Penang (Day 4)

On our final morning there before we headed for the airport, C took us to Kapitan for brunch. It was an Indian food joint and she highly recommended the briyani. Princess wasn't keen on the food at first but later agreed to have the banana prata. Unfortunately, they didn't have any pratas that day so she settled on white rice with some tikka masala gravy.

Hubby went for the tandoori chicken set with garlic naan.

C ordered the chicken tikka masala.

And I had the nasi briyani ayam (chicken).

After a tiring morning, she fell asleep in the plane and refused to wake up even though we were landing. Haha.

Thanks to C, I managed to go to quite a number of shops and also thanks for all the recommendations. These are the stuff I bought.

A variety of cake boxes. :D

This concludes my bumper post on Penang. :)

Penang (Day 3)

Before we left on our holiday, I had put aside one day for hubby and princess to spend the day at the hotel, doing fun things like swimming or playing games at Lil Rock or the Teen club. I didn't think it was fair to bring them around to shop all day. Besides, we had a gorgeous pool and facilities for kids. Hubby was very nice and agreed that he'd accompany her while C took me around to the bake shops, meet another blogger friend for lunch, as well as do some shopping.

For Lil Rocks, there is an acitivity plan for each day, starting at 10am for registration, followed by a cooking class at 10.30am, swimming at 11am, etc etc. I had enquired the day before and the person-in-charge told me that they make pizzas etc with the chef at the pizzeria right beside the Lil Rocks playroom. However, when hubby took her there to sign up for the Lil Chef class, apparently they were not prepared as they didn't think anyone would sign up for that. What a bummer. They told hubby to bring her back in 15mins while they prepared some muffins for her to decorate. Hubby was kidding that they'd probably grab a few muffins off the breakfast buffet and give them to her to decorate, which they did! They gave her some chocolate sauce and a packet of M&M's and that was it. Hubby felt that it was a bit boring but princess said she enjoyed herself so I guess that's what's most important. She did decline to take the muffins with her. All she wanted to do was play with the decor. Haha. I don't blame her, the muffins were not great-tasting.

They hit the pool right after the Lil Chef activity and she made 2 little friends there. Here's the all-time favourite slide.

There's a pool which has sand at the bottom, almost like the base of the ocean. Very nice. She got to build some little sandcastles there.

After swimming and lunch, they played some indoor games at the Teen's Club which had the xbox, Wii, computers, etc. They also had pool & foosball tables.

Our plan for our last evening there was to dine at the Hard Rock Cafe. Pathetically, they did not have any available tables, even though we said we were guests. She said the reservation was full. Anyhow, I felt that the cafe was too small. They should really have made it bigger with the space they have. We could have pushed for it but we didn't, as the smell of cigarettes was overwhelming, and we had a child and baby with us. So we decided to dine at the Pizzeria instead. I couldn't bear for C to drive up and down all day, so instead of having her pick up hubby and girl from hotel to go town to eat again, we decided this was the best decision. I have to say I was really disappointed with the menu at the Pizzeria. Choices were very limited and they didn't even have a basic Pomodoro seeing that this is a family hotel. However, I did request it for the Princess, and the chef agreed to do it. My guess is that it wasn't as good as the one she ate at Jemputree since she hardly touched her dinner.

Banana milkshake for the princess.

Breadsticks to go with dips below. This was lovely.

Antipasto for C.

Seafood pizza for all to share.

Pomodoro

Crabmeat fettucine, although there were more prawns than crabmeat in there.

Calzone with ham & cheese if I'm not wrong.

Penang (Day 2 Part 2) - Jemputree

C was very considerate towards princess who didn't take too well to street food. Thus she suggested this place in town where it will be an awesome experience for the child and the child is us to dine on a treetop. It was a wonderful choice, not just for the experience, but also for the delicious food. The nasi lemak is to die for, and all the sedap sambal and rendang gravy, yum yum. The rice was the best I've ever tasted.

Hubby opted for an equally fiery Tom Yum seafood soup to go with plain rice.

This young coconut juice was for him to counteract the spiciness of the soup. Hehe.

C ordered an Ikan Bakar, which means bbq or grilled fish to share.

Cucur Ikan Bilis, anchovies fried in flour is one of their specialties and we all loved this dish. It was totally addictive. We (baby and kid included) just couldn't stop eating them. :)

Hubby loved this cucur pisang which we ordered two portions of.

Unfortunately we were more interested in eating than taking photos, so we do not have pictures of the place. You can check it out here for some.

Penang (Day 2 Part 2) - Penang Hill

Following our very heavy lunch, we made our way to Penang Hill. Tickets were bought beforehand for the 3pm trip up the funicular railway. This was the highlight of this trip for Princess as she had read about it in her book.

We got there a half hour too early for our timeslot and tried to get on the earlier trains but they were filled to the brim. I really wasn't looking forward to this trip but hubby reminded me that that was what princess wanted to do, and that it's boring for her to go round the malls, as much as it was for me to ride on this train. Oh well.

This is what it typically looks like in the cabins, with passengers squashed in to each other. There were only a few seats in the cabins and they were mostly given up for the elderly and the young children. The ascend up the hill felt longer than it should have due to the discomfort of having people squash you in, left, right and centre. And not to mention the heat. There was no ventilation whatsoever. I do look forward to next Feb when they close to make huge renovations to the railway. Apparently when it's done, the air-conditioned cabins can take up to 150 people per trip and there will be more seats in them.

Scenes along the way...

Are we there yet?

Finally, views from the top.

That's Penang Bridge in the background... awesome piece of architecture.

There was a lady up the hill who sold these grasshoppers for RM$1 each. We got two of those. Aren't they pretty?

Coming down the hill, we were cramped in the cabins for over 15mins with no signs of the train moving. For whatever reason, I have no idea. Verdict after the trip uphill... Me to hubby & princess: 'So now, which was more enjoyable? The trip up the hill or the mall?'. Their answers, 'The Mall'. I rest my case.

Our Penang Trip (Day 2 Part 1) - New World Park

We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, Penang, which was only opened in September this year. The Beatles were with us everywhere we went, from the lobby to the headboard in our room and everywhere else in the hotel. The funpool was the best part of the hotel, entertaining the kids with the water slides, etc. Princess and hubby spent an entire day at the hotel on our second last day there, playing in the pool as well as in the special rooms dedicated to the kids, where there were pool tables, xbox & Wii game consoles and even a drumset to play on. As the hotel provides buffet breakfast each morning, we tended to eat before we went out.

This was what we had for breakfast at the hotel. They offered a wide buffet selection but I did not take any pictures of those. The freshly-cooked omelette was my favourite part of the buffet and the saute mushrooms were a favourite with lots of guests.

C had it all planned out on where to take us. She was a wonderful host who couldn’t wait to share with us all the yummy food of her hometown. We weren’t that great with eating too much thus we took it slow. Even so, we went straight off to lunch after our breakfast and I thought we didn’t do too badly that day. She drove us to New World Park where you will find a very nice and modern food centre somewhat like our East Coast Lagoon. There you get a wide choice of food items. There are also a few eateries in that compound, namely Old Town Coffee, a Peranakan cafe and I can’t recall what else I saw.

This is the huge array of food that we had for lunch... (I think only big photos can do justice to the delicious food). ;)

Prawn Noodles or Hae Mee

Fishball Noodles or Mee Tng

Lor Bak or what we would call Ngoh Hiang here in Singapore.

Otah

Chee Cheong Fun

Steamed Yam Cake

Glutinous Rice Dumpling or Bak Chang