Sweet and Sour in Boston

As mentioned in a previous post we went to Penang on Saturday night for dinner. Even though Penang is a chain, it's a chain that is done very, very well. I actually thought that Penang was part of the PF Chang corporation, but it's Pei Wei, not Penang.

We've been to Penang a couple of times before, and if you go to Penang, you HAVE to start with the Roti Canai. This is basically a small bowl of chicken curry with an Indian style crepe. It's incredible. Even though ours came a little lukewarm and not smoking hot, I didn't mind. It's so good that next time I go I might just order three of them and just have that as my main entree.



The rest of the menu is really, very, well priced. I mean, rice and noodle dishes are mainly under $10! Actually, most are under $9! They have specialties entrees and some fancy seafood dishes that are between $15-$25, but that's not really all that bad for the portions they give you. Abby went with a fried noodle dish. It looked great and was more than enough for dinner and for lunch the next day for her. It was a little salty, but still very tasty. I was in the mood for head-on fried shrimp, but really didn't want to spend more than $20 on the dish. So I settled for the Mango Shrimp, and while the shrimp was not fried, nor head-on, the dish was absolutely beautiful and just as tasty. Again, the portions were huge! I must have had 20-25 peices of shrimp. Eating it with my side of white rice, I knew I'd have plenty left over. (I actually just ate my leftovers tonight over some white rice with some pickled eggplant...so damn yummy.)




Overall, I really do not think you can go wrong with Penang. Malaysian food is one of the greatest cuisines in the world, with it's mixture of Thai, Indian and Chinese tastes. Before I die I will make a trip out to KL and eat my brains out. (While I'm out there, I'd hit up Singapore too for the hawker stands.)

I give Penang a solid and consistent 3 1/2 out of 5.