Penang Cuisine

NEVER TRIED LOBAK? It’s a dish central to any celebration or festival by Straits Chinese. These Malaysian five spice rolls combine tenderised pork mince with the crunch of water chestnuts, all wrapped up in a beancurd sheet and deep fried to a crisp. They’re one of the house specialties at Penang Cuisine, easily missed in its hidden corner within a modest commercial complex in Epping. And yet this compact 30-seater has a nonstop flow of students, families and couples huddled over steaming bowls of curry laksa or squabbling over the last satay chicken skewer. Penang fried kway teow ($13.90) is a mammoth serve of slippery flat rice noodles with prawns, fishcake and Chinese lap cheong sausage. It’s all doused in soy and wok-fried over intense heat. Har mee prawn noodle soup ($14.90) is all about the broth, a rich and satisfying stock made from prawn heads. Slurp up two kinds of noodles with slices of pork, fishcake, whole prawns, water spinach and boiled egg. If you order the Assam seafood ($18.90) make sure you get a serve of plain boiled rice to soak up that tangy and spicy tomato and tamarind sauce, jam-packed with prawns, fish fillets and calamari. Don’t leave without dessert. Cendol is a Penang favourite, a mountain of shaved ice heaped over green pea flour jelly noodles, sweetened red beans and caramelly gula melaka palm sugar syrup. Weekend specials include Hainan chicken, assam laksa (mackerel and tamarind noodle soup) and mee rebus (egg noodles in a curry-like gravy).