Hokkien Mee at Green House Kopitiam

The time was ticking fast. It was getting late. At any moment from now, starvation would be killing us. Needless to mention that we were afraid that at this time, precisely at 11.25 pm, it'll be very hard to find a place to drug ourselves with food. But soon enough, my worries seemed so insignificant as we were still in Penang, a place where good food is available all the time, no matter if you're wearing a hygienic yellow t-shirt that says "CLEAN 2.0" .

Traveling on the rather still busy roads, fast enough we found ourselves seated in Green House kopitiam, which is situated alongside of Burma Road. Purportedly famous for its Hokkien Mee or also known as Prawn Mee, even at this hour of the day, there was still a multitude of people at this place.

  

 It seemed like we were at the right place at the right time, seeing so many people around us, it just stands to show that how Penangites truly love to eat. It was a mere 15 minutes wait before our orders were served.

What made this stall of Hokkien Mee special was probably the plentiful choices of add-ons to choose from, like fish balls, herbal eggs, or even sio bak (roasted pork meat). As for a change, we ordered maggi noodles instead of the usual yellow noodles. I think the key player in this bowl of noodles is none other than the soup. The soup was richly flavoured with a mixture of spiciness and slight sweetness, but to be honest, it wasn't to the extent of amazingly good. Although I was restlessly sweating, I wished that I could enjoy more of the spiciness of the soup with the sambal (chili paste), which wasn't spicy enough. Everything else was just in place, but still this bowl of Hokkien Mee was nothing to shout of.

We ordered a bowl of Bak Kut Teh with yam rice, and after seeing many of these similar orders on a few other tables, no doubt we felt more relieved. It was better than what I expected, with adequate amount of ingredients inside the aromatic broth (soup) such as pork meat, pork organs, mushrooms and tofu puffs. How do I actually describe this soup, let's see. It started of with a fraction of bitterness but quickly followed by light waves of sweetness and herbal fragrance.

We finished our conquest for good food with this Fried Ice Cream, filled with different flavours from vanilla to yam and also mint.

Nonetheless, I think most penangnites like myself tend to develop nocturnal habits because of the good food you can find at night, or in this case at midnight.

Prices . 

Hokkien Mee (normal) - RM 3.50

Bak Kut Teh - RM 8+

Fried Ice Cream - RM 2.50 per piece

Bonus .

Opens daily from 8pm to 2am .

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Laksa and Yam Rice at Seang Tek Road

People often think that in order to promote their food business well, one of the criteria is to have a good location, a hot spot, or a slot where all the commotion is in town. But in Penang, that's not always the case.
Good location does not make a food good, but it is good food that makes a location good.

So earlier today, I was invited for a food review at my friend's place. To be honest the kopitiam is rather small, but again the size of the location is never the deal to begin with.

big banners will do .

Since it was lunch time and our stomachs were supposed to fill in a few pounds of food, we decided to order everything (all the food in the pic above).
We were seated on the narrow pathway, while looking at the handful of customers (not in pic) who were waiting to ta pao (take away) the purportedly delicious Laksa.

lady in apron

The great thing about this place is that the food is always served within minutes, somehow that I supposed is an important criteria for food business. It was odd to order Laksa and Yam Rice together, which was my first time eating the combo.

I think the Laksa gave a promising first impression, with the colourful combination of onions, mint leaves, cucumber and red chillies which were sprinkled on top beautifully.

The different point to note for the Laksa was also its white noodles. The noodles were very soft and succulent. And for the soup, I thought it was a little not-so-spicy but tasted not too bad altogether.

yam rice

On a different course, the Yam Rice. It was served and to be eaten together with the Laksa. Although we usually eat Laksa with Popiah, I have to admit that the Yam Rice was terrific. I've always remembered how a perfect Yam Rice tasted, and frankly this one is close to it.
Remember we ordered all the food above, do you know what's missing ? Right, it's the Prawn Cracker or heh pia in plain Hokkien or keropok udang in Bahasa Melayu.




Altogether there were many different ways of eating this local snack food. You can dip it inside the Laksa soup, to add a spicy savoury flavour in it. You can also break it into small pieces and eat them as a dish with the Yam Rice. Or to make things simple, you can just eat it by itself which is already very satifsfying and good enough for me.



To finish things off with a sweet note, the Ai Yu Ping (Jelly Ice) did a really great job on cooling down our tastebuds. It tasted almost similiar to the famous Okio (which is located near the jetty) with a mixture of different jellies. So now you can always save a trip to that far if you're craving for some sweet and sour dessert right ?

Overall, it was definitely a sweet experience and something new if you have never tried eating Laksa with Yam Rice before, not to mention with the 100% homemade Prawn Cracker.


Prices .
Laksa with Yam Rice - RM4.00 a bowl
Ai Yu Ping (Jelly Ice) - RM 2.50 a bowl
Prawn Cracker - RM 0.50 a piece

Bonus .
This kopitiam is located down the street of Seang Tek Road, just the beside of Anson Market.
It is open from 11am to 5.30pm and only closes on Monday.

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