I don’t know how to say this, but I have been unfaithful. Mere days ago I professed my love for roti canai, but even as I made that declaration I was aware of the existence of other types of roti and what is worse, I have eaten some of them!
Not all on this trip though. This time I only cheated the once, and that was with the explosive-sounding roti bom (pronounced and also alternatively-spelled “boom”).
The hotel we stayed at in Penang (the recently-opened and very friendly Penaga) resides on the corner of Jalan Hutton and Lebuh Clarke in George Town.
A stone’s throw away along Jalan Hutton was a street stall that opened in the afternoons to serve patongko.
There’s no way to hide the fact that this dessert has a face only a mother could love.
To be fair, I have seen some elegant presentations where a towering cone of shaved ice is drizzled with syrup and dotted with beans, jelly and other toppings, but I still find it hard to face a bowlful head-on and think “yum!”.
I have devised a new party game variant. I’d like to introduce you to offal-bobbing.
The way to play: take one bowl of hawker stall soup and delve down with your spoon to explore its depths. If you find a piece of offal, you lose.
Since my Thailand post indicating my suspicion of coconut milk desserts, and my subsequent retraction, I have happily been eating the odd dessert of this type here and there.
Cendol (pronounced “chendol”) is another such creation, though this time pushing me to the limit with the addition of beans.
