Langkawi - Restoran Selera Padang Puteh

Another place I found via google maps, but had confirmed by a local as a "good spot" (this time, a grab driver). Selera Padang Puteh is a breakfast/lunch place - we went for both.

First up, lunch. The restaurant is primarily a buffet - you take what you want, and they charge you based on what you've taken. The options were a bit overwhelming. We ended up with one plate with fish balls, braised egg, and beef rendang.

The other plate heaped with fish, two types of chicken curry, potatoes, and eggplant. They had both a regular sambal, and another with ikan bilis in it.

Everything was really good, and it was a very pleasant place to eat, so we came back another day for breakfast.

Breakfast was a similar affair, with a buffet that overlapped with the lunch offerings, but with some different items. We got a plate with some fried chicken and rice with a gravy from a few of the dishes.

They do roti in the morning, so we ordered a roti pisang - roti canai with banana cooked in it, served with condensed milk.

And a couple of half-cooked eggs.

Great local restaurant - the kind of place that would be in our regular rotation if we lived here.

Langkawi - Temonyong Night Market

Langkawi has a night market that rotates daily through various locations. On Thursday nights it is near where we were staying, so we stopped in to see what we could find.

I often find night markets disappointing - either full of non-food items or food I'm not interested in. This market was very food centric, and had a lot of appealing things to eat.

We started with some nice-looking grilled chicken on a stick. It was juicy, and coated in a tasty, spice sauce. Meat on a stick rarely disappoints, and this was no exception.

Next, we saw stand selling murtabak - someting we'd not yet tried. Malaysian murtabak consist of a roti-like wrapper stuffed with various fillings - usually egg with vegetables and sometimes meat.

We got one with chicken. The vegetable seemed to be primarily cabbage. It was mildly flavored, but tasty and very filling.

Needing just a little bit more to fill us up, we got some fried chicken. It had a salty, spicy coating and was delicous.

The market had a great buzz, and was being frequented by a lot of people - tourists and locals alike. Great place to grab a bit to eat.

Langkawi - Roti Cenai at Selara Pantai

It had been *days* since we'd had a good roti cenai, so when we saw this tent one afternoon we took note and came back the next morning for breakfast.

I tried to order half-cooked eggs, but it got lost in translation and I got them sunny side up. No big deal - they were great with the fluffy roti, the dal and the sambal.

The sambal was super good here - I ended up going back for a big second dish of it.

I could eat this for breakfast every day.

Langkawi - Selera Lubuk Buaya

Toward the end of our stay in Langkawi, we finally started to find some more "local" places to eat. Selera Lubuk Buaya is a place I'd bookmarked from my google map research. We overheard a local lady giving some tourists a recommendation for a good seafood restaurant - which turned out to be this place.

It is a large, brightly lit place full of locals (and a few tourists) busily eating seafood. Langkawi seems to be a center for squid fishing, so we ordered some deep-fried. It was super good - crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. They gave us two dipping sauces. One was a standard sweet chili sauce. The other had a fresh tomato base with some fermented shrimp funk - really good.

We also got some kangkung belacan (water spinach with a fermented shrimp sauce), which was decent.

And some udang goreng halia (shrimp with fried ginger). The shrimp were very good, but the sauce didn't have much going on.

We came back another night and had some tom yam soup - very good, with a generous amount of shrimp and squid in it - and some kailan buwang putih (which we thought would be gai lan from the name, but turned out to be some sort of cabbagy vegetable.

The star of the show here for us, though, was the fried squid, which we got again. Even better this time.

Langkawi - Jomakan

Dinner is usually our hardest meal to sort out when we travel. This was definitely the case in Langkawi, so we were happy to stumble across Jomakan restaurant.

We actually found it because it shares a space with an Indian restaurant that operates earlier in the day that we had a pretty mediocre lunch at. We ate here for dinner twice. The first time we got a combination set that had a tom yum soup, a seafood stir fry, an "omelette", and some veg. The standout here was the soup - a different style than we're used to with a thicker broth. Very spicy and flavorful.

We came back another night and got a fried rice and some deep fried squid.

We also got a beef dish.

Can't remember what it was called, but it was good over rice.

All of the food here was good, and the staff was very friendly. There was one guy working the wok, which slowed things down when they got busy, but he steadily turned out tasty dish after tasty dish.

Langkawi - Ah Chong Beach Bar

While it took us a while to find our footing with regard to food, we found our spot for drinking right away.

Ah Chong Beach Bar had easily the best vibe (for us) of all the places along Pantai Cenang. Right on the sand with relaxed music and a beach shack vibe, we came here almost every evening for a few beers around sunset.

One night we were disappointed to find Ah Chong closed for the day, so we headed a bit further up the beach at Kalut Cafe and Bar.

More of a thumpy music vibe, so less our scene. But the bean bag chairs were super comfortable and we enjoyed a very pleasant evening.

Langkawi - Cenang Food Truck Square

The island of Langkawi, and more specifically the Pantai Cenang area, is a tourist center. It is also in a bit of a slump, which has resulted in a lot of touristy restaurants that aren't very busy. It took a while for us to get our footing here food-wise.

Our first success was finding this small cluster of trucks busily serving up food to a mixture of locals and tourists.

One night we ordered some sticks of satay - some chicken skewers, a "chicken bone" skewer, and a chicken liver skewer.

Simple, and tasty.

We also patronized a woman who was making a variety of thai salads.

We got an order of som tam and it was really good. Perfect refreshing flavors with just the right amount of heat.

We returned another night and got a different dish from the same lady - a seafood salad.

Shrimp and squid in som tam style dressing. Very good.

George Town - Nasi Lemak at McDonald's

Every once in a while, it's fun to stop into a familiar fast food joint overseas and see what different items they might have. Finding ourselves a bit hungry at the Penang airport with time to kill and limited options, we checked out the local McDonald's.

We ordered nasi lemak, which turned out to actually be pretty good. The chicken was moist, and deliciously seasoned. The rice was also good, and it came with the requisite egg, cucumber and ikan bilis. Not too shabby at all.

George Town - Hutton Lane Roti Bakar

We'd been passing this roti bakar ("grilled bread") spot for days now, and they always seemed to be doing a good business.

On our last morning before flying out, we finally stopped in for breakfast.

We each got roti bakar with half-boiled eggs and a teh tarik.

One we got with the addition of cheese (which they blowtorched to melt).

Roti bakar definitely falls into the "simple, but great" category.

We also got a roti canai to share, and I'm glad we did because it was very good and the accompanying dal with sambal was terrific.

A lovely way to spend our last morning in George Town!