Yee Heong Restaurant on Campbell Street (at the end of the street near the Victorian Campbell St Market), serves of some of the tastiest dim sum in George Town, and is a personal favourite spot of mine for “yum cha”. The dim sum spread is served from 6am onwards - very traditional as, traditionally, the blue-collar workers start their work very eary. Singapore’s historic (but, unfortunately, now defunct) Nam Tong restaurant in Chinatown used to served their golfball-sized dim sum from 4am onwards.
Our spread also included “lor mai gai”, “dai bao”, steamed tofu stuffed with fish paste and stewed pig’s trotters in black vinegar and ginger. The renditions here are superior to those at the other main dim sum restaurants in town.
Yee Heong gets pretty busy around 8am onwards, until most of the dim sum items get sold out. Come early if you want to be able to choose from their full spread.
Went there especially for dim sum lunch when staying in Penang. Unfortunately they don’t do dim sum for lunch, unlike some other Chinese cities. Quite disappointed. I saw the empty steamers at the entry of the restaurant.
@klyeoh What do you think of their Cantonese dishes?
I was brought there for lunch by a Penangite friend who’d been going back there for years. I’m not used to Cantonese dishes with a Penang slant, so wasn’t really into those dishes, having lived for 5 years (2011-2016) in Kuala Lumpur where the Chinese populace are mainly Cantonese, and the Cantonese food there is stupendous. Ditto Ipoh, a largely Cantonese, which I visited on food-hunting trips frequently. Ipoh’s dim sum are the tastiest in Malaysia, IMO.
Penang, like Singapore, is largely Hokkien (Fujianese), with strong Teochew (Chaozhou) influences. So, Cantonese cuisine is not really a strong suit in Penang.
At Yee Heong (we were there in mid-Dec last year), we ordered two noodle dishes (sang mein and sar hor fun).
Sar hor fun is a Cantonese dish done very well in Penang by Cantonese hawkers. The version in Yee Heong also could not be compared to the wonderful versions one gets off the streets (e.g. the one at Beach Street [Penang] "Sar Hor Fun" & "Yee Fu Mee" at Beach Street)
So, overall, I think I’d stck to dim sum at Yee Heong rather than its cooked dishes.
