A Hundred Ringgit and a Map of Georgetown, Penang

The Ministry of Tourism Penang Office and Project Penang invited me and 9 other bloggers to Penang to highlight that Georgetown *is* doable on a budget. To show us how affordable it was, we were given only RM100 (about USD 30) to spend over the two days we would be visiting Georgetown. This would cover our food and also our entrance fees to several heritage sites around this city of contrasts. We were also given a bus pass for a week for the local bus (Rapid Penang) which we took advantage of a total of two times on this trip.

Budget Hotel / Boutique Hospitality

Hutton Lodge, the place we stayed at, was a budget hotel. Located right in the heart of Georgetown, this refurbished Colonial-era bungalow was very comfortable. I shared a dormitory room with four other ladies (which worked out great as we were all bloggers and had much in common). Based on the prices online, I believe the cost to each of us in the room would have been less than RM 40 per person/night which was a really good deal. Hutton Lodge also has single and double rooms available.

Hutton Lodge, Georgetown, Penang

The hotel was clean, and the staff helpful. Just don’t expect too much in terms of amenities. You get a towel, clean sheets and soap in the shared bathrooms. They also provide free wifi though it was spotty at times. In the morning, you get a free breakfast of toast and banana bread, coffee and tea (which was surprising though, if you ask me, unnecessary—Penang is Food Paradise after all).

Read a fellow blogger’s assessment of Hutton Lodge: Explore Life Lah! Penang – Hutton Lodge

If you walk around Penang, you would find many similar budget hotels all over Georgetown. Most of them were refurbished old houses or shoplots, which lends them a character and charm all their own.

If you are one of those who need more luxury, never fear – several refurbished old shoplots and houses were also used as boutique hotels. We were fortunate enough to visit one boutique hotel, The Boutique Residence at Pitt Street, that was in the process of being set up.

Inside The Boutique Residence at Pitt Street, Georgetown, Penang

While maintaining the original shophouse structure, the interior has been revamped and remodeled with a small pool on the inside. There are only ten rooms, and each room is given a special touch in terms of design and details. If you are planning on visiting Penang soon,  check them out to take advantage of their special opening prices.

Bustling, Noisy, Exciting

Georgetown is a busy city. As you walk around the city, you will find other pedestrians in their daily chores–shopping, eating and carrying on with their business of the day. And crossing the streets is not for the fearful. Though not as bad as Vietnam, you still need some boldness in stepping out to cross the roads. Just don’t make any sudden moves, and you’ll find yourself crossing like a pro in no time at all.

Bustling Georgetown, Penang Streets

Besides the general busy-ness, everywhere you go, there are lots of people. As we walked Chowrasta market and the surrounding streets, we found ourselves hemmed in by people shopping, bicycles laden with goods pushing through the crowds, shopkeepers speaking into a bullhorn to invite you to step in and try their product, and other people  wending their way through to make it to the next street corner.

You can find food, clothes, herbs, spices, plastic wares, toys, shoes, you name it here in Chowrasta, on the streets. Inside the market, there are all types of produce and fresh meats to be bought and upstairs, many treasures in the form of second hand books await your discovery.

Busy scenes in and around Chowrasta Market, Penang

See more great pics of Chowrasta Market and elsewhere by fellow blogger Williamgraphy

When you walk a little further past ChowRasta Market to Little India the scene and sounds change. At every street corner, shops will have Indian Bollywood music blaring out of loudspeakers, inviting you to bounce along as you walk through. The scent of incense and flowers and spicy foods surround you making this part of Georgetown a heady experience.

We found ourselves stopping at a little cart to try out some fried samosas that had been recommended highly by another traveler just here a few weeks ago and they were indeed delicious. And the colours you find in Little India are a photographer’s delight–from bright garlands of flowers, to the colourful saris you find hanging all over, there is much for the eye to take in. I wished Nate were with me then as he is a much better photographer. I tried to do it justice but you’ll just have to take my word that you need to go and explore this place yourself.

Scenes from Little India, Georgetown, Penang

Strolling through Georgetown is a great way to satisfy your taste for exploration. Of course, there also were moments of discontent which marred my visit…

Annie

My budget trip to Penang was sponsored by Project Penang, the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia Penang Office, and AirAsia. Though the itinerary was set for us, my reflections and opinions are entirely my own. Follow along as I explore Georgetown, Penang and see my “home away from home” with new eyes. Subscribe to our blog and get the latest updates sent free to your email Inbox or RSS reader! In the meantime, read fellow blogger Naked Traveler’s roundup of her Penang experience.

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. Penang on a Budget (Part 1)
2. Nasi Kandar Kampong Melayu, Penang
3. Penang’s Bakeshop on a Bike

Satellite dish on a Penang shophouse

Prosperous / Budget.

Bustling, noisy, energetic, dirty / Quiet, peaceful, meditative, clean.

Late. Frustration / Early. Satisfied.

These are all adjectives I would use to describe my time in Penang recently. Penang is such a city of contrasts that sometimes it is hard to put your finger to what makes this city work so well. When I was here this time, I came looking with different eyes.

And what I saw gave me a new perspective on this city that I love.

A different visit

My father’s family is from Penang and I’ve been to Penang countless times, eaten really well there and visited with my family every time I was there. This time, however, the visit was different. Thanks to our friend Cyril at Sarawak Bloggers, I had been invited by Project Penang and the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia Penang Office to join 9 other regional bloggers on a trip out to Penang and experience it as budget travelers. Unfortunately, they couldn’t invite both me and Nate, and since I had some free time available, I got to go solo.

I actually knew this would be an interesting visit for me. You know how when you’re a local, you NEVER do the touristy thing and visit all the interesting sites in your own backyard? Well, that is how it is with me and Penang.

Goddess of Mercy Temple, Penang

Ask me about food and I can tell you about the ones we go to with our families (some also generally popular to all, but many which are more familiar to the locals) but ask me about interesting places to visit in Penang and you’ll find me stumped. I’d venture to say go out to Batu Feringghi for the beaches or to Gurney Drive to walk along the beach there and enjoy the food (but then again, these are things I’ve never really done myself in a long while!).

But ask me about Georgetown, the heart of Penang, and I have no clue at all about the many things you could see and do there. I mean, this is the city that has been placed on UNESCO’s world heritage sites, a place of great historical and cultural significance and yet, I know almost nothing about it.

Georgetown, Penang Historical Sites

Sure, the buildings are beautiful and quaint. But I grew up in that surrounding, always taking them for granted and never really seeing the beauty in them. So this trip opened my eyes to the fact that Georgetown is an amazing city–vibrant, full of contrasts, colors and sounds.

Garlands in Little India, Penang

It gave me a new appreciation for my home away from home. If before, I would always recommend Penang for its foods, I would now say it has the added advantage of being a city full of beauty, not just in the old and beautifully preserved architecture, but also in the living heritage of arts, culture, and crafts that make Penang a unique stop for those who want a taste of the past mingled with the purpose and focus of the present and future.

Taste of living heritage in Penang

So how does Penang work? Why does it work? What is the secret to its success as a city?

Old / Modern

Penang has successfully brought itself into the future with many developments in the city and throughout the island. When I arrived and was driven to the hotel, I realized that Penang is a booming city. There are many new developments all over–new roads and highways, new buildings, shopping malls, houses. In fact, my uncle’s neighbourhood used to be very run down but lately (with the hike in housing prices), his neighbourhood is seeing a surge of new owners with money to spend and many houses have been renovated giving the area a newer feel with beautiful houses taking over dilapidated old houses.

At the same time, as we approached the city, I realized that many of the old shophouses still retained the facades and structures from a long time ago. Even though some had been given a facelift with new paint and restored fixtures, they still kept their quaint, traditional look.

Penang shophouse being refurbished

I used to take this for granted but during this trip, I was reminded that it took money and rules to ensure that the “look” that was Penang would not be lost to modernism. Another blogger from Singapore helped me to understand how precious this heritage was when he commented that so much of what we see in Penang used to exist in Singapore as well. They, along with Malacca, were part of the British "Straits Settlements" but so much of what they tried to preserve in Singapore has become so “white-washed” as to appear fake.

Penang has managed to retain the authenticity and ambience of the buildings by not cleaning it up too much. The paint is not too white, nor are the tiles cleaned up to extreme pristine-ness. There is definitely this feeling of old history as you walk the tiled sidewalks (when you find them!) along the storefronts in Georgetown.

Penang sidewalk scenes

Georgetown is a city made for strolling. Take your time as you walk down these streets. Appreciate the details you see. The buildings are just one thing, there is also the mingling of people (the clothes they wear, the things they do) and again you will see this contrast of old versus modern.

Penang’s Friendly Faces

This budget trip was focused mainly on Georgetown and I realized that so much of the city could be seen on foot, SHOULD be seen that way as the colours, sights and sounds would be best appreciated on foot. In the coming posts, I will give you more details on some of the places I visited.

Cheers, Annie

My budget trip to Penang was sponsored by Project Penang, the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia Penang Office, and AirAsia. Though the itinerary was set for us, my reflections and opinions are entirely my own. Follow along as I explore Georgetown, Penang and see my “home away from home” with new eyes. Subscribe to our blog and get the latest updates sent free to your email Inbox or RSS reader!

Visit some of the other bloggers who joined us on this trip (written in Chinese): OMG~~, 寫攝人Celia的『C遊幗度』, :: 钪凯 ::

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. A Penang Wedding Tea Ceremony
2. Penang’s Bakeshop on a Bike
3. Nasi Kandar Kampong Melayu, Penang

burst into jubilant song with music;

(Lisa Haley photo courtesy Norman Goh)

Make music to the LORD with the harp,

with the harp and the sound of singing,

Blue Canyon Boys

With trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—

shout for joy before the LORD, the King.

Peter Orinda / Kenge Kenge

Let the sea resound, and everything in it,

the world, and all who live in it.

Sunset at Santubong, Sarawak

Let the rivers clap their hands,

let the mountains sing together for joy;

Leweton Women’s Water Group

Let them sing before the LORD…

James Riley / Paddy Keenan Trio

Fond memories from our time at the 2011 Rainforest World Music Festival meld with the celebratory spirit of Christmas. We wish you and your family a joyous holiday season.

Merry Christmas, Selamat Hari Natal, and Mele Kalikimaka from House of Annie!

Cheers and Aloha, Annie and Nate

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. Merry Christmas from House of Annie
2. We’re Going to the Rainforest World Music Festival
3. Merry Christmas from the House of Annie

Following my sister’s Hawaiian-style wedding reception, Annie and I had an intimate dinner for 2 at the venerable Alan Wong’s Restaurant to celebrate her 40th birthday.

Alan Wong’s is one of the most recognised, award-winning fine dining establishments in Honolulu. It was noted as one of the Top 10 best restaurants in the nation by Gourmet Magazine in 2006. Presidents and chiefs of state dine there. Chef Alan Wong himself, credited as one of the founding fathers of Hawaii Regional Cuisine, garnered the James Beard Foundation award for Best American Chef – Northwest in 1996. It has a well-deserved reputation.

Annie has long wanted to go to Alan Wong’s but we never got the chance to during our previous trips back home to Hawaii. So when we started planning for this latest trip for my sister’s wedding, she made her wish very clear: “You better take me to Alan Wong’s!”

About a month before we left, I called them and made the reservation.

A Warm Welcome

Alan Wong’s is not your typical fine-dining establishment. It is not located at the street level of a neighborhood known for fancy eateries. Instead, it is located in Mo’ili’ili, a working-class neighborhood east of downtown Honolulu, on the third floor of a non-descript office building.

When we stepped out of the elevator, however, we were warmly welcomed by the staff and shown to our table in the windowed room looking out over Mo’ili’ili. These tables were for the smaller duo and quartet parties, while the main dining room housed the tables for larger parties. The exterior room felt comfortably intimate whereas the interior room was busily boisterous.

Exterior and Interior Dining Rooms at Alan Wong’s

We were informed by the staff that some of our very dear friends from San Jose, hearing of the occasion, had banded together and bought us a gift certificate to Alan Wong’s, sufficient to cover our dinner that evening. That act of kindness totally blew us away! A dinner at a restaurant like this doesn’t come cheap, as evidenced by the menu (personally signed by all the staff):

Signed Alan Wong’s Menu

We decided to share the 5-course tasting menu and add a couple of extra appetizers to round out the meal.

Local Food, Hawaii-Style

Alan Wong’s shares the same “local and sustainable, farm-to-table” sentiments as other leading Mainland restaurants such as Chez Panisse and Manresa. One thing it cannot match, though, is “seasonal”, because Hawaii, being a tropical place, doesn’t have seasonal produce (unless you can call “got mango or no got mango” seasons). Still, there is a wide variety of ingredients available to work with, and the kitchen staff take pains to put out a top-quality dish that reflects the various cultures that make up Hawaii.

First to arrive was a grilled cheese sandwich made with kalua pig and mozzarella, sitting atop a parmesan crisp which was balanced over a chilled tomato soup. Alongside it was a plate of ahi poke. Each of the components individually were tasty and well executed. However we didn’t see how they worked together.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich, Chilled Tomato Soup and Ahi Poke

We had ordered a couple of opihi shooters which are narrow glass flutes containing opihi (limpets) with tomato water, fresh herbs, a grape tomato and an olive as well. Everything was on the salty side, save for the micro-shiso at the top. It was a bit difficult to eat because everything is jammed in and doesn’t slide out of the flute easily. We managed to maneuver the small opihi that was wedged into the bottom of the glass using the straw, but it wasn’t easy.

Alan Wong’s Opihi Shooter

What is this?

Next to arrive was the lobster bisque. This was a strange one. It was thick and hearty, almost like a stew. And it was missing something: lobster flavor. It wasn’t enjoyable.

When our salad arrived (“Hamakua Springs Tomato, Beet and Avocado Salad with Li Hing Mui Vinaigrette”), we dug in, expecting something like the salad we had at Chez Panisse. It wasn’t. I know, we shouldn’t compare one restaurant’s beet salad to another but still, one can’t help but reminisce about a good dish such as that one. One legitimate complaint we have about his salad is that the li hing vinaigrette is too strong – it overpowers the fresh flavors of all the component veggies.

Alan Wong’s Lobster Bisque and Hamakua Springs Salad

Getting Better

The Seafood “Lasagne” was very nice – pieces lobster, scallop and shrimp wrapped in a single lasagne noodle which was then filled with a cioppino sauce, topped with cheese and baked. We cleaned this dish up and pined for more.

Also good was “Da Bag” – an appetizer of clams and kalua pig, steamed inside a large foil pouch. It comes to you still wrapped, and the waiters then pierce the foil and unwrap the steaming hot dish. The clams had picked up some of the smokiness of the kalua pig, making them irresistible.

Alan Wong’s Seafood Lasagne and “Da Bag” of Clams and Kalua Pig

Finally, the main entrees arrived. The Ginger Crusted Onaga is one of Alan Wong’s signature dishes. It hearkens back to his Chinese roots, taking the flavors of steamed ginger chicken and marrying it into a panko crust. The fish is served atop some sweet Kahuku corn amidst a pool of miso-sesame vinaigrette. This was THE entree of the night, I would say.

Alan Wong’s version of “surf and turf” – a large shrimp sitting atop a twice cooked (braised and grilled) shortrib – was not so well done. The shrimp was cooked well, but the beef we thought had been overcooked. The meat was fall-apart tender, but tough and dry, and the kochujang sauce did not help. Too bad.

Alan Wong’s Ginger Crusted Onaga and “Surf and Turf”

Dessert Saves the Day

Annie ordered the Strawberries Romanoff for dessert, and that turned out to be the best dish of the night, and the dinner’s saving grace. Sweet Kula strawberries swimming in a strawberry-hibiscus soup, surrounding a delicious goat cheese panna cotta and topped with a wafer of white chocolate and goat cheese sorbet. Yum!

Alan Wong’s Strawberries Romanoff

Of course, the staff had also prepared a special birthday-decorated dessert for Annie. It was coconut sorbet in a chocolate half-shell, designed to look exactly like a coconut, overflowing with fresh fruits. Also very nice. What we especially liked was that the staff obliged us when I requested they not sing “Happy Birthday” for everyone to hear (Annie was shy).

Alan Wong’s Coconut Dessert

Adding it all up

Altogether, the bill came to over $140 including two glasses of wine and sales tax. This wasn’t as expensive as Manresa, Chez Panisse, or even Sushi-Man but we still feel like the food could have been a little better for the price. The service and staff were excellent, though.

The food was plated beautifully, but the flavors themselves didn’t sing. The dishes doesn’t make us want to go back. I think that the fact that Alan Wong’s can get the same ingredients year-round kinda leads to a complacency. Maybe if you’re not challenged to work with a new ingredient every month, you don’t feel the need to take a risk with the food.

But what do I know? Maybe I’m just a picky eater. Hundreds of other people would disagree with my assessment.

Have you been underwhelmed at a fine dining restaurant? Leave us a comment and share your story!

I’m only giving it 4 stars out of 5. Like Chez Panisse, I would go there once just to experience it for myself. But I wouldn’t go back. There’s just too many other chefs out there (like Chef Siu from Pah Ke’s in Kaneohe), applying their creative visions to local food, that also need to be tried.

Aloha, Nate

Alan Wong’s Restaurant
1857 South King Street
Honolulu, HI 96826

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Other reviews of Alan Wong’s by: Food Gal Carolyn Jung, Don George on Gadling, Cat at the Daily Dish, Arnold on Inuyaki, and Gigi-Hawaii,

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. A Hawaiian-Style Wedding Reception
2. Pah Ke’s Chinese Restaurant, Kaneohe
3. Hank’s Haute Dogs, Honolulu Review

Authentic Chicago hot dogs, and more, found in the heart of Honolulu.

Hank’s Haute Dogs

It occurs to me that I haven’t finished blogging about all the places we ate at when we last visited Hawaii for my sister’s wedding back in February. One of those places is Hank’s Haute Dogs, located in the Kaka’ako district of urban Honolulu. Our friend Billy (who introduced us to Pah Ke’s Chinese Restaurant in Kaneohe) arranged to meet us there for lunch.

Claims to Fame

Hank’s Haute Dogs was opened by Henry (Hank) Adaniya, who has roots in Hawaii but made his fame owning the five-star Trio Restaurant in Chicago. After closing down Trio, Hank wanted to try something different. Hank’s Haute Dogs has only been open for a few years, but, thanks to his commitment to top quality food and service, has garnered such attention and accolades that they opened another store in Waikiki as well as a new “popup” restaurant in downtown Honolulu. Hank’s has even been featured on Food Network’s Diner’s, Drive-Ins and Dives, and on Travel Channel’s Man Vs. Food Nation.

Hank’s Haute Dogs Menu

When you walk in to the joint, you are immediately faced with the ordering counter and the menu board high up behind it. The first thing you notice is that this is not a cheap place. The prices start at 5 bucks for a regular Chicago dog (probably because they actually fly in the Vienna Beef dogs from Chicago) and go up from there.

The “haute” (as in “high cuisine”) dogs are featured on the left-hand menu board. These haute dogs feature different kinds of sausages from the local-style Portuguese sausage to chicken to bratwurst. Those dogs range from 5.50 on up.

Hank’s Haute Dogs Menu and Prices

What really sets Hank’s apart, though are his Weekly Specials. Each day of the week, they feature a different sausage. It’s hard to say which one is the most popular but lots of people enthuse about the Lobster Sausage. Me, I think I’d want to try the Duck and Foie Gras sausage.

How about you? Which sausage would you like to try? Leave us a comment below!

Hank’s Haute Dogs Weekly Specials

Since we were there on a Monday, we went with the Chicago Italian Beef Sandwich and some Truffled Mac-and-Cheese. We placed our order, paid (cash only, no cards!) for it and got our drinks. You have a choice to either sit inside on stools at a bar along the wall, outside under the canopy, or at picnic tables around the corner. We chose to sit indoors where we could read all the media clippings on the wall.

Hank’s Haute Dogs Kaka’ako Seating Options

Our Italian Beef Sandwich arrived, wrapped in paper and nestled in a paper tray. The sandwich roll had some heft to it, as it was needed to hold the sweet Italian sausage smothered in thinly-sliced tender beef and juices and garnished with sweet peppers. It was very good! We devoured it in no time.

Hank’s Italian Beef Sandwich

The Truffled Mac n Cheese was also good – not so heavy as the one we sampled at Alexander’s Steakhouse in Cupertino. The fresh-cut, double-fried Awesome French Fries were addictive. After finishing those off, we found that we still had a bit more room – the Italian Beef Sandwish wasn’t filling enough, I guess. So we ordered a ChiDog with the works – including the neon-green relish.

Hank’s Haute Dogs – Chicago Dog

This was actually the first real Chicago dog I’ve ever eaten. There used to be a ChiDog place back in the South Bay when we were living in San Jose, but it closed down before we got a chance to visit. I’m sorry I missed it because this ChiDog was tasty! I love the dill pickle’s crunch and the “snap” of the beef frank as you bite into it. Like the Italian Beef before it, this dog was gone in a flash.

We had just enough room to left to order the crème brûlée for dessert. (Yeah, I know. What’s a hot dog joint doing serving crème brûlée? Well this is an haute dog establishment after all…) The crème brûlée was nice, but nowhere near as perfect as the one we enjoyed at Bistro Moulin in Monterey.

All in all, a good meal and a place I would want to visit again. Rating: 4 out of 5

Hank’s Haute Dogs
324 Coral St
Honolulu, HI 96813

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Other reviews of Hank’s Haute Dogs by The Tasty Island, Straight Out of Kampung, Champuru, and The Fashionably-Forward Foodie

Aloha, Nate

Stay tuned, as we’ve got yet another Hawaiian fine dining establishment to review. Subscribe now to receive our latest posts free to your email Inbox or RSS reader. Or join the fun and interact with us on our Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter as well!

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. Alan Wong’s Restaurant, Honolulu Review
2. Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, Honolulu
3. Mana Bu’s Musubi (Honolulu)

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion Doorway

I Can See Clearly Now, the Rain is Gone

The previous night’s Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony was a rainy affair, so it was a good thing the dinner was held underneath a large canopy. The next day, however, was bright and radiant, just like the bride. She was relaxing upstairs in one of the suites, enjoying the coolness of the air conditioning while the groom and his party were going through a series of “trials” to get past her bridesmaids to her.

I Can See All Obstacles in My Way

“Fetching the Bride” is one part of the traditional Chinese wedding activities. This is the stage where the groom is supposed to prove his worthiness and love for the bride to her bridesmaids. The girls had devised a number of trials and tests for him and his men to either endure or bribe their way through.

We had arrived a bit late, so we missed the first few tests. But here is one that the guys were going through when we got there: applying eyeliner to each other. Another painful test was making the guys wear high heels while walking up the stairs.

Fetch the Bride Game: Eyeliner

At the top of the stairs, the girls tested the groom on his intimate knowledge of the bride: out of six lipstick kisses, which lips were hers? He had three guesses, and one wrong guess meant he had to pay a big bribe to the bridesmaid in order to guess again. (He made two wrong guesses and ended up paying a hefty ransom!)

Fetch the Bride Game: Lipstick

Have you seen or participated in a “Fetching the Bride” game? What games were played? Leave a comment and share with the rest of us!

Gone are the Dark Clouds that Had Me Blind

For the final test, they made him play the guitar and serenade the bride with a song. Unfortunately it was too dark in the hallway so I couldn’t get a good video of him singing. But it was really a cute moment when he finished his song, and they opened the door to the suite. He went in on his knees to deliver the bouquet and lift her veil, thus signaling his acceptance.

Fetching the Bride: Inside

Gonna Be a Bright, Bright, Sunshiny Day

Afterward, we all went outside into the hot sun to take some more wedding pics. There was a trishaw set up in the Mansion’s driveway with a “Just Married” sign on it. After all the different wedding party pics were taken, the driver took the newlywed couple out for a little spin around the block by themselves. The rest of use went inside to have some light refreshments.

Look All Around, There’s Nothin’ But Blue Skies

The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion is also known as the “Blue Mansion” thanks to its distinctive, indigo-dyed walls. The Mansion was originally built in the late 1800’s by Cheong Fatt Tze, a businessman, banker, and politician who was known as the “Rockefeller of the East” who had built a great merchant empire all over Southeast Asia. His home base was Penang, where he chose to build his most elaborate mansion, reminiscent of his native China but filled with artwork and other lavish features from around the world.

Look Straight Ahead, Nothin’ but Blue Skies

In the middle of the main hall is the open-air courtyard. There is actually no roof over the courtyard, so daylight illuminates the courtyard directly. It is a particularly breath-taking sight when you first walk through the doors. Take look at this 360* panoramic view of the courtyard.

Here is the Rainbow I’ve Been Prayin’ For

Since it was close to lunchtime, we wedding guests were served a light meal of nasi lemak and colorful Nonya kueh. These sweet, steamed cakes made from glutinous rice or tapioca starch, flavored with pandan or coconut (or both) were a big hit. Especially the pulut inti topped with fresh kaya – yum!

It’s Gonna Be a Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day

While we were eating, the bride and groom came back to have more pictures taken inside the courtyard. Finally, we started packing up to clear out for another party. But I seriously wouldn’t mind coming back to the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion on our own, just to take the tour and walk around, maybe even stay for a night (they have 16 rooms for rent).

The Mansion had been saved from decay and destruction in the 1990’s and painstakingly repaired and restored to its original splendor. There is so much wonderful architecture and artwork to take in, it’s a photographer’s delight. I just love all the colors and textures you can find everywhere you look.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion Door Knocker

If you’re in Penang, make plans to see the Mansion. If you aren’t planning to stay overnight, you can take one of the three daily guided tours of the place for a measly fee of 12 ringgit. But I think in order to get the full experience you’ll have to stay overnight.

Aloha, Nate

We’ve got more Penang travel posts coming up, so subscribe now to receive our latest posts free to your email Inbox or RSS reader. Or join the fun and interact with us on our Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter as well!

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. A Penang Wedding Tea Ceremony
2. Penang on a Budget (Part 1)

Let the Eating Begin

As soon as the kids got out of school here in Kuching, we hopped on a plane to KL, then drove with Mum and Dad up to Penang. What was the first thing we did when we arrived at Annie’s uncle’s place? Go out to eat, of course! Assam Laksa and Char Kway Teow, right off the bat!

After a brief rest, we all bundled off to another relative’s house for the evening’s festivities. They had set up a big tent, tables and chairs in the front yard – all colored in festive red. As guests arrived, they pulled up a chair and sat down to a meal of traditional Penang Chinese wedding dishes.

From back to front: Steamed veggies, loh bak – minced pork wrapped in tofu skin and deep fried, curry chicken, egg fu yong, and acar – pickled veggies with crushed peanuts. (Not seen: a restorative bowl of pig stomach soup with white pepper – yum!) As the serving plates were emptied, they would be refilled with more food. The homemade acar was delicious – sweet and crunchy and full of Nyonya flavors. It was the first dish to run out!

Tea Time

The bride and groom arrived and they made way around the tables, greeting family and friends. They didn’t have too much time to eat, though, as the tea ceremony would soon begin. As the implements were set up, everyone began to migrate inside the house.

The Chinese wedding tea ceremony serves as the “formal” introduction of the groom to the bride’s family and vice versa. The couple serves a small cup of sweet longan and red date tea to their parents, grandparents, and family elders in turns, while addressing them with the proper honorific title. After the tea is served, the couple receives a gift of money enclosed in an ang pow (red packet) or jewelry, often with a word of blessing or advice.

(More information on the Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony here.)

It’s a fun exercise, especially when the groom (like me) comes from another culture and is just learning how to call all the uncles and aunties for the first time. There is much laughter involved, as the groom is gently teased for stumbling or mis-pronouncing a name. Sometimes, the elders will just dispose of tradition and hand over the red packet without sitting for the tea. The tea ceremony can be quite lucrative for the couple, especially if they have a very large extended family!

After the uncles and aunts are served, next come the elder married siblings and cousins. Annie and I had the most fun here, because we not only represented ourselves but her two brothers as well who couldn’t make the trip to Penang.

Here’s the blogger’s eye view of things:

Finally, the younger and unmarried cousins get to participate when they receive a red packet gift from the wedding couple. In such way, the tradition is passed down from generation to generation.

Large extended families are becoming rarer these days, as the younger generations choose not to have as many children as their parents did. Chinese tea ceremonies may not be such big affairs in the future. So I am grateful that I got to participate in them, both with our own wedding as well as this cousin’s wedding.

Family Portrait

The After-Party

After most of the guests had gone, the aunties and uncles gathered around the table to drink, chit-chat, and eat some more. Even we cousins also took the opportunity to head out for some supper and drinks outside. It was 1 am before we all crawled into bed. Hey, when in Penang, do as the Penang-ites do!

The bride and groom went back to their hotel to get some rest. The next morning, the groom and his party would play “fetch the bride”. More fun, which we will cover in our next post…

Aloha, Nate

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Hungry for more? Click below:

1. Fetching Bride at Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, Penang
2. Penang on a Budget (Part 1)
3. Penang’s Bakeshop on a Bike

Ferrari F430 Spider: Vroom Vroom!

This weekend, I switched the House of Annie’s web hosting service from Go Daddy to InMotion Hosting.  I’ve been wanting to switch to a different host for a while now. With our Go Daddy hosting contract up for renewal this month, I decided it was time to make the switch. And I’m glad I did!

Go Duddy

I’ve been using Go Daddy ever since we moved off of BlogSpot over a year ago. They are the undisputed leader in domain registration, and also offer value-added services such as domain hosting, at attractive prices.

But the downside of being the biggest web hosting service is that you have millions of websites to serve up. Not all of them are very active but if one or more of them starts to get a lot of traffic, then access to the others is affected.

Recently, our site experienced some excessive slowness and hiccups, resulting in pages not loading, or loading very, very slowly.  At one point, it was even saying that it couldn’t find any of our posts! Can you imagine how panicked I was then?

I messaged Go Daddy’s support on Twitter and they messaged me back. I explained to them my problem and they came back saying that there was nothing wrong. Then they blamed my Yet Another Related Posts plugin for causing the issue. Then they tried to upsell me on their next highest level of hosting service.

I was pretty ticked off at that point. Eventually, the problem “fixed” itself, without the Go Daddy support team doing anything other than telling me their server was fine. The next day I started looking for a new web host in earnest.

In Motion

The speed of our site is very important to me. I’m actually a bit obsessive about page speed. The longer someone has to wait for a page to load, the more likely they are to give up and go to another site. I want to do everything I can to make the site faster to give visitors a reason to stay.

Most of the page loading time is dependent on the user’s ISP, how a webpage is coded, and how good the caching is. But page loading speed is also dependent on the hosting company. One thing I liked when I researched InMotion Hosting is that they let you choose which data center you want to be hosted from, to be closer to the users who most often visit. They also have peering connections with other large ISPs. All this boils down to faster loading times for most of our users.

I contacted their sales team using the live chat interface on their website. They responded immediately, understood all my questions about moving the site, and answered them all to my satisfaction. The best part was, he let me know about a special offer on their 2 year hosting plan that wasn’t advertised on their site. It worked out to about $5/month, which was very reasonable to me.

I decided to take them up on their offer.

Moving Over

They moved the entire site’s files from Go Daddy’s servers over to their servers, set up the database and configured WordPress for the new setup. ALL FOR FREE.

All I had to do was tell Go Daddy that the houseofannie.com site was now being hosted on InMotion’s servers.  That part was pretty quick and painless. I did run into a hiccup though.

While the main site loaded fine, I found I could not log in to the WordPress administration panel. After I entered my password, it would display some encoded text instead. I tried to figure it out on my own but eventually had to throw in the towel. I clicked on the live chat to their support team.

Again, they answered immediately and understood my problem. The tech tried a couple of things which didn’t work. Then he had me open a trouble ticket with their online HelpDesk. I was fearful that I would have to reload everything from scratch.

About an hour later, they responded by email that they found the problem and fixed it. (It had to do an obscure command in the .htaccess file to enable zlib compression – told you I was a bit obsessive about speed!) I don’t think Go Daddy’s tech support could have figured it out, but the InMotion guys really impressed me.

Turbocharged

The best part about moving over was when I went to Pingdom Tools and tested access to the site. Previously when the site was on Go Daddy, pages would take between 4-6 seconds to load. After the move to InMotion, they take around 2-3 seconds to load.

That’s right, the site now loads in HALF THE TIME!

Am I happy I switched to InMotion Hosting? You betcha!

If you’re not happy with your hosting service, I recommend InMotion Hosting. If you click on the link to sign up with them, I get a free month of web hosting. But even if they weren’t giving free hosting for referrals, I’d still recommend them.

I’m working on another piece of the puzzle to make the site faster, but it’s not ready for primetime yet. As soon as it is, you’ll be the first to know. Until, then, please enjoy browsing around the newly turbocharged site.

Aloha, Nate

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. Stop, Thief! (Part 1)

Before we go on with our normal, non-Royal Selangor Jelly Mould-related posts, here is the Royal Roundup, a retrospective of all thirty-one (we posted two creations on Day 28)! We have our favorites, but we can’t choose which one is our absolute favorite creation. Would you like to choose for us?

Which One’s Your Favorite?

Have a look at all of of the jelly mould creations here, and leave a comment below to tell me which one you think is the best.

Day 1-4

Day 5-8

Day 9-12

Day 13-16

Day 17-20

Day 21-24

Day 25-28

Day 28-31

Which one do you like the best? Leave a comment and let me know!

Aloha, Nate

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. Fruit Ice Jellies
2. Rice Krispies treats
3. Tamarind-Ancho Chile Popsicle

The End

Well we’ve made it to the end of our 30-day Royal Selangor Jellyriffic Challenge. I can’t believe it! Not only have we created something new each day using the Royal Selangor Jelly Mould, we have BLOGGED about it for 30 days straight! If you ask me, that’s the toughest thing about this challenge. Coming up with recipes and pictures is one thing. Coming up with words to say about it is another thing entirely.

I do want to thank Royal Selangor for asking us to do this. It has forced us to push our boundaries. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to win the trip to KL and the camera. But at the same time, I feel like I’ve already gotten so much out of this challenge, just from the new things that we’ve created and also the new friends we’ve made in the other bloggers who took this journey with us.

Final Blowout

We wanted to do a massive blowout jelly creation for our final creation, but it’s actually not done yet as of this writing. So it’s back to a backup.

This creation is thanks to our reader and friend J, who suggested to us over Facebook that we could try doing a gelatina artistica jelly as one of our creations. We’d never heard about gelatina artistica before, but here is a YouTube video that can give you a clue:

Gulp! That artist makes it look so easy!

Anyway, we thought, what the heck, we’d give it a shot. So we managed to procure some syringes and then made some clear konnyaku jelly to play around with.

The first of our creations was made using just water, konnyaku and food coloring. The jelly ended up looking more like a stained glass window than a pretty flower. But we just wanted to get a feel for what needed to be done.

3D Stained Glass Jelly

The next time, we used milk and konnyaku to give the color more of a “solid” look.  This worked out a little better. I was actually able to do something like a flower, with yellow stamens and pink petals.  But since the syringe needle is only so long, I wasn’t able to get much coloring near the point of the cone.

3D Konnyaku Flower

For the jellies that I made today, I used less konnyaku than usual in the clear jelly. This resulted in the cone slumping into something that looked more like a breast with a stiff nipple. This is actually appropos to the whole month’s theme of Breast Cancer Awareness!

After I made the firework jelly (seen at the top of the post), I thought I’d try making a pink ribbon inside the second jelly. Here is the result:

3D Pink Ribbon Konnyaku Breast

Yeah, I know it’s not the best looking pink ribbon design you’ve ever seen. I’m not as expert at gelatina artistica as those professionals. But I think it represents what a person going through breast cancer has to deal with – it’s not as neat as you want it to be. Getting through it was not easy, and there were many times I wanted to just quit and do something else. But I persevered.

A New Beginning

I do want to thank you, dear readers, for following along with us on this challenging journey. It’s been an ordeal for us to produce 30 daily posts, but it also must have been tough for you out there to read all of them!

I can’t promise you that we’ll continue with daily blogging, but I do feel like my “blogging engine” is revving and eager to keep running. You’re not going to see as many conical creations in the near future. But we do have a LOT of things to blog about, like all the trips we’ve been on, the places we’ve been eating at, the new foods we’re discovering here in Sarawak, and of course the recipes we’ve been making in our own kitchen.

I’m more excited about blogging and connecting with you than I have been in a long time. You will see new things on the blog coming soon! As always, we are passionate and committed to being a useful blog, bringing you Real Good Food.

Aloha, Nate

To all of our new readers who have come over from the Jellyriffic Challenge home page, I do hope that you will stick around to see what else we’ve got in store. The best way to do that is by signing up for a free subscription to our blog updates. You can either get them sent to your email inbox, or to your RSS reader. Sign up today!

Hungry for more? Click below:

1. Say “Hello” to More Little Friends