Tag / ckt
April 12, 2013
While back in Penang for cheng beng last weekend, I also decided to try a char kuih teow place which I haven’t been before. After all, after having not lived in Penang for the past 18 years or so, there are many places that aren’t exactly new, but they are new to me.
A bit of Google-Fu and I ended up at Ah Leng char kuih teow at Kafe Khoon Hiang, located on Jalan Dato Keramat, between Penang Times Square and the old Stadium Bandaraya Pulau Pinang.
Ah Leng char kuih teow at Kafe Khoon Hiang
The kopitiam is just like any other in Penang, with an assortment of hawker stalls offering many local dishes. Situated right at the front of the shop, Ah Leng char kuih teow is their most prominent stall (by the way, Leng means “Dragon” in Hokkien)
A plate of “normal” char kuih teow is priced at RM 6, and RM 10.50 gets you one with “extras”. If you prefer duck egg instead of the usual chicken egg, chip in another RM 0.50.
glorious char kuih teow with extra ingredients – big prawns, mantis prawns, duck egg
Being a person who’s slightly weak when it comes to resisting temptations, I naturally went for broke and ordered a plate with duck egg and everything in it.
The result was RM 11.00 lighter on my wallet, but in return I had a plate of absolutely gorgeous char kuih teow that has four really huge prawns, duck egg, bean sprouts, chives, kuih teow, and another ingredient that’s pretty unique to Ah Leng – mantis prawns.
yep, these prawns are massive!
While this costs a bit more than your usual hawker dishes, the prawns were super juicy and fresh, and the kuih teow too had just enough wok-hei for my liking. If you discount all the ingredients, it’s still an above average plate of kuih teow, but with all these extras, man, I can have it pretty frequent!
If you’re in Penang looking for a plate of memorable char kuih teow to have but don’t want to go to Lorong Selamat, this is definitely a more than worthy alternative.
Address:
Ah Leng Char Kuih Teow
Kafe Khoon Hiang
358 Jalan Dato Keramat,
10150 Penang
GPS: 5.412985, 101.319595
Tel: 012-498 3962
Hours: 8:30 am to 2:30 pm (closed on Thursdays)
July 4, 2012
It’s not a secret that one of my favorite hawker dishes is the venerable char kuih teow, a dish that always remind me of Penang, hawker food lovers’ paradise, and not coincidentally, the island where I grew up. So when I saw this “new-ish” char kuih teow place popped up at Lot 10 Hutong, I had to try it.
Especially since they also serve duck egg (or normal chicken egg if you prefer).
Penang char kuih teow at Lot 10, Hutong (non halal)
As with every place that serves Penang char kuih teow in Klang Valley, I started conversing with the operator in Hokkien, and this guy checks out. The skinny chef is definitely from Penang.
A plate of duck egg char kuih teow here cost RM 10.40 including tax, with the chicken egg version about a buck cheaper. Expect to wait for a little while if you are there during lunch hours as each plate of CKT is prepared individually. Some swears by this as the only way to prepare them.
The result is a plate of char kuih teow that’s one of the best you can get in KL. There’s the pretty good size prawns, cockles, lap cheong (Chinese sausage), chives, bean sprouts, and even pork lard. The kuih teow too is properly oiled, and with that fire going, you get that slightly charred taste to it too.
I always go for the duck egg option as it has a much richer taste and a more flavorful yolk too.
Not disappointed at all. 
now that’s a proper way to prepare CKT
Anyway, if you haven’t been to Lot 10 Hutong yet, you should. It is the go-to food court for me, and one of the very few non-halal food courts in the country that is air conditioned and comes with some class. More food posts from Hutong can be found here.
Address:
Ho Weng Kee at Hutong food court
Lower Ground Floor
Lot 10 Shopping Mall
Jalan Bukit Bintang
GPS: 3.146462, 101.711758
May 10, 2012
Penang One restaurant, oh how I am glad I found you. Even though you are located at this god forsaken place that is ruled by the trafic devil, I will still visit you whenever my cravings for Penang food arises.
The back story: last Saturday I had a sudden cravings for a bowl of good old Penang curry mee. I woke up early enough (they usually run out before 9:30 am) and headed to Restaurant Okay at SS2, they were closed for Wesak.
I recalled that masak-masak blogged about this place at Hartamas, so I drove 13 KM to the destination, well, they’ve been closed like 3 years ago.
Not to be deterred, I then drove another 12.5 KM to the curry mee at Restaurant Good Food in PJ Old Town…. to find out that they’ve moved. By then I was too hungry and settled on a bowl of kuih teow soup, which actually turned out to be very good, but that’s another post on another day.
This was when I shared my unfortunate adventure on twitter and facebook, with quite a few of you suggested that I should try Penang One, so here I was, a day later, with another fellow Penangite in Fresh, and the laksa expert in Haze as my partners in crime.
Penang One, delivered daily from Penang for original taste
According to their website, the food here is professionally cooked by the original masters of the selected famous street foods, and then transported to Puchong on a daily basis. By their account, this would be as good as the original.
So I ordered my long overdue curry mee, Haze had laksa, while Fresh asked for a plate of char kuih teow with duck egg.
curry mee, char kueh teow, and Penang laksa
Service wasn’t the fastest considering the relatively low volume of people when we dined, but it wasn’t terrible either. Some 15 minutes after ordering, our food came.
The curry mee (RM 8.50) is purportedly from Pulau Tiku’s Keong curry mee. Prawns, cuttle fish, coagulated blood (YES!), tofupok, long bean, cockles, and mint leaves. That’s about all the ingredients you’ll ever need in a bowl of good curry mee, and the sambal too was top notch, fragrant and spicy.
Char Kueh Teow (RM 9.90 with duck egg) is of Kampung Jawa Pee Chuan’s recipe. Fresh had it and she didn’t speak a word while eating, it was as good as original, and really comes with those huge prawns and all.
The asam laksa (RM 7.90) that Haze had was from Lorong Selamat’s Ji De Chi, and when asked about how it tastes, she replied “just like those in Penang lor”, and then continued slurping away. It passed her test.
chee cheong fun, kueh teow soup (with blood too!), ice kacang
Since we were already there and that their portion rather close to Penang serving size, we decided to go for seconds.
Fresh had the chee cheong fun (RM 3.30) from Lorong Macalister and I took bite too, no disappointment, the only other place in PJ to get this version of chee cheong fun would be at O&S restaurant in PJ.
Haze’s second order was the duck meat kuih teow soup originally from Lebih Cecil. There’s duck meat, shredded pork, fish cake, and even coagulated duck blood. Now if you like pork blood, you’re going to love duck blood, they are quite a lot smoother and has an even more exquisite taste to it. I love it. The fish balls though, were just very average in my opinion.
I had ais kacang (RM 6.50) Swatow Lane New World Park, and it tasted just as I remembered, except for the serving size being larger here. All the ingredients you’d expect is in, give me a bowl of ais kacang anytime over any Snow Flake shaved ice.
KY, Fresh, and Haze, we were well satisfied
Prices are a little on the high side, but not any more than other Penang themed restaurants such as Penang Village or Little Penang Cafe. The difference is, this place isn’t halal and really do serve you the original ingredients in all their dishes.
By the end of the afternoon, we were very well fed and very well satisfied with the food from Penang One. The 6 different dishes we tried did not disappoint, and I can’t wait to go back there again, we still need to try the Hokkien mee (Jalan Burma), Yam Cake, and Bak Chang (Cintra Lane).
more photos at KYspeaks.com facebook page
Address:
Penang One
No. G5, Jalan Puteri 2/1
Bandar Puteri, Puchong Jaya
47100 Puchong, Selangor
GPS: 3.024748, 101.615945
Tel: 03-8052 0181
Web: penang-one.com
Hours: 9:30 am – 9:30 pm
January 27, 2012
There are plenty of people who are from Penang that will tell you that Lorong Selamat char kuih teow is over hyped, over priced, overly crowded, and that there are many better alternatives.
Well, I am from Penang and to heck with all those comments, I still love my Lorong Selamat char kuih teow, and whenever I’m back on the island, it is always one of my must-eat hawker food. The massive prawns is something you almost never find at any other places outside of this famous lorong.
every bit just as good as the “original” lorong selamat ckt
There are two big CKT stalls at Lorong Selamat. The so called “original” one is operated by an aunty who wears a red cap at Heng Huat kopitiam.
Today, we’re gonna talk about the “alternative”, the KTG cafe’s char kuih teow, manned by a dude with massive sun glasses wearing orange polo.
I initially had a bit of a doubt on this stall, but after a few trials back and forth, I believe that they are basically on par with each other – both are excellent and just about as good as CKT can get.
char kuih teow at KTG cafe, Lorong Selamat
The CKT comes with three massive prawns, cockles, lapcheong (Chinese sausage), egg, bean sprouts, and of course, kuih teow. The secret ingredients would be the usage of pork lard instead of normal vegetable oil. A plate of CKT goes for RM 7.50. For those prawns, hell ya it’s well worth it for me.
Don’t bother tapao the kuih teow though, anything that is fried with pork lard is best consumed piping hot, and will get a bit too “jelak” when the temperature cools down.
On a busy day, the waiting time can get quite long. For this session, the dude told me (in honest and almost apologetic tone) that the waiting time would be an hour. So I actually went off and ran some errands before returning, and sure enough, our CKT was up next. 
Thumbs up for honest operator.
Address:
K.T.G. Cafe,
Lorong Selamat,
Penang
GPS: 5.417343, 100.324917
November 17, 2011
Ask anyone from Penang, and chances are char kuih teow is in the list of their favorite hawker dishes. So for those Penangites living in Klang Valley, there’s always a constant urge to find a good plate of char kuih teow.
So when a colleague who was also from Penang talked about this CKT place at Imbi, I knew that we will surely have to try this over lunch time, even thought it meant a good 1km+ walk under the sun.
Mei Sin kopitiam Char Kueh Teow stall
Mei Sin eating shop is a kopitiam just off Jalan Imbi, and just like another famous kopitiam nearby – Win Heng Seng, this one is usually packed with white, blue, and no collar workers during lunch hours.
glorious char kuih teow, just need even bigger prawns actually
We went there by around 12 p.m. and the crowd was just building up. The char kuih teow we ordered (of course I ordered in Penang Hokkien, always as a litmus test) took just 15 minutes or so to arrive.
The plate of RM 4.50 goodness came with lightly cooked cockles, prawns (medium size), egg, kuih teow, bean sprouts, and of course, chives. It was lovely, spicy, full of “wok hei”, and positively delicious.
I would rate this place a little better than the CKT stall at Win Heng Seng a stone’s throw away.
Sheng loves the CKT, and do try the fresh yao char kuai too
When you are at Mei Sin kopitiam, don’t miss out on the yao char kuai too. The freshly deep fried yao char kuai I had was very crispy and had just the right amount of saltiness with it. I wished there were some bak kut teh soup to go with, but I guess kopi-o wouldn’t be a bad substitute either. The yao char kuai place seems to be off on Thursdays.
Address:
Restaurant Mei Sin
No. 16, Jalan Melati
Off Jalan Imbi,
Kuala Lumpur
GPS: 3.14396, 101.714768
