Chinese New Year is just 2 days away. Everyone is preparing for this festival; making cookies, decorating their house, buying new clothes and etc.

End of year of Rat is not that pleasing where those who work in semiconductor related industries are badly affected by shut down, pay cut, retrenchment and vss.

Hope in the Year of Ox, economy will start to bloom again and we won't have to worry for our employment.

I will be driving back to my hometown today. Before I leave, I would like to wish all my readers a Happy & Prosperous Moo Year! Enjoy the festival and holiday with your family and friends.


If you are traveling to Penang during this CNY, char koay teow, hokkien mee, laksa and rojak are the must try local food.

Enjoy this holiday season !

24 hours 7-Eleven, 24 hours KFC, 24 hours Mc D are familiar to us but 24 hours Wan Tan Mee? When I first heard about this, it was quite hard for me to believe it.

This stall operates by a 73 years old man and his wife. His wife operates the stall from 7am - 1pm, and the old man takes over then. The only off day is Tuesday night.

He has been operating the stall for ~ 50 years. According to him, he plan to operate the stall for another 2 years.

The stall owner in action making some wan tan for us.

A plate of wan tan mee with very simple presentation, just a few slices of char siew on top. The noodle is QQ and fragrant with lard taste.

The noodle use is slightly different from Thong Kee noodle. This one is thinner and QQ while Thong Kee one has crunchy feeling.

The vegetable was serve separately with some dark soy sauce. I felt that the dark soy sauce is a bit too much, therefore the vegetable is slightly salty.

A bowl of wantan soup where the wantan cost only 10cent /pc of wantan. The soup base and the meat for the wantan are quite bland. But where to get 10 cent / pc of wan tan nowdays.

The fried wantan is very crispy. The uncle will deep fry the fried wantan again before it's served to us.

This stall is located inside the food court in Tanjung Bunga Market. At night time, this is the one and only stall operating.

Map for those who are not familiar:

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Joo Leong Cafe is a famous place where many people working in FIZ area will take their breakfast here.

This coffee shop is located on the way to Penang Airport, but it's barely noticeable if you were driving along the way. But you can always spot the long stretched cars parking by the road side, all those are their customers.

This coffee shop is famous for it's toasted bread (roti bakar) and half boiled egg. While waiting for our bread and egg to be served, we grabbed a packed of economic noodle to fill our hungry stomach.

It tasted pretty normal. Nothing much to brag about.

The toasted bread with a layer of butter spread on top.
The method to eat this toasted bread is to sprinkle some sugar on top of the bread and dip it into the half boiled egg. It taste havenly... (This is strictly for those who like half boiled egg. For those who don't, I think they will feel disgusting)

This coffee shop open daily from early morning until 11++, closed on Monday.

Map for those who are not familiar.

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Ah Leng char koay teow (ckt) is another famous stall of ckt which is located opoosite Honolulu Cafe along Jalan Dato Keramat.

The big sized prawn and mantis prawn is the top selling point of this ckt.

As usual the stall owner is helped out by his lovely daugther.

We normally order a bowl of hokkien mee to ease our hungry stomach while waiting for our plate of ckt.

The hokkien mee taste very normal. The soup base is taste average and the chili is not too spicy.

I think we chose the wrong day to visit this stall as the number of people who were there for ckt were a lot more than usual. That was a weekend with long holiday. We observed that most of the customers were visitors.

End up we had waited for 45 mins for our ckt. That was the longest I've waited. Luckily we had the hokkien mee to ease our hunger.

When the ckt was served, to my disappointment there were only 2 big sized prawns. I used to have 3 big sized prawns during my few last visits there. Wondering why...

Anyway the taste remain good. The prawns were big and succulent.

My plate of ckt with mantis prawn instead of normal prawn. There were few big chunks of mantis prawns.

It tasted good but slightly different from the normal ckt with prawn. The mantis prawn added another type of fragrant into the ckt.

Business hour: 8.00 am - 2.00pm (Closed on Thursday)

You can order a normal type of ckt or a special one. The normal type (RM 4.50) is like the one we've ordered while the special (RM8.00) one would have big sized prawn together with mantis prawn. Additional 50 cent would be charged if you opt of duck egg instead.

It's consider rather pricey for ckt, but considering the big sized prawn we have nothing to say.

Map for those who are not familiar

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JJ Cafe is located at the jetty where you can take your boat to Jerejak Island. I thought that this place serves western food, but to my astonishment it serves malay food. Malay food is not a problem for me as I like spicy food.

We ordered nasi lemak, curry mee and one finger food.

The food was served quite fast as we are the only people dining there. The presentation of the nasi lemak is normal, the rice is not in a bowl shape which I expected it should be presentated that way. To my disappointment, the rice was rather cold and lacked of coconut juice fragrant. The chili tasted more to sweet side. The chicken was something like soy sauce braised chicken which tasted very normal.

The soup of the curry mee was very thick, too thick for my liking. The yellow noodle was over cooked which left the texture to be very very soft. The cockles were over cooked. Overall, this curry mee did not suit my tastebud.

Chicken Samosa is something like curry puff except it used popiah skin instead of pastry as the outer layer. The filling was like the one inside curry puff, but lack of spiciness. One thing which I feel very weird is they served the snack with some chili sauce.

One thing that I like about this place is the magnificent view of Penang Bridge, beach and sea. It's a very great place to have a cup of coffee and a little chat with your friend or love one.

Since it's just located by the sea side, you can feel the cool breeze sweeping by your face when you are relaxing while enjoying the view.

The jetty which lead you to your boat if you wish to 'sail' to the nearby island.

Map for those who are not familiar

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I got attracted by a board which stated 'Whole Egg Wan Tan Mee' while we are on our way to eat the Campbell Street Market Curry Mee.

Nowadays most of the noodle for wan tan mee are bought from the noodle manufacturer. It's seldom that we can get the self made noodle for wan tan mee. Therefore, weeks later I am here again to try out the self made wan tan mee.

Thong Kee wan tan mee is served in an old style coffee shop.

My bowl of whole egg wan tan mee which cost RM 2.50. The portion is quite big. There are a few slices of char siew, fried wan tan and normal cooked wan tan. The wan tan is quite big and tasty.

The wantan mee is fragrant and the lard added more fragrant to it.

The noodle itself has crunchy feeling if compare to the normal wan tan mee like the one at Chulia Street and Kafe Kheng Pin.

According to the stall owner, he owns the ingredients to make the noodle. He mix the ingredients, uses his own mixer and noodle making machine to process his self made, whole egg noodle.

It's very easy to locate this coffee shop. Look for this green Boon Wah building. Thong Kee Wan Tan Mee is just located a few shops away from this building.

Map for those who are not familiar:

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Chinese New Year (CNY) is just 2 weeks away. Many restaurants have already start promoting their CNY dishes which are specially created for this festival.

Young Heart Restaurant too had created some CNY special dishes and I have the opportunity to try them out thanks to CK who invited me to this dinner.

Steamed dumplings (jiao zhi) and pan fried dumplings (guo tie) are their speciality.

We were first served with 3 types vege rolls which are Egg Vege Roll, Unagi Vege Roll and Prawn Vege Roll. This vege rolls are pretty similar to the one I've tasted at Ms. Saigon. A thin layer of Vietnamese rice paper are used to wrapped the vege and ingredients used.

Being a die hard fan of unagi, I tasted the unagi vege roll. The vegetable is very fresh and somehow it overtake the unagi taste. The unagi does not have strong sweet sauce taste like what we get in Japanese restaurant.

There are 3 types of sauces to go with the vege rolls. There are Chinese Style Sauce, Siam Style Sauce and Japanese Style Sauce (clockwise from top).

Next up was Hot & Sour Soup. This soup is quite appetizing. The soup base is slightly thick, similar to shark fin soup base. Preserved vegetable, tofu and come black fungus (wood ear fungus) can be found in this soup.

Golden Scallop Dumpling is one of the dishes in the CNY menu. The dumpling skin is made of a mixture of flour and carrot. Therefore, it turned out more yellowish than usual. The dumpling filling which consists of scallop, prawn and pork taste good.

The sauce to go with the dumpling. There are shredded ginger in vinegar, fried shallots and chili.

Snake Squash with Pork - Don't get mislead by the dish name ya. There isn't any snake involve in this dish, else I'll be 10 feet away.

Snake squash is one kind of gourds. The snake squash taste sweet and it goes well with the pork. The pork is well marinated and smooth.

This is one of the dish that I like a lot during the night. Cheese & Chicken Guo Tie tasted very good. The amount of cheese is just adequate that it added fragrant to the guo tie but at the same time it won't left you feeling 'jelak' after eating it.

Fried Bean Curd - the tofu texture is soft. The tofu tasted fragrant as the tofu is blended with other ingredients such as anchovies, carrot and chinese celery.

Stir Fried Mix Vege & Mushroom. The dish is simple and plain but it's suitable for those who do not like strong taste. The sweetness of the vegetable and mushroom is the selling point of this dish. The mushroom is very fresh, juicy and sweet.

Prosperous Year in Malaysia is actually the name of the next dish which can be simplified as fried chicken. This is another dish which I like a lot too. The batter consist of lemongrass which added fragrant to the dish. This is my first time to eat fried chicken which have the lemongrass smell and it's quite special to me.

Fried Prawn & Garlic was served next. The batter is very crispy with a hint of garlicky smell which is still acceptable for me. If you were to eat the prawn on its own, it's a bit too salty. But the taste will be just right when you eat it together with a bowl of white rice.

Sponge Gourd with Pork - This dishes has a strong taste of dong gui (Angelica Sinensis or female ginseng). The pork goes well with the sponge gourd which had absorbed just the right amount of gravy. So no worry that the sponge gourd will taste plain.

This is another of my favourite dish too - Steam Cod & Bean Curd. The cod fish is very smooth and soft that it just melt right in my mouth. Simple method and simple ingredients were used to cook the fish to maintain the original taste of the cod fish.

We were served with 3 types of noodles that night. The noodles are handmade by the chef. One of it was vegetarian noodle; Black Jelly Mushroom Fried Noodle. Lots of black fungus, cabbage, carrots and mushroom in this noodle. This noodle tasted plain and sweet. Again, it's suitable for those who do not like heavy taste food.

Shredded Pork Noodle - There are lots of minced meat and spring onion to go with the noodle.

Ground Pork in Spicy Bean Sauce Noodle - The sauce tasted like 'ma po' tofu to me. This is strictly for those who can bear the spiciness as is tasted very spicy to me.

Chamomile and Chrysantenum tea was served to us. Chamomile is believe to have calming and soothing effect.

Young Heart Restaurant got its name from the plant which have a heart shape leaf. The plant is called the Sweetheart Hoya.

There are lots of bamboo & greens deco inside this restaurant. It gives me a very comfortable feeling.

A separated room which is very suitable for friends gathering.

Thanks to Ms. Ann Kee for providing a wonderful dinner to us.

Business hour: 12pm - 10pm (Closed on Monday)
Contact: 04 - 228 8084
Hp: 016 - 410 8089

Map for those who are not familiar:

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