Lorong Selamat, Georgetown, Penang
I have to put a caveat on this post, only because I was doing a little research to try to find a more precise address. This is not the (in)famous Lorong Selamat Char Koay Teow stand at Cafe Heng Huat, run by the allegedly abusive auntie. You’ll know you’ve found the right place when you see this guy working up a sweat in his scuba mask over a searingly hot wok. Oh, and if it helps, it’s directly opposite two garishly pastel peach apartment towers.


This was the first CKT I tried in Penang, and I was excited! CKT has always been one of my favourite dishes, Malaysian or otherwise, and I’m fairly sure the fact I ate it four times in four days had something to do with my holiday weight gain. But it was bloody worth it. Now Penang CKT is slightly different from the KL or Singapore styles – from what I can gather, I might be wrong – in that it uses a much thinner rice noodle, much like that of a pad Thai.

It’s stir-fried in a searingly hot wok, along with prawns, clams, bean shoots, Chinese sausage, chives, and egg. Mr A told me that what differentiates a good CKT from a great CKT, however, is the soy sauce used. Each vendor in Penang uses a different soy sauce concoction, usually a secret recipe, rather than something unadulterated off the shelf.

Anyway, Mr A was right. This CKT master served up a truly spectacular Char Koay Teow. The prawns were plump and juicy, and all the elements ‘popped’ flavour-wise, the bean shoots and chives bringing a freshness to what is essentially quite an oily dish. That’s the other thing: CKT should be inhaled as quickly as possible, as it can start to taste a bit greasy once it cools. Which is a guilty pleasure of an entirely different sort. In any case, I made short work of this one.


