FOODIE STARTS BLOGGING

Greetings Food Fans

IT'S HERE! What you've been waiting for ... well, at least, what I HOPE you've been waiting for - my very own blog.

And it won't just contains past and present articles written by yours truly, but also restaurant reviews, favourite foods and hawker haunts - if you'll pardon the awful alliterations...

I will also post photos, thoughts, opinions and ideas, and if gets popular enough some personal favourite recipes.

For all you fellow foodies out there - please read, enjoy, and above all try out the various places I mention. Any comments welcome, and please feel free to suggest changes or new ideas - you never know, I may use it, and give you due credit.

And here's an incentive -if it's a really innovative idea, then I will send you a signed copy of my new book GREAT DINING IN PENANG - a must-have if ever you come to visit this wonderful island!

For now, I bid you adieu but please keep checking in.

Terima Kasih!

HELEN ONG
Food Writer & Columnist

PENANG FOOD

Everyone has heard about Penang hawker food, and how excellent it is, although lately I've been enjoying many a debate with non-Penangites who come up here to eat at Gurney Drive (of course) and all the other dozens of kopitiams and food courts we have then moan after they've pigged out for two solid days. "Ai yo, Penang food not so good any more lah". "Can get better in KL/Singapore/Ipoh etc." and "Expensive."

Well although I agree that to a certain extent Penang hawker food is definitely no longer what it used to be (and man, the Hokkien Mee that the old man used to sell when he did his rounds on his mobile stall was to die for ... mmm, I still remember that certain aroma - a whiff of that was enough to make you drool, let alone the taste ... it's definitely not there nowadays) I will still stick my neck out and say that the hawker food in Penang is better than anywhere else.

Even supposedly good hawker food FROM Penang at certain places are just wannabes. You've got to come here to get the real thing lah!