Street hawker foods over at Kimberley Street

It has been awhile since we went to Kimberley Street for the variety of hawker food we can find there. So, instead of another restaurant or coffee shop, we decided to go for the good old Penang-style street hawker food along a stretch of Kimberley Street.

The one main stall we head for is this one…

Unlike other koay teow th’ng / beehoon th’ng (noodles / vermicelli soup) stalls, this one has side dishes to go with the noodles soup.

We ordered the beehoon (vermicelli) soup, soy sauce chicken and braised chicken legs (or is it claws?).

Now, the vermicelli / beehoon soup is pretty normal. It is not exactly exceptional. A good thing is that the soup is clear and non-oily, a departure from the normally oily Koay Teow Th’ng. However, the soup base used wasn’t very good. Obviously they didn’t take the time to boil chicken carcass to create the chicken stock for the soup. Fortunately, not as much MSG was used too, as is common in most hawker stalls nowadays.

If you think the chicken looks good, well, it tastes as good as it looks! It is obviously well marinated in several sauces to give it its nice, tasty flavour. The chicken is tender and yes, it’s flesh has this combination of savoury sweetness and saltiness that makes you go..yumm, I want more! My guess is that it was seasoned in soy sauce, dark soy sauce, some five spice, sesame oil, sugar, salt and possibly chicken stock.

I have this weakness for braised chicken claws and when I saw that they have this dish, I simply must try it out. It is also my son’s favourite simply because he thought these are ‘dinosaurs’. You know, there’s this local believe that if you eat too much chicken claws, your handwriting will be worse than a doctor’s. Of course, there’s no truth in it. I am not a doctor and I type perfectly well and in this century, I don’t write using a pen as much anyway.

Oh, yeah, back to the chicken claws. It is cooked in a sorta different sauce compared to the chicken meat and since it is braised, it has this thick, sweetish flavour to it (probably the dark soy sauce) and the claws were cooked to a consistency that is just nice. I hate it when some hawker overcooked their chicken claws, ending up with fleshless claws or falling-apart claws.

Next, we ordered a plate of the essential, Penang’s iconic food, Char Koay Teow (fried flat rice noodles).

And this is what was served…

I ordered it with extra mantis prawn (and it costs me RM5.40 per plate!) and despite it looking so good, it wasn’t all that great really. If you are in search of THE Char Koay Teow that epitomises Penang’s signature food, this is definitely not the stall. I wouldn’t say it is all that bad but it just doesn’t do it for me. I find it quite bland except that he dumped quite a lot of chili in it, so it is spicy. No other special flavours or taste to it. The mantis prawn was deep fried and then added to it, like an afterthought. The mantis prawn was soggy and mushy. However, if you are simply craving for char koay teow, I guess this could pass just to satisfy your hunger. Don’t expect more than that. One thing though, it sure is photogenic!

As for dessert, we ordered from this stall

I ordered the Leng Chee Kang

This is the sweet soup that is supposedly healthy due to its ingredients. Usually it consists of lotus seeds, dried longans, gingko nuts, sweet potatoes (cubed) and barley. These are usually boiled first. The soup is made of syrup mostly and it is the ingredients that made it ‘healthy’ since gingko is known to boost memory, barley is good to reduce body heat and lotus seeds are supposed to aid in concentration.

Anyway, the Leng Chee Kang aren’t all that good either, eventhough it is supposed to be just sweet with the ingredients dumped into it.I guess maybe they put very little ingredietns in it and it is mostly the sweet soup that gave me a feeling that it’s not as good. I’d prefer Leng Chee Kang with more ingredients to it. No point drinking mere diluted syrup. Heck, I want to drink syrup only, I can make it on my own.

Sigh. Looks like the first stall is the only good one we’ve tried along this stretch! Luckily there are at least a dozen stalls along this stretch, so, perhaps there are other better stalls down the road….maybe next time when we feel like venturing here again to dine under the open skies with cars whizzing by, we’ll try the other stalls here.

Conclusion, this is a pretty good place for some authentic Penang street hawker foods where you can dine within the heritage zone by the roadside ala Penang-style along the row of pre-war shophouses.

Here’s the map to the place.

Rating: 7/10

Price: $ (prices are pretty affordable at RM3 and above per plate)

Most of the stalls are only open from 6pm onwards for dinner.

Hawker complex in Tanjung Tokong...

Eng Lor Coffee Shop along Church Street...

Cheap and good hawker food...

The food at Little Penang Street Market...

Hawker food galore at Sungai Dua Night Market...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.