Chuan Yee Charcoal Steamboat, Penang

Date visited : 30 June 2018

For a very long time now, I have stopped eating commercial steamboats because I find it boring and pointless. The ingredients are the same and the soup base is always the same few choices, tom yam or clear herbal soup. 

I was watching a Korean variety show on YouTube one day and it was about a couple who went for a honeymoon in Penang and this is one of the food places highly recommended by the couple. So I took note of it and decided that I had to try it out myself to see if it was really as good as they claimed it to be.

Today was the day and it was not just good, it was on a OH MY GOD IT IS DELICIOUS kind of level!

What's different about the steamboat here is that they uses the old school kind of steamboat pot where it uses burning charcoal to keep the soup boiling. 

The charcoal is at the bottom of the round chimney looking thing in the middle of the pot. There are 3 sets of soup base. Set A is for Fish Head, you can choose either fried or fresh fish head. Set B is for Fish Fillet and Set C is without fish. For all 3 sets, you can choose to have milk added into the soup base or without.

I chose Set B with milk added to the soup base and the ingredients included are Fried Fish Fillet, Homemade Meat Ball, White Fish Ball, Cabbage, Abalone Mushroom, Tofu Pok, Enoki Mushrooms and Seaweed.

After you have placed your order, you can then help yourself with the variety of sauces available according to your own preferences.

They have their own made chilli sauce, ginger sauce, garlic sauce, cili padi in soy sauce, dark soy sauce, shallots in garlic and lime juice, spring onions and few others. You can mix them however you want.

Unlike most steamboat places, their soup is served with all the ingredients already in the pot. The only ingredient served separately is the Fried Fish Fillet.

This Fried Fish Fillet is not just any fried fish fillet. The Fried Fish Fillet here is delicious! It is very tasty and it can be eaten just like that or dipped into the soup.

Another item that you HAVE to order is their Fried Fish Skin. It is so light, crispy and tasty. It is so good that I wanted to order one pack of these to go and eaten as snacks.

I also ordered a serving of pork slices and all these are enough for 3 person. They also have other ingredients that you could top up such as prawns, bean curd skin and etc. We didn't even have to order noodles or rice and by the time we were finished, we had to carry our stomachs out of this place.

The soup base was nothing I have ever tasted before. It is well seasoned, light and sweet. Even with milk added into the soup, it does not feel thick or creamy. The seasoning is not overwhelming to the point that will make you feel thirsty after. My friend loved the soup so much that he wanted to pack the leftover soup home to cook his noodles with.

If you happen to be in Penang, you HAVE to give this a try. I would also recommend either you come here at 6pm or call to make a reservation before hand to avoid the long wait. I arrived at 6pm, so I managed to get a table easily but by 6.30pm, the place was already packed!

OUR RATING

Ambience : 4/5

Service : 4.5/5

Food Quality : OH MY GOD/5

Price Range : $$

Status : Non-Halal

Other information:

Address : No 5 Jalan Kek Chuan, Georgetown, 10400 Penang.

Contact No. : 017-401 5447 / 04-227 3012

Business Hours : 6pm - 11pm (Closed on Wednesdays)

Raja Uda Tomyam Porridge, Butterworth

Date visited : 14 October 2017

A friend recommended for me to try out this place more than a year ago but we were out of luck because we happened to visit on the day that it was closed. I almost lucked out again when it was closed yesterday for an emergency but thank goodness I had the chance to make a second attempt during this trip.

There's no signboard of any sort at the shopfront, so I guess you just need to depend on Waze or Google Maps to find this place. Just search for Raja Uda Famous Kwong Wah Tom Yam Noodles.

This place is only open in the evening till late night and this place is packed most of the time.

The best part about this place is that you get to pick and choose the ingredients you want.

You have ingredients such as pork balls, fish balls, taiwan sausages, crabsticks, seafood tofu, minced pork, bacon, sliced pork belly, prawns, squids, mushrooms, fried fish meat, abalone slices, cheese slices, paddy frog meat and many more.

After you've done choosing your ingredients, you pass the selection plate over to the lady and decide if you would like to cook it with noodles or porridge, tomyam flavoured (spicy) or clear soup (non spicy). For noodles, you could choose between fine rice vermicelli, thick rice vermicelli or springy noodles (better known as Cintan noodles among the locals). The popular choice would be the springy noodles.

I came here to try the tomyam porridge. But when I saw springy noodles were available, I couldn't help it but to choose springy noodles in tomyam instead and hoped that my colleague would choose the porridge. But when she came back to the table and told me that she chose the thick rice vermicelli in tomyam, I decided to order an additional bowl of tomyam porridge so that I could complete this post.

This was my bowl of tomyam springy noodles. I had pork ball, vegetable fish ball, mushroom ball, fried fish meat, pork belly slices, seafood tofu and enoki mushrooms. The tomyam flavour is not like the regular Thai type of tomyam. It's sour with a bit of sweetness and not too spicy at the same time. For me I liked it this way because if its too spicy, I wouldn't be able to enjoy all the ingredients in the bowl including the noodles.

This was my colleague's thick rice vermicelli in tomyam soup. She had bacon slices, fried fish meat, abalone slices, seafood tofu, crab balls, quail egg and fish balls.

Now this is the tomyam porridge. The tomyam used in the porridge is the same as the one used for their noodles. I liked this porridge because it's not to watery and not too thick. I chose the shitake mushrooms, minced pork meat, abalone slices, a prawn and an egg.

I'm glad that I finally get to try out this place. It definitely did not disappoint and I would definitely go back for more visits.

OUR RATING

Ambience : 3/5 

Service : 4/5

Food Quality : 4/5

Price Range : $ (depends on what you choose)

Status : Non Halal

Other information:

Address : 7121, Jalan Raja Uda, 12300 Butterworth, Penang (Beside SRJK (C) Kwong Wah Primary School)

Contact No. : 012-479 0283

Business Hours : 6.30pm - 2.00am / Closed on Wednesdays

Transaction : Cash only