Ong Cheng Huat a.k.a. Spring Chicken

Penang although perceived as a small island, but in fact, the whole Penang consist of Penang island and Mainland. While Penang has quite a number of popular food, Mainland do have a fair share of great local food around. One of them is what they dubbed as "keh kia" a.k.a small chicken. Small chicken here is what we called as Spring Chicken. The most popular thus, is no other than Ong Cheng Huat Seafood Restaurant.















Ong Cheng Huat Seafood Restaurant

Ong Cheng Huat is located at Bagan Lalang, about a 20 minutes drive from Penang Bridge. Its not that hard to find, but the restaurant is located so deep inside, that you might still wonder where is it even after turning into the junction.















Keh Kia, 9/10

This is what we came for, and its none other than the Spring Chicken! Crisply fried, the chicken tasted delicious with spices locked into it. Definitely one of the best fried chicken i ever ate.

Besides Spring Chicken, OCH does offer alot other great food, such as this fried prawn crackers.
Crunchy and tasty, this prawn crackers are great as a starter.















Fried Prawn Crackers , 8/10

OCH does not serve rice, but they do have fried noodles and fried beehoons. The fried noodle tasted better than the beehoon, a little bit similar to mamak mee.















Fried Noodle, 7/10















Fried Beehoon, 5/10

Mainland is also popular with steamed baby octopus, especially the one in front a shop selling Indian movies around Raja Uda. OCH does serve baby octopus too.















Baby Octopus, 5/10

However, it wasnt as good as the one at the Indian movie store near Raja Uda. It tasted so so, and its not quite crunchy enough.















Steamed fish, 6/10

Fish was quite fresh, but however, it seems overcooked. But, its well compensated with a tasty soup base.















Lala, 8/10

The lala was however, tasted great with a good soup base. As its served steamed, the lala need to be as fresh as possible, and it doesn't disappoint here.

Last but not least, fried tauhu. Its a mixture of meat and seafood, and tasted great, with or without chili.















Fried tauhu, 7/10

All in all, great spring chicken, so so seafood.

Ong Cheng Huat Restaurant is located at
Address: 2004, Bagan Lallang,
13400 Butterworth
Business Hours: 11.00 am till 5.30 pm, Closed on Mondays
Directions: From Penang Bridge, go straight till you passed Tesco Extra on your left. From here, lookout for Sg. Dua signboard. Turn left once you see the sign to Sg.Dua underneath a flyover.
Go all the way, till you see Bagan Lalang. Once you turn into Bagan Lalang, be prepared to turn right into a junction with the sign Ong Cheng Huat Seafood.
Contact: 04-331 4782, 012-453 5188

Price: 7/10
Ambience: 4/10
Service: 7/10
Food: 7/10
Cleanliness: 7/10
Entertainment: 4/10

Visit http://picasaweb.google.com/thexnix/OngChengHuatAKASpringChicken# for more photos

Hot Bowl White Curry Mee and Chicken

White steamed chicken. or "white chop chicken".
You might be surprised why do we blog on something so normal, that you can easily find in your neighbourhood. There are also popular chicken rice such as the Melaka's rice ball chicken, Serdang's white chicken or even Ipoh "Lou Wong" Beansprout chicken. But this is a real gem hidden in Georgetown.
















Hot Bowl

The shop is called Hot Bowl and its situated in Jalan Abu Siti Lane. You might never heard if this lane, but its smack right in between Jalan Anson and Lorong Selamat. If you also don't know either roads, then try the Penang map or google it. The chicken is hot, but its not in a bowl. Don't get it wrong. Apparently, this shop was even on Ho Chak!.
















Owner of the shop, he's too shy to look at the camera

And even newspaper...






















Newspaper cutting

"Talk more is useless". In fact, we will first intro you the "part-time actor" before going into the main actor.















White Curry Mee

Now this is what they mean by Hot Bowl. A hot bowl of curry mee, and its white in color! Served with some tangy sotongs, juicy beancurds, beansprout, cockles and cubes of pig blood. Well, if you don't like the grey blood cubes, just tell the owner not to put it in. Once served to the table, you can then add sambal to it.
















Become red color after added sambal

Now, the real deal is here. 'White chicken' , topped with corianders and spring onions, served in sesame oil and soy sauce. The chicken is so smooth and the mixture of sauces make it so tasty and delicious. We never knew there were such delicious chicken until we were introduced by our colleagues.
















Yummy white chicken, 10/10

Aside from the chicken and curry mee, they serve beansprout which is a good pairing with the white chicken. They also serve pork trotter in vinegar, salty and spicy vegetable, and also fish head curry ( call to order) .
















Crunchy Beansprout, 7/10
















Vinegar pork trotter, 8/10
















Fish head curry

They even serve lobaks, which i find it normal but can be a good starter while waiting for the delicious chicken and hot white curry mee.















Lobak , 7/10

This shop can be very packed during weekend and weekdays, thus be prepared to wait for a seat. Parking can be a hassle, as the road is only one way. As the shop is almost at the end of the road, start to look for parking once you passed half way of the road.
















Pricing wise, its very affordable. I find their White Coffee quite good too. Thus, do get yourself to Hot Bowl and try their delicous chicken and curry mee!

















Hot Bowl Restaurant is located at
Address: 16-A, Lorong Abu Siti, 10400 Penang.
Business Hours: 8am to 3pm, closed on Monday
Directions: From Komtar, go straight to Mccalister Road. Go straight till you see a yellow Red Rock hotel on your right. Turn right into Abu Siti lane and go all the way to the end.
Contact: 04-2273168

Price: 8/10
Ambience: 7/10
Service: 8/10
Food: 9/10
Cleanliness: 8/10
Entertainment: 4/10

Visit http://picasaweb.google.com/thexnix/HotBowlRestaurant# for more photos

FOOD: The Sire ...my desire

The Sire. we call it 'Desire" ..the guy on the phone call it The Sire...
well, anyway, its our first food blog. we hope this gonna be good. :)

Well, its my wife's birthday last weekend. Gonna be a tough time again finding fine dining restaurant as we often patron on special events. Not like in KL. Well, after asking around, we decided to go to The Sire.

The Sire

The Sire is located in Georgetown, Penang just right opposite the Esplanade along King's Street. Not hard to find, as long as you know where are those Penang government offices and the new Penang High Court. The restaurant even has that classic British feel that really draws you in, even you are just driving pass by.

The Sire Exterior

The Sire serves fine western cuisine, serving some succulent lamb steak, to scrumptious seafood that you can easily find in other fine western dining. The menu however has quite limited choices, but you can easily make choices from the little boxes that they draw around on their list.

While the menu is nowhere different from other fine dinings, the restaurant does has a unique environment to it. Its painted in white with some greenery everywhere. Wished they had a fountain right on those wall plants.
They call themselves a museum restaurant, and indeed, its a 4 storey high museum at the back of the restaurant.

Lanterns
















Seatings for 8

On the front, its a spacious restaurant, with ample seats even without bookings. They had some antiques placed around the shop front such as a giant make-up table and some old furniture and cabinets.

Restaurant Front
















Green green everywhere
















Rack of glasses

The back is where they house their museum. Its not the typical museum where you see artifacts or dinosaurs, but here, you get to see the legendary Yeap Chor Ee's history. The museum depicts the late Yeap Chor Ee on how he came from China and worked his way to become a millionaire. However, they dont allow customer to take pictures, thus, do pay a visit to The Sire to know more on Yeap Chor Ee.

Museum at the back
















Notice the 2 different furniture generations

First up, they serve us garlic butter breads. Nicely baked but nothing special from typical garlic bread. No need order, they give you complimentary. Not sure on other days though.

Garlic bread

Well, here comes the real deal. Starters !! We scout through their menu and ordered their Baked Mushroom. There were 1...2...3 mushrooms all together. Yeah, quite a start, eh. Although its normal for a fine dining restaurant, i cant understand why cant the chef put a few more mushroom on the dish ?

Baked Mushroom, 8/10

Although its small in amount, it doesn't disappoint us at all. The mushroom is topped with some soury and salty sauce that is balsamic-liked with some alfalfa that makes you licking your lips after you dunked one in. The portobello mushroom is really juicy and delicious. Yummy...

Portobello Mushroom, juicy !!

After the appetizing mushrooms, the main dishes arrive. First up, the Stewed Lamb Shank. In case you don't know, shank is the lower part of the leg, and comes with bones. The lamb shank is topped with a nice blend of tomatoes with mashed potatoes on the side. However, it does come short of our expectation. Although the lamb meat is tender, but it tasted quite milky (sou), not to our liking. If you like milky taste, then you might give it a try.

Stewed lamb shank, 6/10

Next up, the magnificient Sliced Sizzling Tenderloin. Seriously, this is damn good. The chef grilled it to near perfection and somemore sliced it to bite size. No need for the tiring cutting of the steak. And the portion is big ! A must order !!

Sliced Sizzling Tenderloin, 10/10

Added with some black pepper on top and it tasted even better. The tenderloin tasted salty, and served with some cut potatoes. We even preferred this cut potatoes to the mashed one on the lamb shank.

Very long pepper grinder

Finally, here comes our dessert. We chose the Apple Creme Brulee. Simply said, its just a stuffed apple with some cream on top, served with their in-house Movenpick icecream. Tasted so-so. Give it a try though if you haven't do so.

Apple Creme Brulee, 5/10

Well, in the end, we went back with a satisfied tummy. Though some of the dishes comes up short of our expectations, we think its a great restaurant for 2 or even a small gathering with friends and family. Ambience and service is top notch, and a great place to take some nice photos. Definitely worth going a 2nd time.

Romantic candlelight

The Sire Museum Restaurant is located at
Address: 4 King Street, 10200 Penang.
Directions: From Jelutong Expressway, go towards Jetty and to the end, follow the left curve to a roundabout with the buah pinang statue. Go straight, and you will see The Sire on your left on the 2nd row of shophouses, just opposite Esplanade. Its a one way, so, take the left turn on the next junction.
Contact: 04-264 5088

Price: 6/10
Ambience: 10/10
Service: 10/10
Food: 7/10
Cleanliness: 9/10
Entertainment: 7/10

Visit http://picasaweb.google.com/thexnix/TheSire# for more photos

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