Penang Again - Day 2 – The Quest for Food Begins

We left the hotel for a late lunch because I was feeling lazy and lounged around in bed for the better part of the afternoon. Because we were planning to meet up with my aunt for an early dinner, we headed to Segafredo’s on Burma Road which was about 2 minutes from the hotel for a quick lunch and some WiFi time.

I had a delectable Baked Rice with Fish which was on promotion for RM12.50 and Nic had a superb Antipasto Platter which consisted of smoked salmon, several thick cuts of ham, some salad, bread, crepe tuna rolls, cherry tomatoes and green olives.

A pretty good deal for RM25…and very nicely presented too!

After that, we met up with my aunt and she proceeded to guide us to Armenian Road/Lebuh Armenian, where we were to have dinner in a German restaurant that her friend owned.

After some wrong turns, we finally arrived in this quiet little back road with some quaint shops that have recently (I think) been granted the Heritage status.

There were even some quaint little cars to enhance the quaintness to the area. :P

Since we arrived a little too early and the shop wasn’t open yet, I decided to play tourist (for once!) and take photos of several of the surrounding shops.

There were several interestingly looking lots in the area too.
 

There were also some unique decorations along that street.




Heck, it even had a temple.

Or at least I think it’s a temple…

Anyway, by the time I’d finished my mini-exploration, it was time for dinner.

We were eating at the Edelweiss Cafe. Like in the Sound of Music.

*Sings ‘The hilllls are aliiiiveeee….with the Sound of Muuuuusicccc…*


Anyway, it had lots of delicious things on the menu.

Even airplanes.

Just kidding!

The food and drink were pretty good…most of it anyway.

Nic and my aunt had Mango Lassi, RM12. They thought it was yummy. I thought it was…ick.

I had a ‘Jumble Jug’, RM12, which had strawberry ice cream in it. Mmmm…

My ultimate favourite of the night was the salad, RM22.

It contained pomelo and mango and was totally worth it. Deeelish! 

As for our mains, Nic had the smoked pork belly, RM34.90.

 Fat, fat, fat but reeeeally good. The stringy stuff in the middle were the mashed potatoes. We all thought it was some sort of mee or pasta at first. 

My aunt had the B52, RM36.50.

Which was, a HUGE sausage with a salad and an omelette sized hash brown (which they called a Rosti). VERY good with mustard!

I had the pork ribs, RM34. Sadly, they were extremely tough and dry. 

The barbecue sauce was also mixed with Worcestershire Sauce, which tasted a little weird to me. The fries and salad dressing were excellent though. 

We informed the Lady Boss of this, and she was very apologetic, even offering to make something else for me. However, I declined as by this time I had already struggled through 2 of the 4 ribs, and was starting to feel rather full. 

So instead, she provided us with a complimentary dessert. 

Chocolate brownie and the Edelweiss signature Movenpick ice cream. Which we had already started devouring by the time I remembered to pull out my camera to take this photo.

After the food was gone, I started exploring. The place was decorated with lots of antiques which ranged from interesting…


 

To unique…




To funny.



  Then it was time to move on to someplace else.


Unable to decide which new place to try next, I decided to revisit Coffee Island grab some new photos.



Which, of course, I had no problems in getting.

Anyway, we had more drinks, and even tried the garlic bread.

My mango smoothie. Very refreshing.

Nic’s flower tea. (I seriously don’t know how anyone can drink this stuff. Tastes like crap!)

  Garlic bread anyone? It had actual partially cooked chopped garlic generously spread on it. Those who like their garlic raw or love spicy food would like this. I didn’t fancy it so much. 

After chit chatting for another hour or so, it was time to return to our love-nest and get some rest for the evening.

While I was trying yet again to get a hint of the free WiFi available in the business district of Penang, I saw this.


LOL. I find that I’m liking Penang more and more.

Penang Again – Day 1 – The Scenic Route

Well, here we are, back in Penang again. This time, since I brought my laptop with me, and knowing my totally crappy memory, I decided to try and blog about our trip while we were still on our trip so I wouldn’t forget anything.

So anyway, we were supposed to leave at 10am, which we then postponed to 12pm, which we again postponed…you get the idea. By the time we finally left the house, it was nearing 6pm.

Because the last time we drove to Penang we went via the toll nearby Bandar Utama Centrepoint, we decided to try taking the Hartamas exit this time to see if we could shave a few dollars off the amount of money we’d have to pay for the toll.

Well, we definitely succeeded in doing that…with several unexpected ‘difficulties’ in the process. Firstly, we took the exit to Kuantan. I mean, hey, Kuantan’s up North too, right? So we continued following the road signs to Kuantan until we found ourselves on the Karak Highway on the way up to Genting. Then we panicked.

So we had to pull out my phone’s trusty GPS a heckuvalot earlier than we expected to. The instructions it provided…weren’t exactly what we had expected.

The Googlemaps program I use actually instructed us to drive almost all the way up to Genting Hotel itself. Fortunately, it then told us to turn off towards Gohtong Jaya. So while we were still stressed out (at least I was) that we were lost and had to navigate a narrow, single lane road in the middle of nowhere, we were also presented with a beautiful view of like a million trees and quaint little kampungs.

It almost felt like we were lost in time. If I hadn’t been so worried we wouldn’t reach Penang before midnight, I probably would’ve enjoyed it alot more.

As you can see, Nic’s hand wasn’t exactly the steadiest because the road was so bumpy. In addition, I was also driving as fast as I could because I wanted to hit the highway before full dark hit. 

After navigating what I call, ‘the back lanes’ with the help of Googlemaps for approximately 2 hours, we finally rejoined civilization at what we think was the Tanjung Malim highway exit.

We made it out alive!

After being hunched over the steering wheel for so long without even realizing it, we decided to stop for a stretch at the Tapah Rest Stop…where we promptly headed straight for the Baskin Robbins outlet.

Where we finally managed to take advantage of their BR Pink Day promotion by flashing them Nic’s pink phone!

Every Wednesday is Pink day, where everyone who shows them something pink will get a double junior scoop of ice cream for the price of a single regular scoop of ice cream. Which basically works out to a discount of RM2.

*Sings Baaaaskin Robbins, Baskin Robbins, Baskin Robbins, Baskin Roooobins!* to the tune of Hallelujah!

My Rum Raisin and Orange Sherbet. 

Nic’s Very Berry Strawberry and…some chocolate flavoured thing. 

They had a very nice setup too. 

And then, it was back on the road again.

This tunnel always provides photos with the prettiest effects. 

And so did the rain that followed later. I also managed to enjoy the effects of the ‘rain repellent’ which I’d just purchased and applied the day before. It really works! 

After several hours of driving, we finally arrived!


And discovered that we’d actually managed to achieve our initial goal and save about RM8-10 on our toll…but had used up about an extra quarter tank of petrol.


Oh well, at least we managed to get 1 usable photo of the Penang Bridge.

Wow. *rolls eyes* 

And we also remembered to take photos of our room too.

Thank god it wasn’t Room 1408 like the movie. :P 

The room wasn’t too bad, but it was slightly smaller than the previous one that we stayed in. 

After chilling for awhile because I was dead tired from all the stress of getting lost and the long distance driving, we went out to get something to eat.

And promptly proceeded to Gurney Drive because we weren’t sure where else was open at that late hour. 

It wasn’t the best asam laksa in the world, and had hardly any fish in it, but as hungry as we were, it tasted delicious at the time.  

We also had Lin Chee Kang, which was totally not what I expected as well. It’s different from what we have in KL, but was actually very nice. It had several types and colours of jelly, the large type of red beans, barley and sweet potatoes. Yum!

My favourite was the green colour beady thingies. It was kinda like the black colour ‘pearls’ we get in bubble tea. 

After that, we were still hungry (the asam laksa didn’t do very much to satisfy us), and since most of the stalls were already closed due to the late hour, we bought some fried fishballs and crispy chicken skin to tide us over from a stall called McTucky’s. *snicker*

Mmmm…I can feel my arteries clogging just from looking at all the oil. 

Then, it was back to our temporary pad to crash for the night.