This blog post is meant for Dearest’s birthday celebration with bosom buddies in Penang. Yes, that was supposed to be an August blog post. Look at how backdated I was… imagine how many blog posts do I have for you guys, LOL.

The place: Chilli Corner Restaurant
Where? 10, Nagore Road, Penang
Dunno where is it? Near New World Park!
Weblink? <<Click Here>>
Contacts: (O) 04 226 2940, (HP) 013 437 2775

Hmm, how to begin? Totally forgotten how to write.. gosh! Harr! This place is owned by Madame Dexterous’s parent and they serve seriously delicious (and spicy!) Thai food. I ‘ve been visiting this place for quite some time but I never realize that I am a patron of my friend’s parent’s restaurant. Small world.

Why is this place so special? A point that I will not miss is that they serve really fresh seafood. From what I know, the boss oftenly go on boat trips for the seafood  himself. I guess that explains it all. If you’re looking for nice fish dishes etc, this is the place to be.

Don’t believe it? Simple, upon visiting this restaurant you’ll see a lot of pictures of his fishing expeditions, memorabilia of fishing gears, jaws of big fishes etc. It’s amazing.

Well Nagore Road is a nice street filled with nicely refurbished old buildings and I bet it is a nice attraction for foreign tourists as well. Chilli Corner Restaurant is one of them and definitely one that you wouldn’t want to miss.

Let’s go to the food, shall we?

The appetiser platter - Kacang Botol, Cucumber and Long Beans with sambal. The sambal rocks, big time!

This one is definitely the highlight of the whole course dinner. Extremely fresh fish steamed to perfection in Thai Style. Awesome.

Actually, it has been so backdated til I lost the receipt of this meal. So I can’t really provide the pricing list as well as accurate name of the dish. This particular one is Chicken with Long Beans in light sauce.

Kerabu Squid with Glass Noodles.

My favourite - Tom Yam Goong. I bet this is one of the most spicy Tom Yam in Penang, with large prawns!

A healthy diet comes with lots of vege right? Kai Lan for dinner!

… and also some Sambal Kacang Botol.

Is it called Pad Phet? It’s Crab stuffed with Chicken. Quite a complete meal huh?

To top it off, we had another birthday cake for the princess, Peach Mille Crepe this time.

and the Four Seasons reunited.

The Venturez and the Seasons too! Welcoming another addition to our network of friend, the newly-wed Ah Hin and Pling!

Making it happen, everyday… Just for you!

Siddique, here you go! Sorry for the delay bro… Hope this post can drive you all the way to Penang for some taste of the legendary Nasi Kandar! More posts today!

What’s next? Let me bring to you my all-time-favourite Nasi Kandar or Nasi Melayu from Penang. The stall which serves arguably the best Nasi Kandar that I have been savouring the last 17 years. That’s really close to where I stay, yes it is Nasi Kandar Kampung Melayu. For health reasons, you might stomp at me for suggesting a Nasi Kandar place to eat for breakfast… but heck! I just eat because it taste so good and I will never miss it unless I fall sick, to be honest.

Still have a very clear picture in my mind, how I sacrificed my sleeping hours by waking up early just to “tapao” nasi kandar to school as my breakfast. By 6.30 a.m, it was already a long queue in the line! Well, things changed. They now operate another stall for the night session too at Medan Selera Farlim (if I am not wrong, it’s the one opposite Shell and Sin Kang School).

Well, you’ll anticipate a lot of students and working class people eating there on the weekdays and on the weekends, the queue lines are endless. Nevertheless they are efficient and you don’t have to wait long either. Unlike the Classic Hokkien Mee in Dato Keramat, dang! Nowadays, everytime I go back to Penang and if time permits, I’ll savour a plateful of Nasi Kandar Basah at around 10 a.m. Although it’s kinda near to their closing time, it’s still good despite lesser choice of dish. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a Chinese restaurant, as depicted by the name - wholly owned by a Chinese national too. I was pretty surprised when I first entered this restaurant. There’s really a lot of China men dining and speaking away their dialects. For the first time, Hokkien was over ruled in Penang, only at this Tang Dynasty Restaurant.

Well, the cook, the boss and other staffs are all from China. I began to reminisce the food I had back in Zhuhai… Right away we did ordered a range of quite similar food we had last time over there. It turned to be a pleasant surprise to us!

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Yes, due to popular demand to post for CNY updates, I decided to defer my Tang Dynasty Imperial Noodle Restaurant review and I proudly bring to you this post. It’s a Local Food cum Going Places review instead.

It was my last day in Penang and it was also the Sixth Day of CNY before returning to the plain boring uni life in KL. So, no more procrastinating and off I went to the ever famous Kek Lok Si Temple.

Wondering why I said “procrastinating”? Well, you should be well versed with how the usual activities during CNY rhymes. Visiting, reunions, meet ups, g***ling etc. Finally, everyone began to get dispersed from Penang and I got some time off to travel on my own.

Co-incidently, Mom just got discharged from hospital and off we went for a lighter meal. On the way up to Air Hitam, where the Kek Lok Si Temple is located, we decided to take a detour to Paya Terubong for Hun Sai Fish Bee Hoon Soup.

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“If you are not restrained from taking beef, the following entry may suit you just fine. Otherwise, stay tuned for more upcoming posts.”

This is yet another Desmond-t’s hot favourite in his list of Penang food. It is so nice that you gotta go eat ‘em twice, thrice… and so on! Yes, it is the Beef Wan Than Mee, also known as “Gu Bak Mee” in Hokkien or just “Ngau Lam Meen” in Cantonese.

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I’m home again for this Christmas, and no surprise, this festive season promises more food galore all over Penang. My usual Christmas Eve plans remain the same, spending quality time and dinner with my mom. No difference this time, I already made reservation this time around to dine and have some simple countdown party at Bayview Georgetown Hotel. So, do check my upcoming entries once I return to KL for my final semester of studies.

*Updated* Just returned from the lousiest countdown party ever in Bayview Hotel. I don’t even feel like mentioning it in my blog anymore..poof!*

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Once again, I’ll be returning home to Penang real soon for a few times this coming months. Home sweet home it is. Last month itself, I went back twice already and God knows how many miles am I going to cover within the next festive season. I’m glad to be home, with family and friends for Christmas and soon for Chinese New Year.

Whenever I’m back, Penang never fail to provide me new places where nice and yummylicious food can be found. This time around, it’s all a-claypot-affair in Hillside, Tanjung Tokong. You guys must have heard of Lemon Grass Restaurant or the Flame Bistro in Tanjung Tokong, right? Well, this Claypot Restaurant is located directly opposite of these two shops. If you are still not sure, it is somewhere around the 7-Eleven of Tanjung Tokong (Opp Paradise and Crown Prince Hotel), which is where the Tg. Tokong hawker center is located. Still not sure? Then google for “Ingolf Kneipe”, the famous German restaurant in Penang. You should be very close to this very special claypot feast.

What attracts me to this restaurant is that it is seclusive and has a “home ambience”. Basically, it is actually a semi-detached-house-turned-into-a-restaurant concept. The inner section of the shop is pretty cozy and simple design with some of the traditional piece of art.

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Timely for a economical debate here at desmond-t.com.

As I am stepping towards my final semester this December, I already have a clear plan in my mind.

Objective - To secure a job as fast as possible upon graduation. Oh, to be precise, upon the day I finish my last paper, the next day I’ll be off to work (hopefully, fingers crossed).

Many would suggest that I should take a break and go for a holiday instead because after this, I would have to work for a freaking 30 years! Yes, yes so much that I wanted to travel as well, but the predicament is when my bank account is not issuing any travelling visa to me, so I can’t afford to travel!

Last resort, or it is better to say the only choice I have is to find a job… real fast!

However, things are not looking good for my plan. As a Penangite, of course I would opt to work in my hometown. But, today I wanted to check out some MNCs in Penang and their job prospect in the news, this disturbing news came uninvited.

Check out this article from The Star today. 

Holy cow! Seems like afterall, I don’t have to plan any further. With around 30 000 fresh engineering graduates like from in Malaysia stepping into the industry at the same time, how can I possibly get a job? Forget about choosing a good employer especially when these giant MNCs annoucing frozen employment and cut-cost thingy. I begin to ponder will I be another jobless guy with an empty bank account.

Disappointed. Bad enough. Worse still, when I checked my mailbox, another disturbing mail popped out. I consulted my brothers who have been working in the engineering field for quite sometime and check if someone kind enough would consider hiring me as a fresh entry engineer comes this May, 2009.

All I got from my elder brother was some bad bad breaking news. I am not so sure about the following rumors below but I guess it is pretty much the same as the one highlighted in The Star Online today.

• Flextronics 4 days week for Month Nov and Dec.

• AMD Penang announced this morning VSS lay off 500 employees.
  
• Spansion force to take leave (5 days in this quarter)
  
• Jabil planned shut down from Dec 24 to Jan 4, will be 6 days leave.
  
• Agilent planned shut down from Dec 24 to Jan 4, will be 6 days leave. Jan09 might have another shutdown. No increment 2008 review.
  
• Avago no plan shutdown as no more in house production, hiring freeze.
  
• ASE shut down every fortnightly on Monday starting from Nov 3.
  
• Fairchild planned ‘Mass Vacation’ for 9 days leave in FY08

• INTEL – No increment 2008 review, VSS for those under perform and massive cut cost/travel 2009, no shutdown plan yet

• Motorola, Penang- Still hiring+profit, “surprisingly”, Singapore cellphone plant cut 800 job and now waiting for sale.

• Siltera, Kulim – Propose close down this Malaysian 1^st Fab company, loss RM4billion in 2008

Again, I stress that these news are merely rumors (consoling myself that there’s still glimmer of hope for me) and no one really knows the current situation of these MNCs.

I’m lost now. Although it is still early to predict the future, I think the future is not so promosing. I better start to be thrifty or else I’ll be starving in no time.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

When the exams get tougher, the hungrier I get. In the midst of exam preparation, I escaped back all the way to Penang and here I am again, bringing to you the very best of Penang food.

Last edition of my food galore featured the Dim Sum feast in Ipoh. How about some steamboat dinner this time?

It has becoming more and more trendy with steamboat restaurants everywhere promoting the eat-all-you-can style. Not for this case, this unique restaurant brings you back to the old-school style of the traditional steamboat.

Zi Wei Yuan Steamboat Restaurant is the name. From my knowledge, steamboat is actually a local cuisine of the native of Fuzhou clan. It can be seen here that the steamboat itself is not power by gas stove, instead the traditional charcoal method is being utilized. This actually makes the soup more tasty and brings out the real taste of steamboat by convention (if you get what I mean here). Try cooking for yourself by using gas stove and compare it by cooking similar food by using charcoal powered stove… you’ll probably understand the art of charcoal fire.

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For one moment, I’m back in Penang.

Within a blink of an eye, I turned 23. Kept thinking how many places have conquered their food?

The moment after that, I found myself back in KL, back to reality.

It has been a fattening trip and filled with assignments and “money-risking” trip as well.

Fattening - food all over, plus mom’s delicious home cooked food. Plus vegetarian feast! Travelling back to Penang never fail to end up with extreme food festival. Everyday is a sumptuos day for me. LOL

Assignments - enough said, no one is interested that I’ve found my lecturer’s answer on the web!

Money risking - Snooker with lucky balls and Texas Hold’em at home, all kaki judi betul!

and this was the night I turned 23, in an old school Church Street Bar. This bar is one of a kind.

Why? Simply because it is so old school that so many youngsters begin to flock in and as if they act to be old and mature, drinking at the bar style.

Most important of all, they serve the chilling Snow Beer! It’s a premium beer, poured onto a freezing ice cold mug, thus freezing all the bubbles like snow. Snow beer it is for my birthday.

More funny and edited pictures at Eve’s Apple4today, with special effects by Mr. Kenny Ng.

 I’m one lucky dude to have all my bosom buddies back in Penang to celebrate with me all these years. If you guys still remember last year at Gurney Place and the year before at Bukit Genting.

Read the rest of Desmond-t turning 23