Penang roadtrip

The weekend was one feasting roadtrip.

Feb 1 - Friday morning, at 9am, we drove up to Ipoh and had lunch at Kwong Hing - the usuals of Ipoh hor fun, pork satay and white coffee and ML introduced us to this tasty tau foo far shop run by youngsters (Funny Mountain).

Then enroute to Penang, we dropped in at Taiping (my very first time there) to see a friend who works in the Toyota showroom. So naturally, we checked out the new Rush. Too bad no test drive unit yet. But it's basically a dressed-up Avanza. Still tempting. We had yummy ice-blended red bean and lok-lok at Kedai Ais Kacang Merah Raex before going on our way.

Exiting at Juru, I dug out the directions CS had given us and we drove to her house in BM. Spent the rest of the evening catching up over her "pre-wedding dinner" and meeting her French family. The caterer that night served the most fantastic "lobak" I've ever tasted.

About 12 hours after we had left PJ, we joined the horrendous Penang-bridge jam. Took us about an hour and a half to get from BM to Gurney. For people who have small bladders and easily-overheating cars, the Penang bridge is definitely not for you.

Reaching the hotel was a relief. Some konk-ed out straight, while most hung around waiting for the bathrooms. ML's superb corporate rate booked us 2 corner deluxe suites on the 26th floor with a fantastic view of the Malacca Straits (I think that is what Gurney overlooks). A friend dropped by for a chat until most of us decided to turn down at about 12 plus.

Feb 2 - Miraculously, we were all bathed and ready to go out before 9am. Had loh mee in Poly, roamed around Botanic Gardens (still has monkeys) then went to Gurney Plaza. The guys did some shopping, I went for my pre-CNY pedicure at this Sally Hansen parlour.

Lunch was yummy o-chien at Swatow Lane (not Newton Hawker) and ice-kacang with atapci! Then, it was back to the hotel to just hang out, gamble abit, chat abit, ejek abit. We left the hotel at 6pm to head into BM for the wedding dinner.

The wedding dinner was typical Hokkien style. I now remember where I had "or ni" (a yam-type of delicacy with bak guo). It's yummy. But it was weird that it was served in between dishes, when it's meant to be dessert. After dinner, we traipsed back to the beautiful bride's house to have a last catch-up with her, knowing that the next time we saw her would probably be if someone bought us tickets to Paris.

Feb 3 - Everyone decided to sleep in. We finally checked out at about 11am and went to Pulau Tikus to grab breakfast (mee rebus, char kuay teow) and stock up on TVB serial DVDs. Detoured to this kuih outlet called Eaton to get the mandatory tau sar peah and some yummy ang ku kuih before hitting the Penang bridge.

Of course, we had to stop somewhere. They decided on Bidor for its duck mee in the Pun Chun restaurant at about 3pm. Finally arrived home in PJ at about 5.30pm after a long weekend of food.

(all wonderful photos courtesy of Jarod Lee KP)