Whirlwind Durian Makan Trip to Penang

It's durian season and a few weeks back, we followed a car club convoy to Penang for a durian buffet on a Sat and came back the next day. Well, it's not really so much for the durians but it was fun to join the fabulous people in the club in a well managed convoy complete with all the GPS coordinates for all the intended stops.

There was a stomach pit stop in Pun Chun at Bidor mid morning which I still find the food really over-rated. I shouldn't have eaten here, really spoilt my appetite for my Penang lunch... grrrr! BTW, if you intended to stop over here and park near the market, please do go find a place to buy the scratch and park tickets cos almost the whole jing gang got a lovely piece of surprise from the Majlis Daerah Tapah on their wind windscreen!



We stopped by at Batu Lanchang market to have lunch but I was still full from the breakie so only Capt'n Hook and boiboi have their lunch. Penang is soooo hot and hazy that weekend, it's no fun when I was under the weather. We stopped by Ghee Hiang and followed by Him Heang for those who wanted to grab the local confectioneries.



Checked into the hotel and refreshed ourselves before our trip to Bukit Genting Hill Leisure Park & Restaurant for a sunset dinner. This is one long drive, almost an hour from Tanjung Bungah snaking up the hill. We were like country pumpkins (sua koos) ooos and ahhhings over the amount of durians and rambutans from the foothill till hilltop which is owned by the same management. Some of the boys slowed their car to steal pluck the rambutans.

The road up is rather narrow and kinda steep at some places but once we reached the top, it's totally an entire world altogether. There were a lot of cars parked around the restaurant area already and the whole place is abuzz with activities. Lots of structures and platforms were built around the restaurant for you to enjoy the view out towards Straits of Malacca. There's only one thing though, a lot of animals and trunk shaped statues and fountains were made out of cement and fiberglass which kinda make it rather gawky but what the heck, the children loves them to the bits posing around them. Well, not only children actually, adults too were busy having their photos taken.



Everyone were captivated by the view and sunset but it was very hazy that day hence the pics didn't turn out great, actually more like this noob doesn't know how to set the camera properly :p Anyway, we ordered the set dinner that was worth RM248 (I think) for 10 that came with rice and drinks of air mata kuching. We waited very very long for our food to arrive, almost an hour and everyone were very restless as the place we sat (under the dome roof) is very very hot. It's better to sit out in the open air if it's not raining. The dome roof contained the heat and there isn't any fan to ease the flow, plus with this kinda roof, we were practically listening to conversation from the next table hehe.

We were famished by the time the food arrived! I lost count of the food serve but we have seafood tom yum (super hot), claypot glass noodle prawns (this is good), mixed vegetables, cucumber salad, green curry (good), thai style fish, fried rice, hot plate prawns and squid (very very good) etc. There were only few good items, the rest were mediocre only and majority of them were very hot. Our main grouses were the food came too slow!

We went back straight to the hotel, knocked out almost immediately after our shower but some of the guys went off for more food for supper!

The next morning we headed to Balik Pulau which is almost another hour drive up and down the hills. We reached Bao Sheng Durian Farm. The whole gang went into a frenzy savouring the durians that Mr Chang (owner) opens. The buffet was not RM25 as stated in the website but I think it was around RM45 which you can have the red prawns, holo (gourd), eu bak (pork lard) etc but as usual we suspect there's a tactic cos they kept opening the I dunno what variety, make you fill up first before opening their best. Since I was coughing and having a bad throat, I did not partake in this buffet. Sighhhh the sight and smell...



However, I was urged to try the eu bak as one of them said it left a numbing sensation in his mouth, so I tried a couple and beneath the pale colour of the fat layer of a good siew yuk lies a very creamy, slight bitterish flesh. Oh yummsss and it did left a slight numbing sensation. Later on we found out that only very very fresh durians that dropped less than an hour will cause this sensation. Mr Chang said this is the kinda taste they would look for when eating durians.



We lingered quite many hours here and even went on a insightful tour of the farm. I learnt a lot about durians that day. We went back to the hotel to refreshed ourselves before getting home. It was a tiresome trip but we all have loads of fun. Interestingly we didn't really get to enjoy the real Penang food, perhaps next time. Looking forward to more trips to come ;-)


Technorati Tags: malaysian food + penang food + durian