Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop in Penang 正斗粥麵專家 Unviels New Menu
BY CK Lam
Five months into its opening, Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop in Gurney Paragon Mall, had added on new dishes to its menu. Now you can enjoy a selection of delicacies and stir-fried dishes in addition to their signature wantun mee and congee.
Tasty’s director, Mr Fokie Fok address the idea that Tasty is the sort of restaurant which placed emphasis on the quality of food, using imported ingredients from Hong Kong and China.
The cold dish of duck wing in rice wine is listed as a starter. The duck wings with long hours of marinating with Chinese rose wine are cooked and then kept cold in the refrigerator. The fragrance of the rose wine is on the lighter side, but nevertheless, made a great nibble before the meal.
The next dish is the roast goose, a dish that is hard-pressed to find in Penang. Tasty starts serving the bird after sourcing them from a KL supplier.
The beautifully roasted goose is both meaty and tender. Flavorful to eat on its own, it is recommended to dab the meat with a bit of the zesty refreshing plum sauce.
The roast crispy piglet is presented to us for the photo session before being carved and sent back to the table. I, for one, like the taste of the meat but not the hard crunch of the skin. I would have preferred it to be a tad crispier.
In addition to the upscale delicacies, you’ll also find such stir-fried dishes to go with rice, such as the sweet and sour pork.
Popularly known as ku loe yoke, Tasty’s rendition has bite-sized pieces of tender deep-fried pork belly (with balance of fat and lean meat) cooked in a sauce with imported vinegar and plum sauce from Hong Kong. The plum sauce is unique, with a hint of spiciness. Red and green peppers, onions and pineapple added tanginess and brightness to the dish.
A standard plate of pan-fried prawn in soy sauce comes with four large prawns (market price). The prawn dish had fresh jumbo-sized prawns cut lengthwise, devein and stir-fried coated with soy sauce gravy and taste of ginger.
“Get messy eating them with the hands. It is the best way to enjoy the prawns,” said Fokie.
The flesh is sweet and easily charms the taste buds.
For those in the mood for something lighter, the stir-fried tofu in hot sauce is an advisable choice. Cooked with plenty of minced meat and chopped scallions, the simple dish is good to go with white rice.
The distinctive smell of the Braised Grouper wafted throughout the dining room. The dish gets the taste buds excited with the fish braised in a feisty gravy of shrimp sauce, salted fish and tau ban cheong with pieces of eggplant.
The veggie dish is stir-fried kailan with preserved sausage.
Lightly sauced, the stir-fried Hong Kong kailan came with fragrance of waxed pork belly (lap yuk) and preserved sausages (yuen cheung). It is simply difficult to find this stir-fried dish in Penang. Moreover the sausages (yuen cheung) are of good grade, made from duck liver seasoned with rose wine.
Another side dish is the pan-fried egg fu yung, fried with edges slightly crisp up.
In case those aren’t enough to fill you up, Tasty also offers broad selection of sweet and savory dim sum and tong-sui.
The shrimp roll with sour ginger & preserved century egg is an interesting crispy choice. The three ingredients are wrapped in wafer paper coated with sesame seeds.
Sweet choices are the red bean sweet soup boiled with lotus seed and dried tangerine, and a seemingly simple steam Chinese sponge cake.
Besides the new menu, the restaurant is also offering set lunch (from Monday to Friday), with a choice of main dish, soup of the day and house tea for RM18.80++.
Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop 正斗粥麵專家
Level 5 Gurney Paragon Mall
Persiaran Gurney
10250 Penang
Business Hours: 11am – 9.30pm
* Many thanks to Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop for extending this invitation.