[Penang, Malaysia] Chicken rice, wantan noodles & pan mee at 𝗡𝗮𝗺 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗴, Hutton Lane

We were at Nam Seng Coffeeshop yesterday for a wantan noodle lunch at a popular stall which has been operating there since the 1970s. But, the old wantan noodle chap decided to take an unannounced day-off (as usually happens with hawkers/food vendors in Penang), so we opted for the chicken rice there instead.

The version here is not Hainanese, as the chickens are roasted, instead of poached. But other than that, the preparation of the rice seemed to be the same: i.e. the rice has a distinct chicken stock flavour, and was actually very fragrant and tasty, even more so than other much-vaunted Hainanese-run spots in the city.

Note: I’d always found Hainanese chicken rice in Penang to be rather poor cousins of their Singapore counterparts. Most Penang spots served rice which are practically tasteless. There used to be one place in Penang, Tho Yuen on Campbell Street, which served really amazing Hainanese chicken rice, but that was in the 1960s-70s. Tho Yuen is still there, but its old chefs are long-gone, and so was their famous chicken rice. But in Singapore, almost every Hainanese chicken rice spot serves food which is of the quality that Tho Yuen used to produce. So, my advise to chicken rice hunters: forget about that dish when you are in Penang, just go for it in Singapore. Even KL, Malacca or anywhere else in Malaysia, perhaps with the exception of Ipoh, cannot measure up to Singapore’s standards.

The chicken rice meal here at Hutton Lane, more Penang-Hokkien-style than anything else, proved to be pretty good. We ordered:

  1. A mixed platter of roast chicken, roast pork (Hokkien: “sio bak”) and Chinese BBQ pork (Hokkien: “char sioh”). The chicken was pretty nice, but the roast pork and Chinese BBQ pork were of “Penang standard”, i.e. quite mediocre, as mainly-Hokkien Penangites are not very good with Cantonese-style roasts. To get good ones in Malaysia, one needs to go to mainly-Cantonese cities like Kuala Lumpur or Ipoh.

  1. Soy-braised hard-boiled egg and tofu - these were pretty average.

  2. "Chai boey" - this was actually pretty good! It’s a popular Penang-Chinese soup (actually, more stew-like) of Chinese mustard greens, dried chilis, tamarind and the odds-and-ends from the various roast meats. “Chai boey” is the Hokkien term which can loosely be translated to mean “miscellaneous leftovers”, and is the equivalent of what the Chinese-Americans call "chop suey" in their Cantonese/Toishan lingo.
    The version here was sharp, spicy and with a depth of flavour from the long, slow-simmering process for the soup/stew. Absolutely loved this one.

  3. Poached chicken livers - for me, a chicken rice meal is never complete without chicken livers, to add an earthy, depth of flavour to the meal.

  4. We washed down our meal with some very refreshing iced Umbra juice drinks. “Umbra” is the Penang term for the June plum, a sourish-green fruit which yields an intensely sharp, tart flavour and is much sought-after in Penang for its juice. The Penang term came from Sinhalese/Sri Lanka term “ambarella”. In Indonesia, the fruit is known as “buah kedondong”, which is also the term used by Singapore-Malays. However, the Chinese majority in Singapore mispronounced “buah kedondong” as “balonglong”, which became the prevalent term for the fruit in Singapore.
    Whatever one calls it, the juice is really refreshing, so don’t miss this whilst one is in Penang.

Overall, I think this place was actually quite a find - lesser known than Foong’s Hainan Chicken Rice shop a mere 2 doors away.

Address
Nam Seng Coffee Shop
124, Hutton Lane (corner with Amoy Street), 10050 George Town, Penang, Malaysia
Opening hours: 7am to 2pm daily, except Fridays.

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Not so good places make you appreciate the better ones. And more fun to search for new ones.

The soup from leftovers sounds good. The partner says I’m master of leftovers. Good to be master of something. :sweat_smile:

I like braised eggs and tofu. What can be done to make the sauce better? Which additional ingredients can elevate the flavour?

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Sometimes, the best stuff are made from leftovers, which may have more matured flavors.

I’d say add some aromatics into the braising sauce. e.g. cinnamon bark, cloves, nutmeg or star anise. Or maybe some Chinese 5-spice powder. The one we had here was just dark- and light- soy sauces.

I see. I only use “5 spice”. Just the soya sauces alone are OK but better with some extra spices.

Btw, I got Chinese salted plums (in jar) and salted mustard leaves. The poultry seller at the market is on holiday so I can’t get the legs yet (can buy whole duck but it’s too much and I don’t have room in freezer). I was going to make a soup from another post of yours last week.

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Can’t wait to see it! Do remember to post pictures of it here. :grin:

Back at Nam Seng today, to try out its much-vaunted wantan noodles. Penang has always lagged behind Kuala Lumpur in this category - understandable as wantan noodles is a Cantonese dish, and Kuala Lumpur’s Chinese populace is largely Cantonese, whilst Penang is mainly Hokkien/Fujianese. Somehow, the different food cultures are simply not compatible - and wantan noodle sellers in Penang, even if they are of Cantonese descent, have largely altered their offerings to suit the palates of their mainly Hokkien clientele.

Still, the one here at Nam Seng is very much ahead of those I’d tried almost anywhere else in Penang (except for those two excellent stalls on Chulia Street in the evenings).

Penang’s wantan noodles adhere to the general Malaysian version, i.e. dressed in a dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, lard, sesame oil and other secret condiments. The noodles will be topped with sliced “char-siew” (Cantonese caramelized BBQ pork) and blanched “choy sum” greens.

A bowl of light soup, with three wantan dumplings will be served on the side, and with pickled green chilis in soy sauce as a dipping sauce. This style of serving is de rigueur for wantan noodles throughout Malaysia and Singapore - not the soupy version which HK-style wantan noodles is famous for.

I really enjoyed the texture of the noodles here, and the well-balanced, very flavorsome dressing. Best I’d had in Penang so far.

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Day 525 since Malaysia started its Movement Control Order (MCO) back in 18 March 2020.

Lunch today was a take-out from Nam Seng Kopitiam on the intersection of Hutton Lane and Amoy Street: Hakka “pan mee” noodles, in an anchovy-pork broth.

Nothing beats a plate springy hand-stretched noodles, streaked through with crunchy wood-ear mushrooms, in a dark soy-sesame dressing, sprinkled with crisp-fried anchovies, and accompanied by a warm bowl of comforting pork-anchovy broth, with a hen’s egg surreptitiously coddled inside.

One of the best in town - I never knew this till I was tipped off by a fellow Penang foodie.
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