Home is where the food is!

It’s great to go home isn’t it? Somewhere familiar, where every body knows your name etc?.... Not quite home, but we’ve stayed in the Landmark building 3 or 4 times now. It’s a stunning building in a wonderful position, easy access to everything, lovely views, we have a 30th floor balcony and after a quick trip to the store down the road we’re sitting on it a little knackered after a days travel, with an ice cold beer, watching the sunset behind a huge white cruise ship which is moored in Penang harbour, a “life is good” moment before we stroll to a little food court next door to our favourite restaurant here (Hei Way Chinese seafood) for Cincarro Prawns and black vinegar chicken, we know it’s not the surroundings, we’re sat on plastic patio chairs, at a plastic patio table, surrounded by extended Chinese families, the noise is cacophonous, dear God, it tastes amazing.

To celebrate being back in Penang we’re going to cook a home cooked meal, we only have one wok a large cleaver and a single blunt knife....

have dug two graves!

Well you know what? That didn’t go too bad. It’s the first meal we’ve cooked ourselves since when? July last year? It was wonderful just to please ourselves and it amplified that feeling of being “at home” and before we know it we’re settled here in Penang and trying to enjoy the life ordinary, not so much as travellers but as residents, exploring bits of this amazing island, relaxing and taking the facilities in our wonderful building for all they’re worth.

Our hosts have asked us out to dinner. Kenny and Nicole have become friends over the last two years that we’ve been passing through Penang. We can always rely on them to take us somewhere we would be unlikely to discover on our own. Tonite is no exception a traditional family run Steamboat restaurant. Steamboats are everywhere out here in SE Asia but tonights place is a little different. Instead of the usual gas or electric fueled soup maker we have a traditional charcoal fired jobby. What looks like a large upside down colander with a chimney on top is plonked on our table, the “colander” is filled with heated charcoal, around the chimney a large tureen is filled with a broth of fish head, spices and herbs as it bubbles away our chosen ingredients arrive, raw egg, sliced pork, meat balls, fish balls, fish fillets, Korean sausages. The table is filled with sauces and condiments, chillis, hot sauce, ground ginger, soy sauce, ground garlic, ground peppers, chopped coriander, chopped parsley. The ingredients go into the fiercely boiling steamboat, so hot it’s cooked in seconds, you ladle what you want into your bowls and season with your choice of condiments. It’s delicious, funny to enjoy hot soup when it’s 35 degrees outside but it works. As the broth level goes down, staff top us up with jugs full of stock, they also manage the charcoal fire applying a damper to the chimney to slow the heat or opening the chimney to get more heat. Great experience, nice food, good company what more can you ask for?....Beer, of course! Back toward Chulia and love lane for a few icy beers and so, to bed.

Simon and Garfunkel, Cheese and pickle, Toast and Marmite, Peter, Paul and Mary, Bruce, Baker and Clapton, the world is full of great partnerships. Olive Bar and Grill is just one such, happy hour, Tandoori and cricket! We can sit and watch England getting soundly thumped by everyone while enjoying top notch tandoori goat and cheap pints of tiger beer served freezing cold. It’s become a favourite spot and the waiters are starting to recognise us. Likewise at Straits Quay, a wonderful marina a half hour swelteringly hot walk along the ocean front from our appartment. There are a number of western themed (not cowboys and indian western) restaurants and bars. Great soothers for the home sickness. We’ve become friendly with the manager of the Irish bar. He’d lived in Indonesia and gave us a few tips before we flew there last month, he’s pleased to see us back, Kim keeps his Kilkenny stocks rotating. He’s a great lad and gives us some discounts on wine while we enjoy a meal.

When in George town it’s advisable to visit the blue mansion. Home of Cheong Fatt Tze. A 38 room, 5 courtyard, 7 staircase mansion from the 1800s. For Brits a little more fascinating as a lot of the fitments recall a day when Britain actually had industry (as opposed to working as baristas in Costa and Starfucks) Stoke on Trent floor tiles, Glasgow ironworks, the dye for the walls is from Raj India and imported by the British. It’s deemed one of the top 5 mansions in the world. Laid out precisely on Feng Shui principles. To this end the whole place is built across a step running through the centre of the property so as “to ride a dragons back” the drainage system alone is a work of art. The 1 hour guided tour is really fascinating and well worth your time if you pass through.

We meet Karen and Dave from Farnham in the mansion (small world, it’s 40 minutes from where we live) and sit over a coffee on Love lane after the tour and have a lovely chat. Gave Karen the blog address, she promised to read it, when you get here Karen, Hope you had a wonderful trip to Langkawi and Singapore and a safe journey home, drop us a line when you get HERE.

A couple of days chilling by the pool, winding down, a trip to a beach front restaurant, Bora Bora at Batu Ferringhi. Peerless views to the Melacca strait, Ice cold beer, crap food. We send it back the guy comes out

“Do you just want a refund?” he asks

“No that’s fine, can you just cook the salmon properly”

We indicate a desiccated bit of orange stuff, burnt black around the edges, it’s so dry you could snap it on your knee.

“We always serve it like that” he replies.

“Why?”

“that’s the way it comes”

“Ah, we missed the Ding!”

“Want a refund?”

“Go on then”

The evening views from our apartment are staggering. While all around us the local Mosques compete to issue the evocative call to evening prayer, echoing and re-echoing from the surrounding hills, two huge birds of prey circle over the water just opposite our balcony. They’re harassed by clouds of swifts and swallows who are cheered, (Croaked??) on by a murder of local crows who crowd the shrubs surrounding the swimming pool where they gather each night, playing chase, riding the air currents up and down the building sides, squawking and jeering as they bathe and drink at the pools’ edges. The white fronts of the Eagles wings glow pink in the rays of the setting sun, as do the edges of the clouds as they steeple, bubbling up, sky castles growing, collapsing and rolling toward us from mainland Malaysia, old Georgetown and the nearer modern sky scrapers of Gurney Plaza. A beautiful white ocean going liner is docked at Georgetown. The liner picks out a message in lights along its’ hull, the message slowly slides the length of the ship.

WE... LOVE.... MALAYSIA, ......

IT’S... NEVER.... TOO... LATE...

TO.... DREAM... A... NEW....DREAM.....

DARE....TO.....FOLLOW.....YOUR.....DREAM....

It repeats the message all night as darkness falls, turning the ocean from red, to gold, to silver....then, darkness, illuminated by the stunning lights of Penang, sparkling like the jewel of the Orient that she is.....

You’re telling us!!