River Prawns at House of Udang Galah (HUG), Penang

Penang’s latest eatery serving giant river prawn is House of Udang Galah (HUG). Located on Hutton Lane, the restaurant housed in two renovated heritage shop houses offers fresh udang galah (giant river prawn) cooked in many different ways. Italian, Western, Malay, Indian and Chinese method of cooking is offered. The prawns are cut into halves and cooked with the head and shell intact.

One of HUG specialties is the Udang Galah in Chef Specialty Lime Sauce. The prawns steamed with garlic, chilli and ginger, made up a perky and appetising dish. Garnished with Chinese parsley, the dish costs a little fortune at RM109 (730g at RM15/100g).



We ordered scallops in Mongolian brown sauce which has a piquant taste, and garnished with a mini happy Buddha and green parsley. This dish was tantalizing with the succulent scallops infused with the Mongolian sauce flavour.



The above is sweet and sour fish topped with cut vegetables and drizzled with a combination of sauces like tomato sauce, vinegar, a dash of sugar, salt to give its distinct flavour that complements the fish fillets.



The meal is not complete without an order of drinks with fresh watermelon juice for me and a cuppa of hot cappuccino for my friend.



To complete the meal, we had yam dessert with gingko. The texture was smooth, sweet and flavourful.



This is the front cover of the menu designed in Western Style. It is a fusion of east meets west in this upscale eatery.



Some of the popular dishes served as shown in the menu here.



This is the ambiance of the House of Udang Galah (HUG) restaurant. Udang Galah, also known as “Giant River Prawn” or “Malaysian” prawn, is native to Southeast Asia – typically in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Many years ago, Udang Galah was very common among the natives, who would capture and cook them fresh to preserve the aromatic taste and succulent texture of the flesh. Today, Udang Galah is no longer known to many Malaysians.

In fact, Udang Galah is part of our national food heritage. This large-sized fresh water prawn, which has a very big head in comparison to its entire body, can only be found in very few local menus. However, they are highly priced and hence, not a affordable choice to many. This is why we came up with this unique concept restaurant, the House of Udang Galah where everyone can see it, feel it, taste it and think of it always!

The House of Udang Galah is a unique concept restaurant that provides unrivaled fresh Udang Galah cuisine in a variety of styles you can choose, from an affordable price. Udang Galah served on your table are freshly cooked from live stock. Whether you prefer it in Italian, Western, Malay, Indian or Chinese, you will find their menu satisfying. If you have specific needs in your menu, do let them know! They are determined to provide you with high quality gourmet dishes in an affordable price.

Location of Restaurant:
House of Udang Galah Sdn Bhd
203 A&B, Hutton Lane, Georgetown
10050 Penang, Malaysia.
GPS: 5.421989,100.32699

Tel: (604)-226-4380

Opening Hours:
Monday to Sunday
11:00am to 11:00pm

Lunch at a Chinese Restaurant

 

Some time back, I treated dad to a Chinese restaurant in Penang Times Square on the third level of Birch Plaza phase 1. I forgot the name of the restaurant but I must say that it is very popular with bridal couples and almost every week, you can see it is books for a wedding banquet. Above is my order of sweet and sour fish with capsicums, red chillies and onions.

 

Here is my favorite dish - Nestum Prawns. The fresh prawns are deep fried with Nestum cereal flakes and some Indian herbs for that crispy flavor and zing.

 

For vegetables, I usually order the ubiquitous brocolli with Shitake black mushrooms and some garlic and oyster sauce. The ingredients are all stir fried in a wok before serving them piping hot. 

 

Here are all the dishes ordered for just the two of us. My dad drove me to Penang Times Square to oversee stuffs to be done to my small condominium and thereafter, we hopped over to the next block for some sumptuous lunch.

 

Food from Various Places

 

Here is fish fillet braised with almond flakes and poured with lemon sauce from Mizi at Tesco outlet in Straits Quay. Veges such as sliced carrots, a floret of cauliflower, some green peas and steamed potato wedge are garnished to complement this delicious meal. I love patronizing Mizi Bistro for its very affordable and reasonably charged western food. They also offer a fusion of both western and eastern food and there are 3 branches in Penang - one in Prangin Mall, one in New World Park and the latest in Tesco, Straits Quay. The chain of food is owned by a former executive chef with working experience in a 5-star hotel.

 

This is my favorite dish of fish florentine which consists of dory fish fillets on top of braised spinach and topped with cheese powder. The white sauce was just pure ambrosia and heavenly!  I will always order my favorite fish and the waiter can already anticipate what I am going to order each time I come here.

 

As you have already guessed, the dish above comes from a Chinese restaurant - slices of fish stir-fried with chopped spring onions and garlic. It was ordered from Xuan Xin Restaurant in Gurney Plaza, an upmarket shopping mall in Penang which is currently undergoing renovation and expansion. You will be lucky if you can find a car parking bay during school holidays!

 

Also from Xuan Xin Restaurant, this is large prawn omelette and garnished with parsley. Though this meal looks appetizing, the doctor just advised me to cut down on seafood like prawns which has high cholesterol. I just went for a blood test last week and the results were not too good, I failed in 6 categories of the overall test which means that certain abbreviations like HDL, LDL, etc were above the normal range. So now I am taking 1,000mg of Omega-3 fatty acids 3 times a day to lower my blood cholesterol level and to prevent future heart attack or heart disease. My dad already has 3 clogged arteries and it seems this could be hereditary.

 

Here is stir-fried spinach with oyster sauce, from Xuan Xin Restaurant. You can choose a set meal for 2 persons with several choices of 2 main meals and a vegetable meal from a list of 6 to 7 vegetables and different sauces like garlic, oyster sauce, etc. There are 2 bowls of rice with 2 bowls of soup, a drink each for about RM 50 after tax (USD 16.70).

 

As my friend is a member of Chinese Recreation Club, we went to the Chinese restaurant with 10% discount using the member card. Above is steamed fish cooked in Teochew style which is sourish where slices of assam are added to add the zing. Black shitake mushrooms, straw mushrooms, preserved vegetables are added with slices of ginger and carrots and garnished with spring onions. The fish is garoupa and it is quite delicious in this cooking style. Don't throw away the soup as all the flavors are infused during the cooking and this makes it very delicious.

 

This is fried chicken coated with some batter for crunchyness and added with Thai chilly sauce. I have forgotten where I ordered this meal as I normally snap a lot of photos from the various places for posterity.

 

The set meal above was ordered from a Taiwanese Tea Restaurant in Queensbay Mall near Bayan Lepas. If I don't go to Gurney Plaza every night, then I will be at Queensbay Mall once in a while for a change of location. I love the blue champaign milk tea with brown sago pearls or also known as boba. 

 

 The meal above was part of the buffet breakfast in City Bayview Hotel in Kuah, Langkawi. I was in Langkawi last month for business. See the granite table top which makes the ambiance classy and elegant.

Dinner at Hei Yeong Seng Chinese Restaurant

 

This is the entrance to Hei Yeong Seng Chinese Restaurant where we dined recently over the weekend. It looks decadent with the red Chinese New Year cloth decos, potted bongsai trees, et cetera.

 

This was one of our dishes that I ordered - broccoli with scallops, stirfried with ginger, garlic and spring onions. The broccoli was crunchy and scallops succulent to taste. The chopped ginger added the 'oomph' to the flavor.

 

Notice the comb of genuine shark's fins with dried scallops, chicken plus chinese herbal roots and other condiments. A bowl like this will set you back by $40 as sharks' fins are rare commodity now and sharks are endangered species. The double-boiled soup was just superb and heavenly. 

 

This presentation of this dish was not as nice as what we have ordered before but it tasted just as delicious. This is two styles cooked chicken that's fried and garnished with sesame seeds which give the added flavor to the palate.

 

After finishing our ordered dishes, to our surprise, the waiter brought us free dessert of mooncakes to celebrate the lunar month of the mooncake festival. The middle portions are salted duck egg yolk covered with lotus seed that's been processed into a paste and baked in the oven. Some of the mooncakes are just plain filling while others have nutty fillings and red bean paste.

 

These are the most common mooncakes with brown covering and floral motifs imprinted on them. They are vacuum  packed individually at now cost 10% more than last year, ranging from $12 - $18 a piece. This photo was taken downstairs of the restaurant where there is a supermarket on the ground floor.

 

This is a different variety of mooncakes made from black charcoal powder to give its distinct black color.

 

More colored mooncakes - in this case, they are beige or pastel yellow snowskin.

 

This is the ambiance of Hei Yeong Seng Chinese Restaurant and view from our table. Sometimes Chinese wedding banquets are held here with almost the whole restaurant being booked in advance. There are also private function rooms for the discerning wealthy and millionaire diners who prefer to eat in complete privacy and away from the prying eyes of other diners at other tables.

 

I am done with the photos at Hei Yeong Seng Restaurant. Now next to showing food photos taken in Kuala Lumpur where I went for a business trip last week. This 'sui kow' soup was taken at Noodle House in Taipan, Subang Jaya and sprinkled with chopped spring onions. A bowl like this with 5 'sui kows' cost about $6.

 

This is fish fillet baked rice at Kim Gary on the 3rd floor of Gurney Plaza. This is one of my favorite dishes and I don't mind having this every day! I can eat the same food on a daily basis without getting bored.

Dinner at Ming Garden Restaurant in Penang Times Square

 

I had dinner at Ming Garden Chinese Restaurant in Penang Times Square last night. It is located in Birch the Plaza building on the second floor. The address is below:

Ming Garden Restaurant

77-2-28 Penang Times Square

Penang.

Tel: 604 226 9977

Above is a snapshot of the grand entrance with pixue or some Chinese mythological creature that is believed to bring luck and prosperity to its owner. I love the bouquet of red roses on the table with pamphlets of different cuisines and prices to choose from. Since it was opened yesterday, there were congratulatory bouquets of flowers to the owner and also look good to welcome new visitors.

 

Here is the decadent ambience with velvet covered chairs and embellished with buttons behind to complete the dining furniture set. Complementary maroon serviettes match the color of the velvet-covered chairs. At the top, large lotus-designed lights hang precariously over the tables. There are private function rooms too for those who wish to dine quietly away from the glare of the public eye. Usually millionaires and the well-heeled will choose to reserve a private function room to eat in complete privacy. There were about 3 very large screens showing Andy Lau's concert performance in Hong Kong and audiences bopping to the lively rhythm. It sounded more like Michael Jackson's Thriller but sung in Cantonese.  

 While waiting for our set dinner, we were served Chinese tea and 'acak' as appetizer prior to the food. 'Acak' consists of julienned carrots, cucumbers and yam bean seasoned in vinegar with peanuts and chilly added for that extra oomph. The taste was piquant and spicy, teasing the taste buds for more to come.

 

This is the real appetizer as part of the set dinner with a spoonful of fresh scallop, bits of fried scallops served above the braised asparagus. It is garnished with parsley, julienned carrots with a purple petal of an orchid. In the dessert glass are 2 pieces of some crunchy batter mixed with delicious condiments. It was just heavenly tasting them. 

 

The next dish of the set menu was braised shark's fin soup with crab meat in casserole. The shark's fins soup were scrumptious and the crab meat fresh and tangy. There were generous portions of them too.

 

This is stewed sea cucumber with mushroom and fish maw wrapped in aluminium foil. A dark purple orchid with green parsley embellish the meal. Inside the aluminium foil was also pacific clam, black Shitake mushroom and abalone mushroom. The thick gravy was just as tasty as it looks. 

 

The next dish was deep fried grouper fillet in Cuba style but I accidentally deleted the photo as I was trying to remove spare pictures. The above meal was the second last dish before dessert and consists of  fried ee-fu noodles with crab meat. All the meals were served in small portions so that they are not too overwhelming and filling. They were of appropriate portions enough to fill a hungry stomach. 

This is the finale of the set meal and the sweet dessert consists of coconut with longans topped with ice cubes in syrup. The Chinese tea helps in the digestion and washes down the remaining oil. On the whole the six course set dinner meal for two cost more than a hundred ringgit (USD 33.00) which is quite reasonable considering the tastiness of the meal.

Travel to Hong Kong

best 

My youngest sister (left front)  and I (in brown on right  behind) flew to Hong Kong on my birthday month in July and met up with my second sister (in green). Here, Mirinda ( in blue opposite me) was our tour guide for the day and brought us to a Chinese restaurant known as The Moon in the upmarket shopping mall in The Elements where they  have Ballys, etc. In this shot, the four of us were seated waiting for our serving for dinner. We could not get by in Hong Kong without Mirinda who could speak Cantonese and guided us besides being our spokes person. By the way, Mirinda has a tiny condominium near Shatin MTR train station that cost a whopping RM 1.2 million! (USD 400,000). The entire condominium could fit into the living room of our suite in Royal Plaza Hotel, where we stayed and Mong Kok East MTR train station was just underground of the hotel. 

 

Above was one of our orders of crispy dried noodles topped with scrambled egg white and garnished with fish eggs. The serving looks appetizing for me. The noodles were crisp and crunchy to the palate. 

 

We also had deep fried wanton paired with Thai chilly sauce and black sauce in a yin yang shaped sauce container. 

 

Chinese food is never complete without an order of pork ribs braised in special sauce. It was simply heavenly having such fine dining food. 

After travelling to Golden Bauhinia Square, Aberdeen Fishing Village, Repulse Bay, our next stop was the optional tour of Ocean Park where we dined at The Neptune Seafood Restaurant. I loved the ambience here and it gives me a feeling of swimming in the ocean with the huge manta rays, baby sharks, schools of colorful ocean fishes, etc swimming gracefully in this 2 storey-high aquarium.

 

This was our dining table and we got an excellent view of the mega aquarium or oceanarium while waiting for our servings. Loved the deep blue glasses of water.

This was my selection of fish with potatoes for the MAS cabin food that was served to the passengers. The white gravy was certainly tantalizing and sumptuous. You have another choice of chicken with rice but I am a fish lover, hence I chose this meal. There's a bun with butter, butter sponge cake with chocolate cream, salad, water and juices. Geens like cuboid carrots and long beans were paired with the poached fish. This meal was mouth-watering and yummy!

Lunch at Food Gallery

I had lunch at Food Gallery in Penang Times Square a while ago and ordered the above sumptuous meal of fusili bolognise and almond chicken. The macaroni tomato sauce was tangy and well flavored. I added extra cheese powder to pair with the meal. The almond chicken was succulent and crunchy with almond flakes added to the batter that covered chicken. The presentation was appetizing as well and garnished with greens.

 

This was a set meal with a bowl of white rice, sauces, watercress soup and chicken stir-fried with mixed vegetables. This was my mum's order from Food Gallery where we dined recently. Food Gallery is the largest food court in Penang with more than 20 stalls of delicious Penang food cuisine. 

 

My dad loves Italian food and ordered this simple meal of western food with potato chips, coleslaw and pizza.

 

When I was in Kuala Lumpur, I had marmite chicken at Lorong Seratus Tahun restaurant. It consists of deep fried chicken with marmite dip, an egg cooked over-easy way and topped up with vegetables and rice.  Lorong Seratus Tahun serves genuine Penang food like ice-kacang, chendol, lorbak, etc.

 

This is ice-kacang with chendol ingredient of green pandan noodles, some longans, red beans, chopped peanuts, black herbal jelly, corn cream, shaved ice and topped with a scoop of strawberry ice-cream.

 

This is mushrooms that are deep fried and covered with batter to taste with cream sauce dip. It was served at Manhattan Fish Market in Queensbay Mall on the basement level. The food certainly makes me salivate and looking at it might just make you drool as well!

 I had Baskin Robbins ice-cream of chocolate mint and topped with delicious chocolate that was ideal to taste and not too sweet. It is topped with white cream, a red cherry and sprinkled with chopped nuts. I normally stop here in Tapah to unwind when returning back to Penang from Kuala Lumpur. Baskin Robbins has 31% discount on the 31st of the month every time.

 

This is a magnificent paint of food theme and vases of flowers. The framed paintings was taken at a local hotel when I was having buffet breakfast. I love the play of colors and picture composition.