Enroute from Taiping back to Penang yesterday, we stopped by the popular ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ป๐ด ๐๐๐ฎ ๐ฆ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ณ๐ผ๐ผ๐ฑ ๐ฃ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฑ๐ด๐ฒ restaurant in Nibong Tebal for a late lunch.
Founded by Teochew restaurateur, Yeoh Cheng Hwa, in 2000, the eponymously-named restaurant is now run by his wife, Madam Tan Hooi Kheng, and her 3 daughters & 1 son, after Yeoh Cheng Hwa passed away nine years ago.
The late Yeoh, who was from Kampung Cangkat nearby, had learnt all his recipes from a master-chef in Sungai Jawi before starting his restaurant. All the dishes are still competently turned out today, and has a quality and finesse which we donโt see at its nearby rivalsโ places.
Our lunch spread:
- Squiggly octopus tentacles, boiled to perfection here and served with an addictive dip of chili sauce and hoi sin sauce, topped with crushed peanuts.
One of our glutton gang members - Girlie Chua, the owner-chef of MICHELIN Bib Gourmand-listed Bibikโs Kitchen, who swears by the food here, as compared to its other rivals a few doors away on the same main street.
- Steamed mud crabs - these were large, meaty live ones, cooked upon order.
Male mud crabs, with rich, creamy, intensely-flavored milt.
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Wolf herring fish balls, which had a slide shade of lavender, and the white eel-meat fish balls. These are springy Teochew/Chaozhou-style fish-balls, where raw fish forcemeat, carefully scraped from the bones are formed into ping pong ball-sized spheres. These were boiled and served with the same chili sauce/hoi sin sauce/crushed peanut dip as for the octopus.
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Conch-meat in Thai sauce - the Chinese really like various types of textures in their food. The thinly-sliced conch here has a very pronounced rubbery, chewy texture. Dressed in a spicy-sour-sweet Thai dressing, itโs delicious, but one has to have the patience to chew โฆ and chew.
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Finally, the piece de resistance: the Teochew-style fish porridge. Teochew-style differs from Cantonese-style rice porridge as the latter has the rice grains cooked down to the smooth, sticky gruel, whilst Teochew-style is basically cooked rice grains in a clear, light fish/seafood consommรฉ.
The version here was breathtakingly flavorsome - the fish broth having been obtained from hours of boiling down fish-bones, pork bones, dried scallops, ginger, and other โsecretโ aromatics. Chunks of cooked fresh seabass and rice were steeped in the tasty broth, which is garnished with fresh lettuce leaves, chopped spring onions and golden, deep-fried pork lardons and crisped-fried garlic crumbs.
The proof of the pudding โฆ
Address
Cheng Hwa Seafood Porridge
1115, Jalan Atas, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
Tel: +6012-452 2899
Opening hours: 12.30pm-3pm, 5pm-9.30pm daily, except Wednesdays.
