The Mini Curry Festival, held on Wed April 18 as part of the on-going Penang International Food Festival 2018, brought out some of Penang 's most recognizable names in the food business. Among those sighted were:
- Hameediyah (Est. 1907) offering nasi kandar. Being one of the earliest purveyors of this Indian-Muslim dish which consists of steamed white rice, topped with side-dishes which one chooses from a plethora of pre-cooked curry dishes, Hameediyah is now run by the 4th-generation of the family-clan that founded it.
One only needs to point at any of the pre-cooked curries to the server, who’ll ladle your order onto your dinner plate.
My dinner plate consisted of rice with curried beef rendang (a dry curry) with strong cumin & coriander accents, egg, okra and spiced cabbage. My plate of nasi kandar costed me only RM11 (or less than US$3).
- Chef Junior Ang from Heritage Artisans’ spiced lamb nachos was singularly my favourite food item for that fest: complex spicing which seems more Mexican than Nyonya (which he purportedly lean towards), the minced lamb curry was piled high on crisp nachos then topped with scallions and pickles.
- Curried noodles from Ayer Itam Two Sisters Curry Mee. This legendary curried noodle stall is run by two octogenarian sisters who perfected their one-dish offering through 6 decades. Represented at the fest by their granddaughter, the curried noodle dish: a mix of yellow Hokkien noodles, thin beehoon rice noodles and poached beansprouts in a light curry sauce, topped with chillied cuttlefish strips, pig’s blood cubes and tofu puffs - it was one of the most recognizable dishes there. Not my favourite curried noodle spot in Penang, but they have their legion of fans who swore by their rendition of the dish.
The pot of curry soup was kept simmering over charcoal fire:
- Chicken Curry, Ketupat & Pulut Kuning. This Malay stall may not be as illustrious as the other stalls around, but its offering of chicken rendang (a dry curry thickened with lots of toasted, shredded coconut), ketupat (steamed glutinous rice wrapped in palm leaves), pulut kuning (glutinous rice tinted yellow with turmeric) and chicken curry were pretty eye-catching. Tasted okay - not the best pulut kuning around. Their chicken rendang was the best - coconutty and well-spiced.
Clockwise from top-left: Chicken rendang (dry chicken curry with dessicated coconut), Ketupat (steamed glutinous rice wrapped in palm leaves & steamed), Malay chicken curry, with hard-boiled egg, Pulut kuning (steamed glutinous rice, flavoured with coconut milk and tinged yellow with turmeric).
- The Eurasian curry stall by Chef Amelleia Chamin. In Malaysia, Eurasian food refers to a totally separate category of cuisine which originates from the melding of early Portuguese and Malay & Indian styles of cooking. The Portuguese were in Malacca from the early 16th-century, and a vestige of their 150-year colonial rule is a Eurasian community which is well-represented in Malacca, Singapore and Penang today.
For the curry fest, Chef Amelleia offered 3 types of curries, the distinctly Eurasian Curry Debal and Beef Smore, and the Penang-Nyonya-influenced Curry Kapitan.
Left: Curry Debal with chicken & sausages, Right: Beef Smore (a spiced pot roast, with strong hints of cumin, coriander, fennel & fenugreek). Both dishes were served with nutty, vinegary achar pickles.
- Murtabak and roti canai from Transfer Road. Every foodie visitor to Penang will know of this popular breakfast spot on Transfer Road, and its Indian-Muslim parathas, some filled with minced beef or chicken, served with pickled onions and curried chicken on the side.
The event started at 5pm, and was expected to run till 11pm. But the more popular stalls have sold out their food within the first two hours, such was the response from the local crowd.
