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!
4 comments:
Sorry to tell you that i was just heard your name.Can i know the magazine that you are written in for introduce food?
Penang food better? Why?
Taste? Value (Costs)? Ambiance?
Taste - With the world getting smaller and with migration of labour, food in KL is as good as or better than Penang. Perhaps in the 60's and 70's where Penangnites were from Penang, one could say there was a difference but nowadays, I very much doubt it. Recipes are passed on to siblings, cousins, uncles and aunties or even friends and the food is then reproduced somewhere else. Like everything food is always in evolution and hence the likelihood of it being improved after improvisations can't be ruled out.
Value(costs)? Well the portions in Penang are so much smaller than in KL. If one travels a little out of KL(even as near as Rawang) the food cots much less but they don't cut the portions as much as the do in Penang.
Ambiance? Gurney Drive? Where it is over crowded, dirty and the tables and chairs strewn in a long corridor? Where one has to queue at any popular stall, order,and wait for the food yourself?
I think not.
With mobility of labour and with labour able to go to where they are paid best, I would stick my neck out to say I can get better char koay teoy in London. After all, all the best Chinese chefs have based themselves in the major cities of the world.
My humble opinion:)
I write primarily for Star Sunday Metro and The Expat magazine, and Essenze, a quarterly society publication.
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