I love you. I love you so much Hey guys, this is Mike Chen I'm here in Penang, Malaysia At Air Itam one of the biggest wet markets here and just walking around and just check it out It's Sunday morning. There's tons of people here. They're selling everything from from veggies to clothing You can get freshly butchered meat coffee fruits. Basically anything your culinary heart's desire. Now. There are a couple of food stalls I hear that I must try here. But other than that, I'm just gonna walk around enjoy myself And I'm gonna eat the heck out of this place The first place we're at is an institution I mean started in 1946 uhh...the Asian math She has failed me repeatedly I think that's 72 years that these two sisters has cooked the curry mee or the curry noodles, and they're still at it today This is like the sweetest sweetest ladies. So I got two different types of dishes They have here one is more the soupy curry But one is the stir-fried noodles and they both have curry in here and this is just a little more dry it's a little more wet excited will be an understatement right now first meal of the day and I can get at this legendary institution all the way in Malaysia man... I love you, I I love you so much Seriously when I first put this in my mouth I felt like one of those judges on the anime food Wars like seriously Of course without the weird clothes falling up stuff but soon as I put it in my mouth It's just I don't know. I felt like I was I was transported just just floating in the air nestling in a cloud of curry My general gauge of food over the years has really been how does it make me feel? upon the first bite because I do believe that love at first bite just like love at first sight they do exist and this This is love at first bite at second bite third bite then just keep falling in love over and over again after every single bite The noodles are soft two different types of textures rice noodles, obviously a little more tender The curry sucker punches you on your tongue Then you start tasting the slightly sweet salty flavor of the shrimp and after that just a burst of heat from the spices And it's sort of as like a gateway to all that spicy flavor that's gonna eventually hit you and it's not overwhelmingly spicy No, no. No, it's the kind of spicy that hits you. But for some reason you keep begging it for more I love that the tofu soaks up all that glorious curry Everything in this dish is so ridiculously gentle cuttlefish Slightly chewy but has a tender profile as well everything in here They just work together to take you on this slightly sweet Savory creamy expedition all the way to delicious land ahh the soupy one I feel like this bowl the sauce It's not as thick so it doesn't hang on to the noodles quite as much as you can see here the noodles colors are still nice and yellow? Wow, you know what else I love about this I don't need to add any additional spice or anything the amount of chilies they add in here. It's absolutely perfect They're spicy without being overwhelming coconutty, slightly sweet, creamy, spicy again the sweet flavor hits you first and then the spices just gets you right here the noodles I feel like you need to kind of get some soup and put the noodles on your spoon So you get a bite of soup and noodles at the same time But this whole bowl It's just so robust you can taste the almost century of cooking experience And love that went into these noodles Like when have a dish that's so good it's so good that you know You most likely will not be able to find it anywhere else in the world and over the years of stuff that I've eaten There are really good dishes. There are really great dishes. There are really excellent dishes Then there are those transcendent dishes, you know, you know those dishes when someone asked you if I hey Where should I eat in Japan? Kobe beef? Where should I get a Malaysia? Sister Curry mee? Like it's just it's just automatic because it's always in your heart is always on your mind I still gotta use so much food today. I'm still gonna knock out one more bowl of this Oh, yeah, that's gonna happen. It's their mother's recipe. That means this. This is like uh over a century-year-old recipe Sitting here eating this between two living legends. I don't think I can get any happier on this trip. I don't I don't know what's in here, let's go find out I'm kind of like trying to be that parrot, you know the follow-my-nose guy But it hasn't led me hasn't led me to good eats yet. I see a way out. Let's go Following my nose. I smell something good over there. Oh, wow. Look, he's making fresh parottas over there Can we get a parotta? Yeah, that'll be great I got a couple of roti. This is the roti egg planta So it's bread with some planta which is sort of like butter and an egg inside I don't think I've ever had a squared one before this feels like a blanket like a buttery flaky eggy blanket so I was just kind of imagining somebody actually inventing a buttery eggy flaky blanket and how good it would be That is all sorts of flaky. Oh Oh, yeah Look how light that is. I can almost see through that oh man it's buttery it's eggy then he gave me three different types of curries. I think this is the fish one I think fish curry is my favorite. I love the fishy flavor with this along with a little spice This is one of my favorite things to get at any Malaysian restaurant when I was in New York And just being able to eat it here fresh, dip it in the dhal. That thing is all sort of creamy. Wow. I almost like that better than the fish curry I'm just gonna go for a little beef a little dhal. I was just thinkin' I wish I had a bowl that legendary curry noodle soup from before and to dip this in that that would truly be legendary now I'm all sad Roti banana, that'll cheer me up this is actually the first time I'm having this. Oh, that's nice Look at the flakiness of this thing. You gotta eat this fresh That's delicious, I think it'd be more awesome if there was some ice cream here I mean, it's good, but the ice cream will make it awesome hang on a second Well, I couldn't find the ice cream but I found some cendol Now for those of you guys those of you guys who are from Malaysia I don't know if you'll approve of what I'm doing right now, but I think it's gonna work So cendol now is basically a shaved ice. Nice and cold and creamy take my roti. Banana. Let's go for a icy crunch I think that works, it's not ice cream, but it's still a bit creamy because of the coconut it's icy the roti is flaky it's a little sweet from the banana You combine that together Give the roti a little moisture Ain't nothing wrong with that again, If you can find some ice cream definitely I would recommend the ice cream Okay, but if you can't you want something a little sweet to add to this. It's not a horrible partner that's all i'm saying. All right, another legendary stall in this market is Itam Laksa right over here Supposedly if you come here, you've got to get some of this Here we go the other legendary bowl of noodle soup in this market a Itam Laksa this I've only had really good laksa in Singapore. This is really not what I expected I walked up Like I said, I saw a bunch of herbs and veggies like a mountain of them and just getting the laksa like this It's not what I'm used to, like I don't know I guess I can I guess I should assume what laksa should look like But there seem to be a lot of stuff here I asked them what all this was and they said that the the brown stuff here. This is ground mackerel fish the dark ground sauce kinda in the middle. This is sort of a shrimp paste made from like the the innards of a shrimp. Wow look at this, beautiful Pearl white rice noodles and the soup The laksa soup is not overly thick is it's actually quite soupy. Let's try the broth That was just okay Obviously I'm kidding that was insane each gulp I get, I get bits of the mackerel fish Beautiful beautiful vinegary flavor from the tamarind a little hint of heat from the chilies, what's kind of really awesome is that They pulverize that fish so... ooh what is this Oh more fish. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That guy's awesome. By the way he is the owner. Let me try a little bit of this first Holy mackerel, this is juicy They look like fish jerky like a slightly spicy incredibly fragrant juicy piece of fish They definitely do not look this juicy and check this out what I love about this is it's pulverized so nicely That when you mix it in with your soup Right, you take any sip of the soup you're gonna have the little pieces of fish meat in there So not only do you have the fish flavor the wonderful fish flavor. You can taste the fish as well It's kind of like drinking and eating fish soup at the same time Basically, it turned the laksa s soup into into a form of fish chowder with noodles that man that's an innovator I love the rice noodles because don't really get soggy when they're sitting in the broth hang on Let's do this Let's take a nice boom fall right here This is just so insanely fulfilling. I mean not just in your stomach, but for your soul for that part of you, that's That's really hungry for something You know This is just an awesome feat of food engineering And the great thing about this laksa is that you're never gonna feel in Chinese word We call "nì" which is like you feel like it's too fatty. or too oily? The tamarind takes care of that, the beautiful soup You can just keep on drinking this you really can. Eating this is kind of like watching the TV show "Friends" You know how like when you start watching you just can't stop same thing with this, take one bite You already anticipate the next Well, that was deeply satisfying I think my soul and my hunger spirits feel really happy right now We just had a great start to this day some some with some of the best curry noodles I've ever had took a eating break and ate some roti and then and then just this and I think that's the perfect order because the first curry soup that was so delicious and creamy in this way is just so refreshing and new. There's certain days where you eat a lot of food that the more you eat the more you want to eat Today's one of those days. So we're gonna keep going and we're located right next to the market. It's the Kek Lok Si temple I have a lot of food in my stomach I would love to walk it off and I love temples I love anything historic and this is just beautiful. So we're gonna walk all the way up After that walk around the temple going all the way to the top I've worked up an appetite So that's why I'm here at original Penang Kayu Nasi Kenda. If you don't know, Nasi Kanda is a traditional northern Malaysian dish It's basically the way I was explained. Um rice, it's just smothered in different types of curry So today I had curry and noodles. Now I guess I'm having some curry over rice Here we go my plate of nasi kandar I got some chicken I got some fried bitter melon I got a cuttlefish some squid veggies and basically I just told them to mix up a bunch of curries and just throw'em in there and for rice if you could either get the white Rice or long rice and this is one of my favorite types of rice oh that curry is good That's a lot of different curries. And that rice is pretty saturated is heavy curry flavor. It's not very creamy. It's really spicy It's almost like a like a like a dried curry flavor That curry is nice. I liked the curry that was over here. I don't know what it is and this thing This is like dried chilies. Oh and the curry here has a great smoky flavor. The curry is too mixed I can't even tell you guys like what curry is what right now, I just know that this side Doesn't taste as good as this side. I mean, it's still good but not as good I love this chicken Really crunchy and spicy on the outside tender chicken meat it's smoky I really love I mean doesn't look it but it's toasty crunchy on the outside. Let's try one of these UFO lookin' a bitter melons I'll be honest with you guys that might be the first time actually semi liked the bitter melon like seriously in my life It's all due to this extremely crunchy exterior Mm-hmm the bitterness hits you maybe about the 10th or the 12th chew, but by then your mouths already filled with a gorgeous flavor of the batter that you barely notice the bitterness But overall not nearly the unpleasant bitter experience of a regular a stewed or stir-fried bitter melon Well, this is really interesting. This is this massive cuttlefish I feel like this cuttlefish the inside of it really has no flavor you gotta eat it with the crispy outer shell I feel like I like the crunch more than I like the taste of this item. It's good I feel like it does go well with rice because the cuttlefish is more mild and it actually goes with the rice Which is uber flavorful right now? It's like saturated rice I think my favorite things on this plate, rice definitely hundred percent love it. Even with all the curry tastes delicious Love love love this chicken so if you're looking for a plate of really intense flavors that are just kind of like fighting with each other but still works. This is definitely a good dish for that Okay, this is gonna be a little weird we are taking a break from eating so we came to the Chew Jetty which is a UNESCO site. It's a fishing village really really interesting. Obviously very touristy Anyway, we're just gonna walk around and not eat and just walk around but now I think we're eating So what's he gonna break from eating by eating and we're eating this look at this. We're eating it this massive bowl of noodles hang on I could almost take a bath in here. So for the noodles they have special spicy seafood Beef or pork...anyway they said to get this this is supposed to be the best I don't know how it's gonna taste but it's kind of fun eating a big bowl of noodles. Oh, here it is Yeah, this is the biggest bowl of noodles, I think I've ever had you know what it kinda reminds me of the pho challenge I think that might have been as big and that was filled with soup but this is the most you can get I got the Maximum portion I can get. It's colorful. It's pretty he's got some scallops shrimp Some calamari random veggies now. I know this restaurant is in a very touristy place So I'm not expecting this to taste like Ichiran but let's give it a try. Yeah, that's that's definitely more than a mouthful I maybe kind of crazy. That's actually pretty good Got a nice seafood in flavor. It's really spicy. And this is the natural spice of the of the of this noodle soup I didn't actually put anything else in That's pretty good. Alright, the noodles actually looks pretty al dente I'm serious guys the noodles aren't bad I mean, it's not as chewy as I would like, but it still retaining a nice chew It soaked up a lot of the great broth flavor that itself right there. That actually beats a couple of noodles at some places Yeah now let's try the seafood the scallops are okay, I mean it was frozen but they use frozen scallops Which a lot of places do the shrimps look nice and meaty and jumbo I mean it's not the freshest shrimp It's okay, this might seem scary but uh, I've been eating food all day I think I can finish this Gotta start tilting my ball Wow That was deeply satisfying. So all in all This was a good food break. I feel not too bad. I'm assuming that sodium is gonna kick in any second now I guess let's go eat more food Next place we're at Still noodles. my local friends said I have to come try this Hokkien Prawn Mee Lor Mee the last time I had this was in Singapore and it turned out to be one of my favorite dishes on that trip. So This is a really really really popular place as you can see the line is long But I'm gonna go grab a ball and see how it is The food day continues this is Hokkien Prawn Mee. I remember loving the heck out of this dish in Singapore Ah, it's again completely different here in Malaysia. Sliced, I think this is tea eggs pork skin, pork innards The noodles are a combination of rice noodles a regular lo mein noodles I feel like I had a lot of combinations today of these two types of noodles, but these are completely different dishes It's super shrimpy, but not really spicy the broth very Substantial a lot a lot of flavor. I think that's gonna soak really well into these noodles I like everything I just ate the noodle is because there are different types they are both gentle and chewy I feel like everything in here from the eggs to the, uh Pork innards they all contribute in their own way I think this is a solid dish, I like it, but this is probably not the best thing I've had today I mean don't get me wrong. It is delicious I do appreciate the sweetness of the prawns, but I feel like this is a tad much again super delicious dish all my local friends told me that this place is one of the places that does it the best this can level up a little bit but in it's current state. It's just really not standing out for me Still I'm gonna knock this down and we've got a couple more places to go Now Penang is an island and you can't come to an island and not have some seafood right? So, uh, Hai Boey fishery, we heard this place is really good They got a lot of tanks here with different types of seafood I guess we're just gonna pick some out and I don't really how this works. But lot of this looks pretty good It's pretty outrageous. First of all, this restaurant is right by the ocean. That's the beach right there So we're getting a lot of nice sea breeze and we're really here for this This in Chinese is called "cì luó"(Guildfordia triumphans) not sure what the english is "cì" is like thorns as you can see this shellfish has a bunch of thorns and "luó" Is kinda like a snail Thorny snail and the reason I'm eating this is because couple of friends told me that this is like a special delicacy that if you come to Penang. You gotta try this That's a tough little bugger. Alright now we're gonna try to thick chopsticks action It teaches there got a regular sea snail, I mean it tastes good it's very fresh really nothing too fishy about this. A piece of the snail just flew off so luckily it didn't hit anybody. Oh, here we go. They give you this sweet and sour sauce Which I like a little chili a little garlic I definitely like these things they got a nice crunchy texture to them There's no funkiness to it at all. Just a really nice seafood item. Let's see what else we got here. Oh Yeah, I got some clams and I told them to Make it in their most popular way and this is what they brought me So I am gonna take the little clam get a little soup in there. oh, this is good Oh hello, this is delicious. I love how fresh these clams are and the soup garlic scallions vinegar Oh, that's just full of flavor that is full of flavor It's a little sour a little spicy. It's just perfect for these clams. Perfect.Take those little snails for a swim in the soup Oh, yeah Oh yeah, that works. I've been eating noodles all day and not only is this just such a wonderful change, but what a delicious change as well just fantastic. This is interesting when they first brought this out I thought they brought me the wrong dish I thought they brought me like like a General Tso's Chicken or something, but this is mantis crab I've never seen it cook this way before now If you don't know mantis crab, there's a couple of interesting things about it. one. It's nickname is pissing crab No, there's no pee in here. But it's nickname. Is pissing crap. Getting it cooked this, this is so interesting Sweet-and-sour fried and then cook with chili Scallions and onions and just never had them completely like battered and fried like this before look at this When I took that first bite, I had a couple reaction the flavor blew me away hundred percent blew me away Crunchy on the outside. Then when you get to the inside is chewy extremely fragrant and delicious like absolutely delicious But the thing is, I don't know if I could taste the shrimp Hang on, let me bite this in half Ok, I think I could taste the shrimp more this time But look at this, the shrimp itself is a tiny portion of this piece of the dish So I was tasting the batter was tasting the crunchy outside shell this delicious sauce I mean the flavor is is out of this world is fantastic But the first couple bites if you don't tell me there's shrimp in here I would have told you it might have been pork. I mean the sauce the way it's fried. It's spicy it's sweet It's so incredibly good. This will be awesome over rice, by the way. It doesn't look like there's like a whole shrimp in here But regardless of that, this is absolutely a mind-blowing dish I love this dish. I mean first of all, it's pretty, right? It's gorgeous. I mentioned about the crunch the beautiful sweet and sour spicy sauce. But the fragrant Aftertaste that comes with each bite. It's just incredible. I think out of the three dishes I got these three complement each other pretty well, but what I think I enjoyed most it's just being able to sit by the ocean actually I wish I was here Maybe during sunset just kind of and maybe I don't know, eat some seafood and watch the sun go down This is just a perfect meal to wrap up my day Perfect. So today was pretty fun. And guys. This is it, like I mentioned this is my last full day in Malaysia tomorrow I'm heading to Singapore and the rest of my team are heading back to New York and if you want To see what I did in Singapore and Korea Definitely check out my vlog channel all that information along with all the places I went to eat today is listed for you in my description box below but guys Hopefully you enjoy the videos from these two countries and thank you guys so much for sending in all your recommendations In to all the local friends who took us around Tom, Garrick, Anthony all the guys in the Philippines Steven Rick Jasmine here in Malaysia. You guys were awesome We couldn't have filmed anything without you. So thank you guys so so much, again, thank you all for watching And until we eat again. I'll see you later
