Penang is a food haven. Yes, we can find almost everything in Singapore. But both offer different versions of the same dish. Like char Kway teow (fried rice noodles) which is great in Singapore is on the sweet side but I’d much prefer the Penang version as it’s savory and uses duck eggs.

So upon arrival in Penang, we were picked up by the hotel transfer (RM45) and checked into Glow hotel on Jalan Macalister. Upon arrival at Glow (about 4pm), we had to wait about 15min for our room to be ready when we were told check in would be done in the comfort of our room? So much for personalized check in, we were led to our room by a rude staff. The room was decent and had a good view, to the left its the town, to the right, we saw some hills. The room with a view made up for the earlier disappointment.

After settling down, we headed to New Lane Hawker at Lorong Baru, off Jalan Macalister for a quick bite. Ordered a fresh coconut which was so sweet and flesh was tender and creamy (RM5). 2 little po piah (RM2.80) which were nice but quite average, or Chien which is fried oyster (RM8) I like the chili they used which had some lemongrass taste, wanton shui kao mee which is wanton and shrimp dumpling noodle (RM6.50) which was nice mixed with lard. Plus we ordered 2 chicken wings which was a little sweet but the flavor was good and the next one gets better, the taste grew on us.

Then we walked to Ghee Hiang (Jalan Macalister) for some famous tau sar peah, some call them dragon balls or tambun biscuits. They are also known for their sesame oil, pong peah (flaky pastry with lotus paste filling something like wife biscuit) and beh teh saw (crispy biscuits or horse hoof biscuit which is crispy and flaky with filling which is gooey and malty). There was a long queue at this branch when we arrived. This branch opens from 9am – 9pm daily.

We discovered this stretch of nice shophouses and decided to try the Taiwanese restaurant. I know, we should save our tummies for local food but being Taiwanese food and snack lovers, we could not resist. We had the braised pork rice and fried chicken rice.

Finally for supper, we tried the char kway teow from Yi Garden coffee shop. It’s about 5min walk from our hotel. We ordered ours with duck egg (RM5.50). I love this, it had ample cockles, fresh succulent prawns, crunchy beansprouts and bits of lard, yummy!

Our souvenir for today was this box of spicy shrimp tambun biscuits from Ban Heang (just opposite Glow)! I really liked them as they had nice shrimp flavors and not the usual ones we see.