Tag 107: The Capital of Street Food

In Georgetown, everything revolves around food. The residents are very proud of it. And because so many different cultures live in this place, the cuisine is so diverse. In the Indian quarter, one Indian restaurant follows the next. Oily breads are baked on hot stones at the entrances. On the first day, we ordered a Thali Set, which consists of many small bowls filled with various dishes.

After that, we could only roll through the streets and ordered smaller Paneer Masalas next time. These are super spicy, creamy dishes in round bowls that we ate with Chapati (top right) or sour-tasting Dosai (bottom left).

Dosai/Chapati with Paneer Masala

Once we had breakfast at a Malaysian vegetarian restaurant. Here, a multi-story buffet was set up. You could choose different dishes and put them on a plate and then pay at the cash register about 1.80€. It was a vegetarian paradise!

Vegetarian buffet

Georgetown is also famous for Laksa. This is a Malaysian sweet and sour noodle soup. We tried a vegetarian version with pineapple.

Laksa

Hokkien Mee is also sold on every street corner in food stalls. This is a spicy soup with thick, yellow noodles and usually shrimp and pork slices. We tried a vegetarian version with tofu.

Hokkien Mee

One peculiarity of Penang Island is that nutmegs grow here. The people in Penang are just as proud of this as they are of the Penang cuisine. There is even nutmeg oil for the body. A drink is also made from the shell of the nutmeg. The nutmeg is cooked and then an essence is pressed from the shell, from which a refreshing nutmeg juice is mixed with water. The juice was really delicious, even if it is hard to imagine at first. It tasted very spicy and only slightly sweet.

Nutmegs in the shell

Ready-made nutmeg juice

Despite all the eating, we did more than just indulge in food. After a few days in the city, we wanted to go trekking. We imagined Penang Hill as a small hill, where we could watch the colorful weekend activities of the Penang residents at the top. The last part was true, but the hill was not small. Enthusiastically, we climbed stairs for half an hour at the beginning. Then the path became narrower and a trail wound its way under palm trees up the mountain. We climbed over fallen tree trunks and saw blue butterflies while the high-rise buildings below us became smaller and smaller.

Trekking trail

Blue butterfly

Resting under a palm frond

We held onto roots as we climbed steeply uphill. At some point, we thought we would finally arrive. From there, it was still another 1 1/2 hours uphill. The whole way up, we wondered about the cheerful and fit Malaysian retiree groups who were coming towards us on their way down. We thought they must be insanely fit if they had already walked all the way up in the early morning and were still so enthusiastic on the way back down, while our strength decreased during the ascent. Eventually, we realized that none of these groups had climbed up, but all had taken the cable car up and hiked back down. That's why they were in such a good mood.

Eventually, we arrived at the colorful hustle and bustle at the top. According to the iPhone, we had climbed 190 floors. We immediately ordered pizza and ice cream to regain our strength. Ice cream had never tasted so good before. And we could enjoy the view even more with our tired legs.

View from Penang Hill

By the way, you don't have to worry about going to the "wrong" toilet in Malaysia. The Malaysians apparently think that if they stick the entire stock of a pink-glittery sticker department to the entrance of the toilets as a gender sign, even tourists won't get lost.

Silke in the pink Disney paradise