and the charred wok.

And surprise, surprise — I haven’t had a decent plate ever since.  You fucking ruined it for me, Penang.