Read more about this old school Hainanese restaurant in Penang here: http://migrationology.com/2015/07/hainanese-nyonya-food-in-penang/
When my wife and I were in Penang, Malaysia, we were there to eat - that was our main mission. On our last few days, I wasn’t sure what to try, so I was searching around and finally, using the Foursquare location search, I found a restaurant called Shing Kheang Aun Restaurant (新琼安饭店) that served Hainanese food in Penang, and it looked like a place I absolutely had to eat. People leaving reviews said it was a great restaurant, and one of the few remaining restaurants in Penang that served old school family style Hainanese food.
The restaurant is a little hard to eat at because of the business hours, which I’m not sure if I fully know, but it seems like they sort of open and close without too much warning, and sometimes they are closed without warning - so you just kind of need to walk past and see if they are open or not. Shing Kheang Aun Restaurant (新琼安饭店) is located right in the heart of Georgetown, right in the heritage part of Penang, just off the main Chulia street. It’s also very close to the main touristy areas of the city, and yet this is a place that remains authentic, has a very family feel to it, and the food is absolutely stunning.
One of the things I loved about Shing Kheang Aun Restaurant (新琼安饭店) is that there is no menu. You just talk to the waiter, who is part of the family, he will kind of recommend some dishes to you, and you can order them or not. I guess I really have no idea how many items they have on their menu, but whatever you get, I’m sure it will be good. I tried to order a few of the classic Hainanese dishes they serve at Shing Kheang Aun Restaurant (新琼安饭店). My wife and I started our meal with a big plate of tofu stir fried with leeks and minced pork. This dish was so simple, but it was so tasty. I believe it was fried with some minced pork for flavor, and it had a wonderful smoky wok flavor, and the tofu had a wonderful silky texture.
We also ordered a dish of slices of pork, stir fried Hainanese style with black sweet soy sauce. Though this dish might not look extremely appetizing, it was fried just right. The sauce had a slight molasses flavor, and it was rich and slightly oily. Even though it wasn’t my favorite dish of our meal at this restaurant, it was still excellent. Next we tried a plate of assam prawns, big ocean prawns, which I think were either roasted or fried with assam sour sauce - which I believe was some kind of sour tamarind sauce. The prawns were incredibly meaty and fresh, and the dark glaze had an excellent slightly sour flavor to it.
But the dish at Shing Kheang Aun Restaurant (新琼安饭店) that blew my mind and made it one of the best restaurants in Penang for me was the gulai tumis ikan, a sour tamarind fish curry made with pomfret. This was one of the most amazing dishes I ate in Penang. The flavor of the curry was sour and loaded with torch ginger flower. The fish was firm and meaty - pomfret is such a wonderful fish for making into curry. The fish curry Shing Kheang Aun Restaurant (新琼安饭店) was what elevated this meal to one of the best in Penang that I had.
Music in this video is from Audio Network
This travel food video was produced by Mark Wiens and Ying Wiens, check out our blogs: http://migrationology.com/blog & http://www.eatingthaifood.com/ & http://www.travelbyying.com/
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