On the 4th day of CNY , my sister had to leave for her home as she starts work the next day. So we went for lunch in this place in Kulim. According to my sis-in-law. This place serves good roasts. Roasts here means roasts like char siew, roast pork, roast duck, roast chicken, etc. The restaurant is Yeow Kee. When we reached there, there were no roasts. The reason was that it was still in the new year period. You see, it takes at least a day to prepare the roasts. The restaurant is a typical Chinese ‘kopi tiam’ sort of restaurant. No frills. Just eat your fill and leave that sort of thing. It covers two shoplots.
So we ordered lunch with rice and dishes to go with it.
Service was quick. For drinks we ordered Chinese tea for everybody.
Very quickly we were had our vegetable served. Lettuce stir-fried with dried bean curd sticks. Initially I thought bean curd stick was the sweet variety. But no, it was the thin type but deep fried until it is spongy. The lettuce was crunchy, meaning it was quickly and expertly fried to get this texture. The sauce was light and tasty.
Next we ordered a plate of ‘tua pan kwey teow’, which is flat rice noodles fried and topped with a sticky egg sauce. Well, normally, the sauce contains vegetables, chicken or/and pork slices, fish cake, prawns, slices of fish meat, and at time some slices of liver and other innards. It
depends on the vendor. This time it did not have a lot of innards which I don’t like anyway. The noodles were good . I love tua pan koey teow and I never get tired of it.
Next was the steamed fish. The red fish (snapper) was steamed with preserved soybeans (tow chneow), some preserved mustard leaves as well as preserved plums. This is a bit unusual as fish is normally steamed in preserved soybeans, or with preserves mustard leaves (Teochew style). Sometimes the preserved plums are added to the mustard leaves to make it more sour.
Of course, fish can also be steamed with plum sauce alone. So this combination is a bit unique. However the taste was not overpowering as the flavours were not too strong, and it balanced nicely.
Then, we had ‘ang siow’ towfoo ( I shall call it as tofu for now on as it is easier to spell and pronounce). It is also known as red cooked tofu. As the name implies, the colour of the dish should be a bit reddish, with the colour of the dish coming from the dark soy sauce. The dish did not look too red, with the sauce just a bit of brownish colour. It was tasty nevertheless. The fried tofu has a nice red crust.
Finally we had another vegetable, kailan fried with salted fish. Kailan is the local version of kale, so it is not the most easy vegetable to prepare. Kailan needs to be fried with some aromatic ingredients. Salted fish is a good choice as it is salty (of course!!). Normally, when I cook this, I would make sure the sauce is tasty so it would coat the leaves.
This is just fine, nothing to shout about.
So there, we had our lunch. We were chatting after lunch and I took this opportunity to settle the bill. As usual my brother and his wife insisted that they pay but it was too late.
The damage?….Rm 85.00 plus drinks. All this for 5 persons. Can you believe it?
This is really cheap. The food is of good quality save for the kailan which was not as tasty as the rest ( but freshness is there). On the whole this is really #BCG -BIG, CHEAP AND GOOD. This is my sister’s favourite phrase. Typical stingy Penangites!!
Let’s face it. One can still get Big, Cheap and Good food in Penang. Trust me.
How uncanny it is? I seem to be paying for the cheap bill. Just another Penang instinct!! Ha-ha!!
If you are going to Penang, I suggest you go to places where it is not so touristy. Of course, you can do the touristy things first. Then again you must have friends there.
There is no website, you can google it.
So, if you like my story, please like and share. Or give the thumbs up. More to come.
So until the next post…
Penang Lassie.
