www.mieranadhirah.com: Indulging in feasts in Penang

I was in Penang a couple of weeks ago on the AirAsia Penang Takeover trip where we got the chance to explore Penang Heritage areas and ate to our heart's delight... but what I did not share back then was our dinners....

In this blogpost, I am sharing our fabulous two nights of feasts which was sponsored both by AirAsia / AABC and also My Penang...

On our first night there, we were taken to the Bali Hai Seafood Market....

The Bali Hai Seafood Market restaurant is located along the fame Gurney Drive seafront. Just stepping into the restaurant, you will feel like you have been transported somewhere else with the tiki huts, colourful sarongs adorning the ceilings, tasseled umbrellas etc.. and the amazing range of fresh live seafood aquarium tanks towards the right of the restaurant which includes lobsters, crabs and many many more.

Their tag line, "If It Swims We Have It" promises you your ultimate seafood experience and that was what we had dining there at the Bali Hai Seafood Market

You can have the choice of picking your seafood live from the tanks and this is of course, the best known way of how to prepare seafood while preserving its original freshness, flavour and taste.

Bali Hai is quite big and can easily accommodate more than 500 diners at any one time

...

There are so many types of different seafood which you can find here, that if you were a seafood lover you really would think you were in some seafood heaven...

Among the seafood selection available are Rainbow Lobster, Pearl Lobster, Giant Mantis Prawn, Geoduck, Eels, Alaskan Spider Crab, Emperor Crab, Snow Crab, Australian Lobster and an assortment of fishes

However, our feast /dinner had been pre ordered and so all we could do was sit back, relax , wait and enjoy whatever was on the table...

There was the Bali Hai Seafood Fried Rice, Stir fried ladies fingers and stink beans in sambal...which was just scrumptious. I love the sambal and stink beans... and taken together with the rice... oh yummm.....

Other dishes included the Stir Fried Kailan, and also the Fried Crab with Special Chilli Sauce which was really finger licking good...it was both savoury and sweet and totally delectable...

I was also very much in love with the Steamed Red Snapper with Fresh Lime which made the fish very light, refreshing and appetizing...

There was also the Fried Meat Crab with Salted Egg Yolk which was also one of the notable dishes...

The Fried Oyster Omelette was a little too much for us though, after all the crabs and another different plate of omelette....

Fried Assorted Vegetables with Taufu came towards the end of my meal and made me pick up my cutleries again... I could never resist a bowl of mixed vegetables with taufu in it...

And another one of the best dishes for the night was the Fried Butter Prawn.... it was juicy and succulent and I loved the eggy bits that added to the crunchiness ...

Overall, it was a great place to enjoy dinner with your family or friends, like what we did... I enjoyed my meal there but I guess it was slightly pricey as I heard that the bill was about RM800 per table...

Bali Hai Tim Sum/ Seafood market is located at 90A-90D, Persiaran Gurney, 10250 Penang.

On the next day, after a day of running around the whole of Georgetown, and a couple of hours rest and freshening up, at our hotel, our bus took us to the Yeng Keng Cafe.

The Yeng Keng Cafe is adjoined to the Yeng Keng Hotel.

The Yeng Keng Hotel, a 20-room restored heritage boutique hotel is one of the oldest surviving and intact 19th century buildings at the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage City of George Town, Penang.

It was originally built in the mid 1800's as a private residence and belonged to an Indian Muslim family.

Yeng Keng Café Bar brings you back to the 1930s café

indulgence. Their café serves Hainanese Western cuisine ..

The Hainanese are migrants from Hainan in China. Everyone

knows that if you want good foor, the Hainanese people are some

of the best when it comes to cooking...They possess culinary

skills creating their own style of Western and Chinese food.

Yeng Keng Café Bar brings you Hainanese cuisine which is

synonymous with Penang, and is spearheaded by Chef Tan Jee

Yong PJK, one of the oldest working chefs on the island.

We were served a variety of dishes... There was my old favourite, the Jiu Hoo Char (stir fried turnip, carrots, mushroom and dried cuttlefish served with lettuce and sambal ) which tasted heavenly....all you do is take one of the lettuce leaves, spread a little of the sambal on it, scoop a little of the Jiu Hoo Char and place on the lettuce, wrap it up and pop it into your mouth to enjoy this...., The Chicken Pie (chicken stew with mushrooms, peas carrot and egg in brown sauce baked with puff pastry covering)

was one of the biggest I have seen in my life...LOL

The Spring Rolls (hainanese style deep fried spring rolls) is also

worth having as it is very much like the Jiu Hoo Char minus the

dried cuttlefish and very crispy on the outside...