Sample Phenomenal Street Food, at a Hawker Center in Penang, Malaysia

Penang Hawker Food: What to Order and Where to Stand

Penang’s reputation for street food is not exaggerated. The island’s hawker centres and food courts collectively maintain a culinary tradition that draws food writers and chefs from around the world. Anthony Bourdain called it one of the best food cities on earth. The food itself is Hokkien Chinese in its foundations, but centuries of trade brought Malay, Indian, Thai, and colonial British influences into a cuisine found nowhere else in quite the same form.

Hawker centres are open-air or semi-covered spaces where individual vendors run single-dish stalls, each specialising in one or two dishes done over decades of repetition. The correct approach is to find a table at the centre you want, order from two or three different vendors, and wait for the dishes to be brought to you. Each vendor tracks your table number mentally. Pay each vendor separately when the food arrives. Do not try to carry everything yourself.

What to Order (Specifically)

Char kway teow is the Penang hawker dish most associated with the island internationally. Flat rice noodles, dried shrimp, cockles, Chinese sausage (lap cheong), bean sprouts, egg, and chilli paste, stir-fried at extreme heat in a very particular wok. The version at Siam Road Char Koay Teow (on Jalan Siam, a short tuk-tuk from central Georgetown) is usually named as the best on the island. The queue at peak lunch hours is 20-30 minutes. Order the one with extra cockles.

Penang asam laksa is a different dish from the laksa served elsewhere in Malaysia: sour fish broth made with tamarind and flaked poached mackerel, served with rice noodles, prawn paste, pineapple, cucumber, and fresh mint. The sourness is distinctive and divisive. The best versions are at Old Green House Laksa in Georgetown and at the Air Itam market hawker centre.

Hokkien mee (prawn noodle soup) uses a broth made by slow-cooking prawn heads and shells for hours. The depth of the prawn flavour bears almost no resemblance to a Western prawn bisque. The noodles are a mix of yellow egg noodles and rice vermicelli. Available at most centres; the one at Penang Road Famous Teochew Cendol stall adjacent to the cendol shop is reliable.

Cendol itself: shaved ice, coconut milk, pandan-flavoured green rice flour jelly strands, red kidney beans, and palm sugar syrup (gula melaka). It costs 3-4 MYR. The Penang Road Famous Teochew Cendol stall in Georgetown has been making it for three generations. This is the correct dessert at any time of day.

Roti canai is Indian-influenced but universally eaten for breakfast: a flaky flatbread cooked on a griddle, served with curry dhal or fish curry. Most effective at 07:00 at any mamak (Indian Muslim) coffee shop still operating from the previous night.

The Hawker Centres

Gurney Drive on the northern coast of Georgetown is the large evening hawker centre with the sea view. It is the most tourist-facing and the most comfortable (seated tables, wide lanes). The food quality is high despite this; it is where locals eat too.

New Lane (Lorong Baru) Hawker Stalls on Jalan Burma opens after 17:00 and runs into the early morning. More chaotic and local-feeling than Gurney Drive. Try the satay and the duck koay teow here.

Kimberley Street food court in the heart of Georgetown operates during the day and evening and is the most convenient for visitors staying in the old city centre.

Georgetown Beyond the Food

Georgetown is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the historic quarter is worth two full days. The tension between traditional Chinese clan houses, colonial British administrative buildings, Tamil Hindu temples, and Malay kampong (village) architecture on streets that sometimes run only 50 metres is found nowhere else in Malaysia.

The street murals by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic (the most famous shows two children on a bicycle) have become the most photographed things in the city. They are good but they are also everywhere; the genuine heritage buildings on Armenian Street, Pitt Street, and in the clan jetty area on the water are the more lasting impression.

Penang Hill (Bukit Bendera) reached by funicular from Air Itam takes you 820 metres above sea level in 5 minutes for views across the Strait of Malacca. The top has a mosque, a Hindu temple, a small hotel, and a resident population of flying squirrels that emerge at dusk.

Getting to Penang

Penang International Airport has connections across Southeast Asia and to Kuala Lumpur (1 hour flight, or 4 hours by bus up the north-south highway). The George Town ferry from Butterworth on the mainland runs 24 hours and costs 1.20 MYR. The Penang bridge (23 km, one of the longest in Asia) connects for road traffic.