Penang Food Fest At Suria Cafe, Saujana Hotel

March 8, 2012

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I’ve been to Saujana Hotel’s Suria Cafe a few times for their buffet dinner and one of the best things about their spread is their cheese board. I am a huge cheese fan and they have plenty of cheese at their buffet. It’s really money’s worth considering how much cheese costs in Malaysia.

A few days ago, I joined a group of food bloggers at the invitation of Saujana Hotel which is having a Penang Food Fest at Suria Cafe from now till 14th March. Three of Penang’s top chefs are there to showcase Penang’s most popular street foods such as assam laksa, char koay teow, oyster omelette, mee mamak, kuih kaa, chee cheong fun and many more delicacies of the beloved island state we associate with good food.

These are some of the stalls set up outside Suria Cafe:-

I made a beeline for the chee cheong fun stall as it is my favourite street food from Penang, even more than their world famous char kuey teow. I grew up on Penang chee cheong fun and have many fond memories of riding the trishaw with my grandmother from her house to the Pulau Tikus Market just to get the slippery, soft rolls from our vendor located at a corner kopitiam. I remember vividly and distinctly that 3 rolls cost just RM1.05! Those were the good old days.

I won’t eat chee cheong fun with curry sauce which is the Klang Valley version. As far as I know, there are only 2 Penang chee cheong fun stalls in Selangor and none in Kuala Lumpur. Anyone who is as much a die-hard fan of Penang chee cheong fun as I am will know what I mean. The “har ko” or prawn paste that goes with Penang chee cheong fun beats curry sauce hands down any day. I could do an entire post on why I adore Penang chee cheong fun and wax lyrical till the cows come home but I am digressing and just posting about it gives me extreme cravings. Let’s have a look at Suria Cafe’s chee cheong fun and the sauces that go with it before I have to get in the car and make for the nearest Penang chee cheong fun stall:-

Suria Cafe’s version has 2 sauces – the “tim cheong” or sweet sauce and “har ko” which is quite thick unlike Penang’s street version which has been diluted. The chee cheong fun here is in cut up into round rolls, the best way to eat “chee cheong fun” is to have them flat so that they can soak up the sauces. The “har ko” here was way too thick but then again, it is unadulterated and really came all the way from Penang so nothing to complain about.

The spring rolls are small which is perfect because you don’t want them too big otherwise they’d fill up too much space in the stomach. They were average. I think that the chilli sauce in the rolls overpowered the other sauces. Good spring rolls should have the right combination of ingredients and sauces. I grew up on spring rolls because every now and then when I was in primary to secondary school, my family would purchase the spring roll skins from the wet market and we’d cook the ingredients ourselves, get together the extended family and have a spring roll lunch.

The Oyster Omelette and Kuih Kaa were too salty for my taste. The Oyster Omelette had too much batter while the Kuih Kaa looks and tasted a bit overdone. Nevertheless, I could tell the oysters were fresh and springy, could have done with a little more oysters in the omelette though.

Inside Suria Cafe, there was a decent spread of hot dishes which were generally tasty and had the right amount of spices.

The Daging Rendang Mamak is tender and not too spicy with a hint of sweetness. I had two helpings of this dish because it’s hard to find Daging Rendang that isn’t chewy. This one has been cooked very well to the extent that I’d say it’s one of the best Daging Rendang I’ve had.

I have to recommend the Smoked Tomato Cream Soup with Garlic Croutons as it’s superb, a little sour and tangy. This is one soup I wouldn’t mind having for the rest of the month, seriously:-