Teow Chew Restaurant is a tiny eatery on McNair Road which has been sailing below the radar of the social media hounds since it opened in early 2024. In fact, it was a visiting KL friend and her partner who stumbled upon it during her holiday in Penang in March 2024. They liked it so much, they went back three days in a row - pulling me along on their third trip.
It really was quite a find - good Teochew (Mandarin: Chaozhou/潮州, Cantonese: Chiuchow) restaurants are surprisingly difficult to find in Penang, even though the Teochews traditionally dominate Penang’s famous street food scene.
The Teochews come from two major urban centres in Guangzhou province, China - Chaozhou (Teochew City) and Shantou (Swatow City). But the Teochews’ language is not mutually intelligible with the Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou - rather, it’s closer to the Hokkien language spoken in neighboring Fujian province.
Traditionally, since its founding on 1786, Penang’s Chinese populace has been overwhelmingly Hokkien, so the Teochews have gravitated here when they emigrate to this region. In Penang, as in Singapore, the Teochews constitute the second largest ethnic Chinese group after the dominant Hokkiens.
Foodwise, the Teochews prefer their food - mainly seafood-based, though they also have a strange predilection for braised duck - very light and subtly flavored. Which is what Teow Chew Restaurant does very well.
An uncle and an aunt from Singapore were in town early this week to attend a wedding. But they had factored in a few days to explore Penang’s food scene whilst they were here, and I’d brought them here for their Teochew food fix.
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Hae cho - these are ping pong ball-sized morsels of minced pork and chopped prawns, wrapped in soy bean skin and deep-fried till golden brown. The version here is absolutely delish, subtly flavored, and with chopped water-chestnuts incorporated into the filling to provide some extra crunch.
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Minced pork patties - another well-conceived and perfectly-rendered starter: golden-fried discs of well-seasoned pork-egg patties, moist on the inside, lightly crunchy on the outside.
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Teochew-style steamed white pomfret - the Teochews’ style of steaming fish: with preserved mustard stems, sour plum, tomatoes, and julienned ginger, garnished with shitake mushrooms and pork lard, is justly renowned amongst the Southern Chinese. Its prep, with perfectly-timed, just-cooked fish, rivals that of Cantonese-style steamed fish.
The Teochew-style version, lightly sourish, as opposed to the Cantonese version’s light soy sauce flavored one, is just as popular amongst Southern Chinese food connoisseurs.
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Stir-fried hard tofu (“tau kwa”) with flowering chives - the stir-fry also includes deshelled shrimps and sliced Teochew fish-cake. Again, well-executed - light and salty-savory, seasoned with a drop of fish sauce.
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Stir-fried kappa clams with ginger and scallions. The tasty, astringent, gingery sauce was a perfect foil for the meaty shellfish.
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Fried mee teow - this is the classic Teochew salt-flavored noodles, stretchy and toothsome, usually made into a simple stir-fry with pork and vegetables. The version here, with julienned carrots, leeks and scallions, topped with golden-fried shallots, was far and away the best one can find in Penang.
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Steamed ginger chicken - this dish consisted of chunks of bone-in chicken, topped with golden-fried ginger strips and steamed. Utterly delicious with steamed white rice.
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Steamed minced pork with salted fish - this is another comfort food classic for the Teochews, and executed perfectly here. The steamed minced pork-salted fish was topped with ginger and tomatoes for additional flavors.
My uncle and aunt were absolutely bowled over. The restaurant is much smaller than any Teochew restaurant back in Singapore, so perhaps they were charmed by its cosy, homely feel. The young couple who runs this place is impossible young, perhaps in their twenties: Rayson Khor (who’s Teochew) and his wife, Cheryl Yeoh (who’s Hokkien).
Address
Teow Chew Restaurant (潮州饭店)
1, McNair Road, George Town, 10300 Penang, Malaysia
Tel: +6017-464 6567
Operating hours: 12 noon to 2.30pm, 6pm to 9pm daily
