CRIZ BON APPETITE

George Town, Penang is truly a food paradise when it comes to having multiple choices of cuisine to suit the palate of locals as well as tourists. The wide exposure to channels such as the Asian Food Channel has brought about a huge change in the cooking methods of street food vendors. More and more of them are investing hugely on proper kitchen equipments by the thousands to serve diners with the best ever cooking solutions for the best taste. One such person is Encik Mohd Hilmey Ibrahim, an entrepreneur with a long history of burger making. He’s the brainchild behind the barely few weeks old Hero Burger Bakar, located within the Astaka Stadium Bandaraya premises along Jalan Perak, Penang.

So what’s the difference between Encik Hilmey’s burger compared to the rest? Obviously, it’s his homemade beef patties and specially marinated boneless chicken drumsticks, all with his secret recipes. Secondly, it’s his method of cooking. The beef patties are BBQ grilled on cooking grids over high heated lava stones while his meaty chicken fillets are skillet grilled. Thirdly, it’s a sloppy burger where you would have dressings such as black pepper sauce, cheesy sauce, chili sauce and mayonnaise splattered all over the juicy grilled meats for all orders. Lastly, it’s the egg… runny egg with the semi cooked yellow yolk oozing out to provide that extra creamy richness on your burger.

Most of the diners here would opt for a combination of beef and chicken. Do try out their Double Trouble (RM14.50nett). The set would come with the usual burger bun laced with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, capsicum and onions topped with one BBQ grilled beef patty, one grilled chicken, 2 pieces of cheese and 2 semi cooked eggs. Of course, the black pepper sauce, cheesy sauce, chili sauce and mayonnaise would be on each burger ordered. Alternatively, you can also custom make this set with less one egg and one cheese for RM12.50nett.

For non beef eater, there’s always the Duo Boneless Chicken Special (RM14.00nett). This set would have two pieces of grilled chicken, topped with a piece of cheese and a semi cooked egg. This order would also have the standard 4 dressings.

For a lighter meal, you can have the Solo Boneless Chicken Burger (RM7.00nett) with the standard 4 dressings.

Alternatively, you can have the Solo Boneless Chicken Burger Special with Cheese & Egg (RM9.00nett) with the standard 4 dressings.

For those who love to have only the lighter version of their delicious herb packed beef patty, you can opt for their Solo Beef Patty Burger with Cheese (RM7.50nett) with the standard 4 dressings.

You can also try out their Solo Beef Patty Burger Special with Cheese & Egg (RM8.50nett) with the standard 4 dressings.

Here’s a quick reference with what they have in their menu and the pricing you would be expecting. Please click to view a larger size.

The taste for the burgers here was quite good to my liking, although I usually do not quite like my dish to be overdressed and sloppy. The balance of the dressings was quite good, having the nice combination of black pepper sauce, cheesy sauce, chili sauce and mayonnaise. The only few things lacking are the choice of serving dish and food presentation. Styrofoam plates are not the in-trend for a “Going Green” Penang’s choice even though it would cut down on washing time. If other choices of firmer serving dishes were to be utilized, then a better food presentation would surely boost up the interest of diners. It could just some fresh green salad or even some fries as side dishes. The beef patty (~170gms each) was superb as it has all the beefy flavors and chunky bites with the necessary herbs and seasonings. The meaty and juicy boneless chicken (~200gms each) was also flavorful but only on the surface. If only they could pierce some holes onto the meat with a multi-spike ice picker, the meat would be able to seep in more flavors from their secret marinates. Overall, their “Burger Bakar” would be quite ideal for those who love to have their burgers in a sloppy wet way.

If you know where the City Stadium is, it won’t be hard to locate the food court as it’s just next to the Shell petrol kiosk along Jalan Perak. If you are not sure, let me lead you there. If you are coming from Jalan Dato Keramat via KOMTAR, when you see Padang Brown, keep to your left. At the traffic lights (Jalan Dato Keramat/Jalan Perak), turn left into Jalan Perak and keep to your right. Drive on about 100m and you would see a Shell petrol kiosk on your right. Turn right into the lane (Lilitan Stadium) after the kiosk. Find your parking space within the vicinity of the food court located just next to the petrol kiosk.

Name: HERO BURGER BAKAR
Address: Astaka Stadium Bandaraya, Jalan Perak, 10150 Penang, Malaysia.
Contact: 011-2642 0334 (En. Mohd Hilmey Ibrahim)
Business Hours: 6.00pm-12.00am (Closed Tuesday)
GPS: 5.411073, 100.315807

RATING:
Ambience: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 7/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 7.5/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 7.5/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 7/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

For those who were from the older generation, the name Kham Kee would have brought back many memories. It was a trademark for the earliest beef steamboat in Penang. Initially located along the row of shop houses as Waterfall Hotel, Jalan Gottlieb, Penang, it has now moved to a residential area along Jalan Gajah, Tanjung Tokong, Penang, for years where it only cater for private bookings. Fear not as they have now set up a stall named Kham Kee Beef Noodles along Jalan Tan Sri Teh Ewe Lim, serving a simple spread of beef items with either noodles or rice.

The bowl of beef noodles (Minimum RM7.00) is quite similar to the famous beef noodles stall at 2828 Café along Jalan Perak, Penang, with a clearer and not too beefy soup base. One thing you can be sure of is that it won’t be as oily as the rest as they do not add in lard in oil. Sorry lard lovers, it’s time to stay healthier~ LOL!

Basically, there’s not much to brag about what sizes of bull “bazooka” or “bombs” you had here as they only serve 4 basic items, namely beef balls, beef tendon, beef tripe and beef slices, to go with your noodles or rice. The trademark of Kham Kee has always been their special handmade beef balls. They always have that bouncy al dente bite that you can hardly find elsewhere and they were bigger in size than others. Their chili sauce was also superb as it was a handed down recipe for decades. It was sassy recipe with hints of red chilies, bird eyes chilies and ginger with some pinches of salt. It was fiery spicy but I love it! The dish would come with a generous garnishing of chopped Chinese celery and some oil drained fried garlic. It was a simple yet fulfilling hot bowl of noodles on a rainy day~ 🙂

Overall, the taste for the beef noodles soup was not as great as it was during the old days where it had a thicker taste but still better than some beef noodles stalls in term of less oil and not much weird innards in the dish. Simplicity can still be the best for me. Do watch out as the chili sauce can be super spicy. Special arrangement can be made for takeaway steamboat ingredients and soup from RM100 onwards.

Kham Kee Beef Noodles stall is located within the premises of New B Garden Café along Jalan Tan Sri Teh Ewe Lim, a bit further up from Lam Wah Ee Hospital. If you are coming from Jalan Mesjid Negeri from Air Itam, just watch out for the ESSO petrol kiosk on you left. Immediately after the petrol kiosk, turn left into Jalan Tan Sri Teh Ewe Lim (next to an overhead bridge). Drive on for another 300m or so and you will see the RHB Bank there. Park your vehicle there and walk over the opposite direction. You would see a large blue signboard with “New B Garden Café” at the corner of Jalan Tan Sri Teh Ewe Lim and Lintang Batu Lanchang. The stall is in there.

Name: KHAM KEE BEEF NOODLES @ NEW B GARDEN CAFE
Address: 139 Jalan Tan Sri Teh Ewe Lim, 11600 Penang, Malaysia.
Contact: 016-411 9365 (Ms. Sally)
Business Hours: 4.00pm-11.00pm (Closed Alternate Thursday)
GPS: 5.392467, 100.306438

RATING:
Ambience: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 6/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 7.5/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 7/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 8/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

After all the Chinese New Year feasting with great food throughout the period of the celebration, we had another great feasting of steamboat. This time, it was beef steamboat at Kang Beef House located within the Jelutong district. This restaurant has operated since early February this year and has served many varieties of mouth watering and lips-sticky beef cuisines.

The taste of the beef steamboat stock here was a bit different compared to those I have tried elsewhere. On top of the many hours of simmering of the bovine bones, it had the sweetness from some chopped radish and the salty sour taste from some salted vegetables. It was quite unique I would say and the cost for a minimum twin pax order would be RM20 per person.

With an array of many smaller dishes of beef parts and vegetables, I was able to cook up a nice bowl of delicious beef soup.

You might be curious to find out what we had poured into the pot of beef stock right? We had a plate of raw local beef with an egg (牛肉 – 6 pax), beef tendon (牛筋), sirloin (牛腩) & tenderloin (裡脊肉), finely & coarsely minced beef balls (细與粗牛肉丸), honeycomb tripe (牛肚), omasum (leaf tripe/牛百葉), Enoki mushroom, iceberg lettuce and chopped cilantro (Chinese parsley/香菜). It was just a simple setup but it was enough for us considering that we had the opportunity to try 2 out of the four stomachs that a cow/bull has. 😛

Having beef steamboat without the proper chili sauce would be a “no-no”. The restaurant did well in providing us with their delicious homemade chili sauce. Combined with the sinful deep fried lard and garlic in oil (supposed to be for garnishing the beef soup :P), it became my favorite dipping sauce. It was just like the sweet and crunchy sauce I made for my Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Perfect!

There are also noodles and white rice (80sen/bowl) to order to go with your bowl of steamboat soup. The yellow noodles contained less lye water, thinner and flatter just like the wanton noodles. The rice noodles or commonly known as koay teow were also thinner and more translucent as the Vietnamese Beef Pho noodles.

If you feel that having steamboat would be too heavy for you, do try out their Beef Noodles (-RM6/RM8/RM10/RM12/RM15). The price will vary depending on what additional items you would like to add in on top of the regular sized one. Although the stock for this noodle dish was the same as our steamboat, somehow I personally felt that this combination tasted better. It could be I’m a noodle lover. 😛

The next option would be the Herbal Beef Soup (十全牛什-RM7/RM8/RM10/RM12/RM15). The soup base is actually brewing of 10 complete Chinese herbs being cooked with bovine bones. It is also sometimes known as Shi Quan Da Bu Tang (十全大補湯) which is normally used in traditional medicine to alleviate symptoms of fatigue, loss of appetite, dry or scaly skin, night sweating, dryness of mouth and for cancer treatment. The formulae comprised of Panax ginseng (ginseng root/人參), Angelica sinensis (Chinese Angelica root/dang gui/當歸), Paeonia lactiflora (Chinese Peony root/shao yao/芍藥), Atractylodes macrocephala (white atractylodes rhizome/bai zhu/白朮), Poria cocos (tuckahoe mushroom/fu ling/茯苓), Cinnamomum cassia (Chinese cinnamon bark/rou gui/肉桂), Astragalus membranaceus (astragulus root/huang qi/黃蓍), Liqusticum wallichii (ligusticum rhizome/chuan xiong/川芎), Glycyrrhiza uralensis (Chinese licorice root/gan cao/甘草) and Rehmannia glutinosa (Chinese foxglove root/shu di huang/熟地黃). The dark colored soup with a slight bitter sweet taste went well with the meat and noodles but it could be rather “heaty” for the internal organs especially taken during hot weather. I tried that during one humid afternoon and eventually had one pimple popping out on my nose (even with the consumption of a 1.5L herbal tea/五花茶). Well, this could be a special case as I lacked in sleep. LOL!

If you prefer some fried dish instead, you could always try out the Crystal Beef Fried Rice (水晶牛肉炒飯 – RM12.80+beef ball soup). The beef slices were with the right tenderness and the rice had that special hidden crunch. It actually had two type of rice within such as white rice and deep fried rice for that extra crunch. This was indeed a great dish not to miss.

You could also try out their special Dry Fried Hor Fun with Beef (干炒牛河 – RM9.80+beef ball soup). The hor fun (broad rice noodles/河粉) had the right wok hei (high heat cooking), smoothness and taste even without the beef slices as it was prepared specially for one of our non beef eaters. The dish only came with hor fun, bean sprouts, egg, button mushroom slices, chopped onions, spring onions and some chili slices as garnishing. My advice would be not to have any non beef eater around as this is a beef specialty restaurant and no other meat and seafood would be available for any special requests.

There were also a few beef related dishes available if you decide to have them with steamed rice, namely Beef with Ginger & Spring Onion (RM15/RM28), Kai Lan Beef (RM15/RM28) and Black Pepper Beef (RM15/RM28). I quite like the Black Pepper Beef (the only dish we ordered since all of  us were quite full) as it had just the right amount of black pepper and the beef slices were very tender.

You might want to order their Claypot Beef Soup (RM8/RM15/RM22/RM28) to go with your meal or even some golden Crispy Beef Ball (RM4.80/6pcs) as light snack. I simply loved these bread cubes coated beef balls.

Overall, the food here can be real nice except that the pricing may cost a bit more for some diners. You can check out the below menu for a clearer picture of the items served there.

There are two entrances to this restaurant. One would be at Jalan Jelutong whereas the other would be at Jalan Perak. I would advise you to use Jalan Perak instead as there would be no parking space available at the heavily trafficked Jalan Jelutong. The easiest and smoothest way to reach this restaurant would be via Jalan Tan Sri Teh Ewe Lim (Lam Wah Ee Hospital entrance). Drive all the way until the T-junction (Jelutong Police Station on your left) and turn left into Jalan Perak. You will see the restaurant about 100m away on your right. You can check if there are free parking spaces within the restaurant’s compound. If not, try turning left into Jalan Bagan Serai for more car parks. Parking space could be real limited during peak hours.

Name: KANG BEEF HOUSE (江祖傳牛肉小鎮)
Address: 474 Jalan Jelutong, 11600 Penang, West Malaysia.
Contact: 04-281 0892, 016-416 5373 (Steve Kang)
Business Hours: 12.00noon-2.30pm, 4.30pm-10.00pm (Closed Tuesday)
GPS: 5.391811, 100.313605

RATING:
Ambience: 7/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 7/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 8/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 7.5/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 9/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)

Sometimes after a dinner, I would love to drive around and hunt for some desserts to fill up the remaining of my tummy. I have been passing through the Jelutong area quite often and had seen this auntie selling sweet peanut soup for quite awhile but did not manage to try her dessert out. It was only last night that I was on a bike and was able to pop by there as it has always been hard to find a parking space for cars there.

To my surprise, the stall has more add-ons than any regular stall for their sweet peanut soup. Instead of serving the dessert with Chinese crullers (you tiao), they even have steamed sweet potatoes and yam to add in the peanut soup.

Well, I ordered one each with a bowl of Chinese crullers. The look on the Peanut Soup with Sweet Potatoes (RM1.50) was impressive but the taste was very disappointing. The soup tasted bland with no peanut flavors at all and was rather diluted with hardly any sweetness in it. Moreover, I do not think that sweet potatoes can combine well with the peanut soup. The combination was rather out.

Again, the same combination problem goes for the Peanut Soup with Yam (RM1.50). The taste was totally out. I still think that yam should always be cook in a creamier soup based desserts such as the Bubur Cha Cha (Nyonya Pengat) with thick coconut milk and Malaccan palm sugar. Somehow, the powdery texture of the yam just tasted so out with clear soup based desserts.

The only thing that I enjoyed was their bowl of Chinese Crullers (You Tiao – RM1).

If you are coming from the Jelutong Expressway into Jalan Jelutong, just drive forward until the next traffic lights (You will see a lot of hawker stalls there). Turn right and you will see the stall along the road side of Lorong Perak.

Name: PERAK LANE PEANUT SOUP
Address: Lorong Perak, 11600 Penang, Malaysia.
Opening Hours: 6.00pm-11.00pm (Closed Monday/Tuesday)
GPS: 5.399363, 100.320430

RATING:
Ambience: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 classy)
Food Choices: 5/10 (1-4 limited, 5-7 average, 8-10 many choices)
Taste: 5/10 (1-4 tasteless, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)
Pricing: 6/10 (1-4 cheap, 5-7 average, 8-10 expensive)
Service: 7/10 (1-4 bad, 5-7 average, 8-10 excellent)