Penang Dim Sum - Red Tea House (红茶馆)

Earlier on I did share about House of Dim Sum (点心之家) which located in Anson Road, Georgetown that offering various type of dim sum and noodles. This round I would like to bring your attention to another dim sum restaurant, named as Red Tea House (红茶馆) that located at Lengkok Nipah, Bayan Lepas. 

The Red Tea House is within the Pan Palace Plaza, but you could easily notice it due to the tables are arranged at the corridor and the restaurant is always full house especially during weekends. If you stay at Vistana Hotel, you could take a 8 minutes walk to reach here.

Pan Palace Plaza

Red Tea House at Pan Palace Plaza

If you are driving here, don't worry as here have a free parking space. But please try to be early or the car park might getting full especially around 8.30am to 9.30am. In case the parking space is full, then you might want to consider the road side.

Parking Space

From far, you could see the small banner with big red Mandarin word '红茶馆' which means Red Tea House.

Banner with '红茶馆'

Due to this housing area is commonly known as Lip Sin Garden, so the actual name for this dim sum restaurant is 'Restaurant Lip Sin Red Tea House'.

Restaurant Lip Sin Red Tea House

As usual, after we got our table, we requested for a pot of 'Kuk Po' tea, meaning the tea was mixed between Chrysanthemum & Pu Er. The unique part for this restaurant is they still practise to arrange the staff to bring along the dim sum and asking around the customers who interested on that particular item. So as customer, we could just sit on the chair and waiting for the favourite dim sum to come. Of course we could directly go to the self service counter to collect the dim sum if we are in the rush.

The dim sum offered in this restaurant is also in lot of varieties. It could be as common as 'Har Gao' and 'Siu Mai', or as special as dumpling with fish meat. Let's screen the items that we taken within recent two visits.

Red Tea House_Har Gau

Red Tea House_Siu Mai

Red Tea House_ Fishball

Red Tea House_Dumpling with Chives

Red Tea House_Dumpling with Filament Stick 

Red Tea House_Fresh Prawn Dumpling

Red Tea House_Chicken with Cabbage

Red Tea House_Dumpling with Fish Meat

I could not describe the taste of the dim sum one by one. But for various dumplings, beside the special topping, it is filled with fresh pork meat and prawn. For those unique item, you could even get whole fresh prawn, but please be ready to pay for bit higher price.

Red Tea House_Bacon Dumpling

Another special dim sum is the bacon dumpling. The bacon's smell was quite attractive. When I had my first bite, the taste of bacon together with the pork meat make me feel so satisfy. Could you notice from the picture above, 2 pcs of the dumplings were gone before I took out my camera? Perhaps you could imagine how attractive of this item.

Red Tea House_Pork Ribs

Pork ribs is always a dim sum that I would never miss. Over here, the taste of Pork ribs was quite delicious but I would say that the similar item offered by House of Dim Sum is even better.

We had also got ourselves with an item called Xiao Long Bao '小笼包'. This special dumpling is one of the famous item by Restaurant Dragon-I. Since the day we tested this Xiao Long Bao in Dragon-I, we really love it very much. So when the staff in Red Tea House offered us with this item, by instinct we just took it.

Red Tea House_Xiao Long Bao

However, after we took it then we feel bit disappointed. The Xiao Long Bao by Dragon-I is having some soup inside the dumpling whereas  the one in Red Tea House had no soup at all.

Besides the steamed items, we were also tried out the deep fried dumpling call Deep Fried Wan Tan. This dim sum was quite tasty but nothing special.

Red Tea House_Deep Fried Wan Tan

In order to ensure our stomach was fully filled, we did place order for Chicken Sticky Rice and Red Bean Bun.

Red Tea House_Chicken Sticky Rice

Nowadays the chicken sticky rice become more expensive yet the ingredients allocated had being reduced. However, the chicken sticky rice sell by Red Tea House was still served with many ingredients, although it was cost us at RM3 per unit.

Red Tea House_Red Bean Bun

As for the red bean bun, don't expect too much as it is still a common red bean bun! haha...Besides those items listed above, Red Tea House also selling various noodles that we yet to try. When our stomach was fully filled then only we noticed that they do sell the roasted pork. We shall try it out during our next visit.

Red Tea House

In overall, the dim sum offered in Red Tea House is meet to our expectation. In terms of the price, I would consider it as standard price. We had spent almost RM65 for those items above within 2 visits.

Restaurant Lip Sin Red Tea House
Pan Palace Plaza
Lengkok Nipah, Gelugor, Penang
Business Hour: Early morning to afternoon, daily

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Sister Curry Mee - Ayer Itam Market Penang

Last Sunday was a sunny day, although whether forecast stated that there would be a raining day. After stayed at home for 3 hours in the morning and observed on the whether, finally we decided to ignore the forecast and proceed to revisit the famous Buddhist temple in Penang Island - Kek Lok Si Temple. 

After we parked our car, the time was almost 12pm. We were thinking to fill up our stomachs before start our trip. But what to have as lunch at that area? The first option pop up was the Ayer Itam Laksa but unfortunately we just recovered from gastric and dare not took this sour food at the moment. After think further, an Astro programme hosted by Ah Xian few months ago was triggering us to try the famous Ayer Itam Sister Curry Mee (Noodles).

Frankly speaking, if the curry mee is not introduced by Ah Xian in Astro, I really not aware there is a small stall located at the bridge side in the busy Air Itam market area. I don't know how to describe the actual location but you could look at the landmark which is the Suiwah Mini Market, as well as the Air Itam Market. When Suiwah Mini Market is on your left and Air Itam Market is 45 degree at your right, walk straight until you notice there is a small river. Cross the 'bridge' and turn left, Sister's Curry Mee is just on your left. For those who not familiar with the traffic at this area, a friendly reminder to you where park your car some distance away the market area or you would be caught in a traffic jam.

When you get closer to the stall, you would notice the stall owners are a pair of sister. Although they are at older age, but they looks energetic and fast responding. Both of them sit on the smaller chair and busy serving every customer that  come to them. There are also few people helping them, don't know whether is worker or their relative.

Ayer Itam - Sister Curry Mee Stall

Ayer Itam - Sister Curry Mee

The Sister Curry Mee is very unique and different from others due to they still using charcoal to cook the soup based instead of petroleum gas. According to the elders, food cook with charcoal is more tasty and going to have more pleasant smell. If you don't believe, lets try it out.

Please be prepared that there is no proper set up of table and chair for you to take the curry mee, but the coffee stalls at that areas allow you to bring this curry mee to their table, provided you order drinks from them. When I walked to the stall, one of the aunty look and smile at me, and then asking me politely what I wish to order. She is so cute!!

We had ordered two bowls of the curry mee without bean sprout, because I hate the bean sprout so much. I'm not sure whether there is anyone assist to deliver the food but looks like it is self service and every customer automatically carry their own ordered curry mee to the coffee stalls by themselves. Of course I do follow the same way.

Ayer Itam - Sister Curry Mee

The curry mee is having similar ingredient like others which include yellow noddles, thin rice noodles, coagulated pig blood, bean puff (taopok). There is one more ingredient that making the curry mee to taste good and special - it is the cuttlefish. The cuttlefish might be marinated with chili before because it is tasty and not like normal cuttlefish which is almost tasteless. The chili paste also play an important role in boost up the overall taste. I consider myself as someone that could take spicy food, but I lose it to this curry mee with the chili. After I finished off the mee, my t-shirt almost wet and my sweat keep on drop down like heavy raining. The hot soup base is another catalyst that made me sweat non stop. As you aware, the soup base cooked with charcoal is normally retain heat longer than the petroleum gas cooking process.

If you ask me whether this curry mee is tasty or not, my answer is 'Yes'. But it is not something very special or extremely tasty that you should not missed. Some more RM4 per bowl is considered slightly expensive when only the simple  ingredients are used. However, if you respect the two sisters that continue to put in effort to serve their beloved customers, and maintaining the traditional way to cook the curry mee, RM4 is so cheap. From the eye contact with the aunty, I could felt that they are so proud that they could satisfy their customer and continue to contribute to this society. To both madam, I respect you!!!

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Koay Teow Soup & Pan Mee Sri Nibong Cafe-Breakfast-Penang Bayan Lepas

In Penang, there are four common noodle type Chinese food which include Har Mee (Prawn Soup Noodle), Curry Noodle, Wan Tan Mee (Noodle with Dumpling) and Koay Teow Soup. Koay teow is a kind of flat rice noodles. You could easily find these four local foods everywhere in Penang, but be reminded that those sell at the Chinese cafe or food court mostly are not Halal. 

Among all, koay teow soup or koay teow t'ng in Hokkien (soup = t'ng in Hokkien) is a non spicy food. Commonly the soup base is cooked with pork bone for many hours. Good soup base is the critical factor in determine the taste of the koay teow soup. After survey for many food stalls, the stall in Sri Nibong Cafe is one of the best that I ever tried. Sri Nibong Cafe is located along Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, almost opposite with Police Station Sungai Nibong.

Koay Teow Soup Stall in Sri Nibong Cafe

Although the stall looks simple but there is always queue who waiting for their 'take away' food to be packed. 

Koay Teow & Yellow Mee Soup

Similar to others, koay teow soup offer here is served with ingredients such as minced pork, fish ball, fish cake, fried garlic and scallion. But the unique point is the minced pork is fresh while the fish ball is spongy. However, the most important point is the soup base is tasty. To make it even delicious, lets add an egg..wow!! Excellent!

Koay Teow & Yellow Mee Soup with Egg

For locals like us, some people may prefer solely koay teow for this food while others may like to mix the koay teow with yellow mee. The thin rice noodles (mee hoon) also could be an option. If I'm not mistaken, this food is sold at RM3.50 for standard bowl while RM4.00 when additional egg is requested.

Besides koay teow soup, I did discovered another good food from this cafe. It is 'Pan Mee' (hand made flat noodles). It is different from koay teow. Physically, koay teow would be slightly oily than pan mee. Normally the stall owner would make the flat noodles from the dough upon customer order. The dough would be pressed by a small hand-operated machine and later become flat noodles. If you interested, you could stand there and observe. Normally 'Pan Mee' is offered in 2 styles which is soup base and dry base. The soup base is normally not spicy but the dry version could be slightly spicy ya.

'Zha Jiang Pan Mee' by Sri Nibong Cafe 

As shown in photo above, I always prefer the dry pan mee with 'zha jiang' source. I'm not sure the actual ingredient of 'zha jiang' prepared by this stall but in certain websites, 'zha jiang' could be referred to salty fermented soybean paste. Anyway, the taste is good. Besides the noodles, other ingredients include anchovies, minced pork, black fungus, fried onion and lime.

Before eating, make sure the lime juice is dropped onto the noodles. Then mixed well all the ingredient with the chilli source provided. After all, the first bite would give you such a wonderful taste. Don't believe? Lets come and try it out!! The pan mee would cost you not more than RM4.00.

Other than Koay Teow Soup and Pan Mee, there are also lot of foods that could serve as your options. Among all include Chee Cheong Fun, Jawa Mee, Popia, Western Breakfast, Lam Mee, Nasi Lemak, Prawn Soup Noodle, etc.

Sri Nibong Cafe Interior

Sri Nibong Cafe Interior

Sri Nibong Cafe is still within walking distance from Terminal Bus Sungai Nibong, maybe around 10 minutes heading to the big round about near Crystal Point. Enjoy!

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House of Dim Sum (槟城点心之家)-Breakfast-Penang Georgetown

Nowadays, the word 'dim sum' is widely known, even by non Chinese. The unique of this Cantonese food is it commonly served in steam basket and carted around by the staff within the restaurant. Without leave the dining table, we could choose the food on the cart. 

In Penang, one of the famous dim sum centre is House of Dim Sum (点心之家) located at Anson Road, next to The One Academy or opposite the KDU College. 

The House of Dim Sum is always my favourite restaurant whenever I think about dim sum. The food offer is delicious, full with ingredient and value for money. Due to this reason, this restaurant is always full house and need to be there bit early to avoid disappointment.

There are various food served in this restaurant, of course include the steam items such as dumpling and pork ribs, fried item like egg tart and carrot cake, Hong Kong style Chee Chon Fan, different kind of 'pao', porridge with century egg, oyster noodle and etc. 

Besides the food cart, there are also dim sum self service counter. Due to the frequency of the food cart getting around is low or the food offered is not preferred, so most of the customer choose to collect their favourite food at the counter. But for noddles, we just need to place order and the staff would deliver to our table.

After got the seat, the staff would take order on which type of Chinese tea that the customer prefer. Oh ya..forgot to inform that the dim sum is always served with Chinese tea. In this restaurant, there is no coffee or other cocoa drinks offer. For those who not like Chinese tea, there are soya milk or luo han guo as option. If you would like to try out Chinese tea but don't know which one to start with, perhaps could test the 'Kuk Bou' (Pu-erh tea with chrysanthemum). The taste is mild with chrysanthemum scent.

Chinese Tea

For this round, we choose to order oyster noodle as main dish while few steamed items as side dish. 

Oyster Noodle (RM10)

The oyster noodle was served after 10 minutes we placed the order. Supposedly the noddle is come with green vegetables, but we requested the staff not to include it for us. I dislike the vegetable especially in this dish. Could you see how juicy the oyster?? yes, it is juicy as expected. Besides, the noodle was also came together with prawn and the pork slide (cha sao). Really delicious!

Steamed Pork Ribs

One of the steamed item that I never missed is the steamed pork ribs. After tried out the same dish at different restaurant, I still love the pork ribs offered by this restaurant. Not like others, the pork ribs served by House of Dim Sum is bigger in portion while the pork is more than the rib. This famous dish is steamed together with garlic and salted black bean. Nice!

Siu Mai

The third item we ordered was Siu Mai. It is a steamed pork dumpling. Siu Mai and Har Kao are the most popular steamed items of Dim Sum. See, one of the three pieces already been eaten before the photo was taken! Haha..

Fish Ball

Fish ball offered by House of Dim Sum is tasty. Although the fish ball looks plain, but it is spongy and you could taste the freshness of the fish. Fish ball sell in some other restaurants could just be tasteless.

Bacon Crab Filament Pork Dumpling

The last dim sum we ordered was pork dumpling with crab filament and bacon. It was new to us and the portion was big. When we had our first bite, we was so satisfy with the taste. Beside the ingredients above, this dumpling did contain prawn as well. Delicious!!

Two of us enjoyed the dim sum breakfast for around an hour in House of Dim Sum. It cost us RM24 in total which include the Chinese tea charges. But the food portion made us too full and found sleepy again...hahah..Recommend to try it out!!

Remark : The term 'House of Dim Sum' is direct translation of '点心之家' and may not be the actual English name of the restaurant. 

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Aki Pan Cake Super Tanker-Breakfast or Tea Time-Penang Bayan Lepas

If you stay somewhere near Sungai Nibong or working in Bayan Lepas Industrial Park, then you might familiar with Super Tanker Food Court (non-halal). This food court is offering various choice of local food, especially night time. It is within walking distance (10-15 mins without luggage) from Sungai Nibong Bus Terminal. 

Overhere, I would like to share one of the popular food stall in Super Tanker Food Court- Aki Pan Cake. In my memory, the local Chinese pan cake is just a simple combination of flour with peanut, sugar and corn as ingredients. Of course this is my childhood memory and being verified as outdated concept after met the Aki Pan Cake.

I used to take my meal in Super Tanker after work and noticed that there was always lot of people surrounding the Aki Pan Cake stall, stand and wait for their order to be processed. Due to my strong curiosity, I decided to give it a try.

I was so surprise when I looked at the menu board. Guess how many choices of the pan cake offered? Around 100!! (I believe I count correctly). The pancake could be as simple as just contain peanut and sugar, or add in banana, or come with ham and sausage, or add in coconut or raisin and etc. Too many combinations. Due to the menu board is listed with the price, after my consideration, I decided not to post it out. But I can tell you the price is ranging from RM1.00 to RM6.20 per piece, depending on your order. 

After screen through the menu, I ordered the banana pan cake, because I love banana..haha.. I was waiting around 10 mins for my order to be processed. If after school time, you might need to wait for longer time. Oops, forget to inform that it is self service stall where you need to collect the pancake at counter instead of they serve you on your dining table.

This is my banana pancake in plastic bag. You could bring along your own container if not easy with the plastic bag. When I brought back the pancake and opened it out...wow..a lot of banana inside the pancake!!

Banana Pancake at RM1.80/pc

The banana pancake cost me RM1.80 per piece. Not really economic but I think it is worth, since the ingredient is a lot. In terms of the taste, of course delicious. The pancake 'skin' was crunchy and not overcooked. The thickness of pancake skin is just nice. I do not like something with thick skin, look like eating the flour rather than the content.

I'll continue to test other choice of Aki Pancake and post it out as your reference. But it definitely worth to give it a try. Enjoy!

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Penang Dry Curry Mee-BB Food Court-Breakfast-Penang Bayan Lepas

Same like Penang Har Mee (Prawn Soup Noodle), curry mee (Curry Soup Noodle) is also one of the favourite food for Penang people. You can find this local foods everywhere, since morning as breakfast or till night time as dinner. But once again, not every stall is selling the tasty one. I will share which curry mee I prefer the most next time, but this round I'm going to share the unique dry curry mee which only sell in limited locations.

The only dry curry mee that I know and prefer is the one stationed in BB Food Court, a coffee shop behind SunTech Bayan Lepas. If you familiar with Sunshine Square supermarket, you will definitely know that SunTech is just next to it. When drive/walk from Sunshine Square to SunTech, we will notice Subway which located in corner lot of SunTech at its ground floor. When you see Subway, then you will see the BB Food Court is behind it.

The dry curry mee is very special, not like common curry mee which containing coconut milk as soup based. The unique point of this dry curry mee is on the chilli paste. The traditional secret recipe of chilli paste making the curry mee much more tasty than others when mixed with the noodles. To me, the chilli paste is not spicy but just nice to deliver the taste. 

This food stall offers various type of dry curry mee, meaning couple with different combination of other ingredients. Besides the key ingredients which are yellow noodle, thin rice noodle, bean sprouts and mint leaves, the basic type dry curry mee is come together with bean puff (taopok), clams and coagulated pig blood (if you dislike it, could ask them to exclude it in your order). This basic type cost you RM3.00/plate. At RM3.50, you could enjoy another choice with chicken drumstick and bean puff (taopok). If I'm not mistaken, the price could go up to RM10/plate, of course with a lot of ingredients. Below is the RM3.50 chicken drumstick set - my favourite order.

Why no bean sprouts?? I asked them not to put it because I hate bean sprouts :) This time I only manage to take this photo. In future, I'll order other combinations and update this post again.

Besides the dry curry mee, the same food stall is also selling soup based curry mee. According to the banner, they are selling the original taste white curry mee. I've no chance to try it yet. If you interested, you mat try it out.

In BB Food Court, there are also some other food stalls that selling Wan Tan Mee, Laksa, Loh Bak and etc. If you like curry mee but your friends or family members not really prefer it, never mind, they still could find other food that going to satisfy them as their breakfast...at least I think so...haha..Enjoy!!

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What to eat in Penang? breakfast - Ah Soon Kor Har Mee (Prawn Mee)

Penang is famous with its Har Mee or Prawn Soup Noodle. If you aware, most of the food stalls who selling the Har Mee out of Penang use to quote their stall name as XXX Penang Har Mee. But how many of them really from Penang are unknown. Anyway, if you are looking for this Penang local food, then don't miss out Ah Soon Kor Har Mee in Georgetown.

In fact, almost every hawker food centre (non-halal) in Penang is selling Har Mee. However, be honest to you, not every stall would give you the tasty one as you expected. For the locals like me, the tasty Penang Har Mee must have soup base that rich with prawn taste. The soup should be bit concentrate and shall not look watery. Among all, Ah Soon Kor Har Mee in Sin Kim San Coffee Centre is one of my favourite.    

Ah Soon Kor Har Mee

This Har Mee stall is starting its business from 7am until 2pm. Hence, it could only serve as either breakfast or lunch, but definitely not dinner. Anyway, I would still recommend you to come in the morning, so that you would have more choices of ingredient to be added into your Har Mee. Of course, the topped up ingredients are chargeable. 

Penang Har Mee (Prawn Soup Noodle)

For those who do not know what is Penang Har Mee, maybe I try to describe it a bit to help you get an idea. In fact, it is a kind of soup noodle. The soup base is cooked with prawn shell to get the 'fresh' prawn taste. The standard noodle served is mixed of yellow noodle and thin rice noodles. If you prefer instant noodle, they do have it. The common ingredients are egg, small prawn, pork slice, bean sprout and some vegetables. The extra ingredients that could top up are pork rib, roasted pork, small mantis shrimp and etc.

Could you see the pork rib and roasted pork?

Due to it is one of the famous Har Mee, the price is bit higher compare to others. The standard bowl is at RM4 or RM5. If you wish to top up some other ingredients, then it would reach RM6. Like my order above, it was RM6. 

Besides Har Mee, we noticed that most of the customers did order a pancake sold by a aunty. So we decided to try it out.

Pancake at RM5

No surprise with the pancake, but it was still tasty. In fact it is quite special due to not many places selling pancake in this way. Since I like banana, the combination of banana and egg still within my preference level. In terms of pricing, I think it is overprice where simple good like this charged us at RM5. But if you never seen this food before, then RM5 is worth, at least this is what I'm thinking. :)

Outlook of Sin Kim San Coffee Centre

Sin Kim San Coffee Centre is located at the corner of Jalan Rangoon to Jalan Macalister (Macalister Road). It is opposite the Esso Petrol Station. Along the Jalan Macalister, this coffee centre is same row with Red Rock Hotel and within walking distance. So, go to Jalan Macalister, look for Red Rock Hotel and Esso Petrol Station, then you will find the Sim Kim San Coffee Centre. Enjoy!

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