Dinner at Old Town White Coffee Restaurant, Penang

This is the menu of Old Town White Coffee Restaurant on the 4th floor of First Avenue shopping mall near KOMTAR - right smack in the center of the heritage city. In the menu, it says "Aroma of Good Taste" which lives to its tagline. It serves local popular food like nasi lemak, curry puffs, steam chicken with lots of ginger, wan ton noodles, fish fillet with vegetables on the side and rice, koay teow soup, and the like.

Here is the ambience of Old Town White Coffee Restaurant with many tables and chairs in the medium sized outlet by any restaurant standards. There are comfortable white sofa seats too that can take in 6-8 people or for couples like us, we were seated by a round table, with 4 chairs for sitting and to put our bags and newspapers. The place is clean, not like the ones you find at hawker stalls and in an air-con place. Whenever possible, I will dine here now and then in Penang since First Avenue shopping mall is near my condominium at Penang Times Square.

Here are our orders of wan ton noodles with crispy wan ton and soup on the left side of the photo which was my order. My partner had springy noodles with chicken cutlet and vegetables on the right side of the photo. He also ordered an upscale coffee while I had iced enriched chocolate drink. This meal alone set us back by around RM 33, but then again a simple meal is not complete without good company.

My Birthday Celebration

We celebrated my birthday at Fong Wei Restaurant recently this month. Above are 4 seasons consisting of stir-fried de-shelled prawns with thousand island cream and sliced onions on the right side while on the left are spring rolls of chicken. Below the platter are 5 sets of tofu with fish balls on top and drizzled with delicious gravy. Above the plate is a mixture of vegetables mainly consisting of mushrooms, cashew nuts, carrots, spring onions and the like.

This is the signature dish of seafood soup with lots of crab meat, sliced fish stomach, mushrooms and many other ingredients to thicken the soup. It is garnished with parsley to add zing to the taste. When you dine at Fong Wei, never miss this dish as it is only served here that whets the big appetite.

These are 3 rolls of 'choon piah' that comes with a special sauce and consists of chopped carrots, turnips, shitake mushrooms, lettuce, etc. It is crunchy and sumptuous to the palate. There are two types of 'choon piah' - one is the rounder one like in the picture above, while the other is the flatter type consisting of prawns, chopped spring onions and then deep-fried to taste.

I had originally wanted to order the cheaper pomfret in 2 styles but it was out of order. Hence, I had to take cod fish instead which was steamed in scallion sauce and garnished with spring onions. Read somewhere that it was also the late Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's favourite dish as well. This dish alone set me back by RM75.

A birthday celebration is never complete without birthday noodles or also known as 'lam mee'. It has sliced pork, prawns, lots of bean sprouts, some crab meat, fried onions and spring onions with yellow noodles for longevity.

Writing Opportunity

I found a blogging or rather writing opportunity online and had already written 9 articles for USD 5 per article of 250 words minimum and 3 photos. For charity, I will donate USD 1 per article to any establishment of my choice like Doctors without Borders, National Kidney Foundation, orphanages and other charities. My second sister in UK just ran 5km to raise funds for cancer research by getting herself muddy, having to climb ropes and slide down an inflated giant slide for the fun of it while doing some charitable work. She also used Facebook to raise the cancer research funds and managed to collect Great Britain Pounds of 300 together with her course mates.