Posted on 05/08/2011

Address: 3885 Rupert Street, Vancouver

Arriving at the crack of noon, we were not surprised to find the place almost waiting-room-only. We had no idea what these folks outside were doing... waiting for seats to empty? checking out the new signboard the owners have placed outside?

It was a nice walk to the restaurant, enjoying the somewhat warm weather, slight and ever-present Vancouver breeze and of course the lovely, pink cherry blossoms that have not fallen off yet due to an unseasonally cool weather.

As we got closer, we saw that it was a group that had already eaten, for they looked like full, satisfied patrons, leisurely taking their time outside the restaurant before going home on a beautiful Mother's Day 8th of May.

Once inside, I was again impressed with the decor of this restaurant. The man who runs the show, Jack from K.L., has done a great job of decorating his Penang-influenced eating house. He has framed photos of menu items clustered in photo gallery style, framed Malaysian traditional cloth, a framed photo of a baby orangutan and the greatest of them all, a real-life Malaysian kite. I had no idea about Malaysian kites, so I did a little 'homework' to find out the back-story...

From Virtual Malaysia online magazine:

Above the sun-baked earth of the empty paddy fields in Kelantan, Terengganu, Perlis and Kedah, the night is pregnant with a humming drone that seemingly comes from the sky. It lulls babies to sleep and soothes the frazzled nerves of adults, providing an aural backdrop to their conversations and daily activities. Beside their houses, paddy farmers have tethered kites to the trunks of coconut trees. The humming sound is created when wind blows through a bow attached to a kite flying in the sky.

The flying of Malay kites usually marks the post-harvest season. A Malay kite combines the best of skilled workmanship, dazzling colours and decoration. It exhibits the creativity of the Malays and their talented craftsmanship in fashioning a unique art form that has the highest possible level of aesthetics. A Malay kite is not a schoolboy's toy as it normally measures 1.5 metres by 1.7 metres. It is called wau because the shape of its wing is similar to an Arabic letter that is pronounced as "wow". It has also been postulated that the word "wau" originated from the Dutch word "wauw" that refers to a large predator bird found in South-east Asia. When Melaka fell to the Dutch in 1641, the word was introduced to the local populace.

The Malay kite takes many shapes of which the most popular is the moon kite or wau bulan. There are also bird-kites, peacock-kites, hawk kites, cat-kites, frog-kites, quail-kites, fish-kites, woman kites and fairy godmother kites. A peculiar Malay kite is the wau sobek, which is constructed of cloth and bamboo. It is too heavy to be flown and is used as a purely decorative item in many East Coast homes.

Such a variety of shapes demonstrate the talent of the Malay craftsman to produce an object d'art from abstractions of human and animal forms. In another aspect, the play of colours with extreme sensitivity qualifies the kite as an art form. Syed Ahmad Jamal in his "Form and Style" wrote, "the use of colours on kites is akin to that of stained-glass." Usually, the middle sections on the left and right sides of the wings are left devoid of patterns to provide balance with the decorated areas. This empty area is called "golden deer", and prevents the kite from being overwhelmed by a surfeit of patterns...

...In Kuala Lumpur, one can watch kite flying at Batu Metropolitan Park every weekend. Located at Jalan Ipoh, the 24-hectare park sprawls around a disused mining pool. To add a "wow!" to your souvenir shopping, why not buy a kite from Kraftangan Malaysia in Jalan Conlay and Central Market in Jalan Hang Kasturi.

Source: virtualmalaysia.com

Penang Satay (4 skewers). 2 chicken & 2 beef. $5.95

I remember fondly the satay sticks served hot off charcoal bbq pit in Gurney Drive hawker centre. I wonder what the requirements are for commercial restaurant kitchen in Vancouver to have charcoal pits? At any rate, until there is one installed in Penang Delight Cafe, the satay will be 'Vancouver-style'.

Having said that, the sauce is what makes this dish absolutely fantastic. I will say for the record that the best satay sauce is here at Penang Delight. Crushed peanuts make the chunky consistency so correct for Malaysian satay sauce. And the sauce -- a hint of reddish colour leads me to believe that Jack indeed brought over the authentic spices used to make the genuine deal.

Penang Mee Goreng. $8.95

Last time we ate here, we ordered the Char Kueh Teow as the measure of this restaurant. As a dish used to gauge the quality of chef by, the same can be said of Mee Goreng. In a sense, this is a dish so hard to 'screw up' and in another it is a dish that is so familiar to peninsular Malaya-dwellers that each native will have his/her own favorite variety of this common street-hawker-food, home-cooked-food and eating-house to fine-dining-fare, that it is impossible to please every palette. So each diner will expect a certain amount of 'fundamentals' and a certain amount of regional variation.

I like Jack's mee goreng. It has lots of sauce, and has a strong, rich flavour, a flavour of belacan! (and not to be a snob, but the best belecan is produced in Georgetown, Penang). I noticed this right away and mentioned it to my honey. It is not overly chile-hot, overly-dry, overly-wet, over-cooked, under-cooked or any other tarnishing adjective one can think of when describing how to mess up a plate of mee goreng. As for the Penangite flavour specifically, I have to admit I did not try mee goreng while in Penang two years ago, so I have to guess it is the heavy belecan flavour that is supposed to give it that unique Penang kick.

Ipoh Hor Fun. $7.95

Ahh... Ipoh. I can't imagine having ever known of Ipoh were it not for my #1 eating-partner Dominic Tan. During our 4-week tour of SE Asia in '09, we stopped in Ipoh for two activities: to see Cameron Highlands tea plantations and to eat Ipoh hor fun and Ipoh tauge ayam.

The most interesting thing about Ipoh cuisine is the bean sprouts. Only in this region are the beansprouts so fat, so thick that they really are a wonder. And so juicy and delicious too! On top of that, the quality of noodles is so good that I had to ask how they make them so well... turns out the back-story to Ipoh is the quality of water found in the region. Apparently there is a tremendous limestone bed of rock surrounding the water table of Ipoh district. The water is filtered naturally up through this limestone table and produces excellent tasting water. With this water, the noodles are made and this is why they taste so good. Amazing true story.

So back to Penang Delight's Ipoh hor fun dish. Without Ipoh water, bean sprouts and noodles, this dish really becomes Vancouver Hor Fun. With that said, the ingredients are all there, and the dish is prepared with the same care as the rest. At any rate, eating this dish brought back lots of good memories for me.

Rojak $4.95

I really loved trying rojak at Gurney Drive hawker centre in Georgetown. This rojak is also very good and is worth a try either with dinner menu or for dessert.

The sauce is really what makes this dish. Anyone can crush peanuts and sprinkle them on slices of mango, cucumber, apple & pear (what happened to the pineapple?). But not anyone can make from scratch an authentic Penang rojak sauce... which is why I will be ordering this dish everytime I come back here to Penang Delight Cafe!

Pisang Goreng with Ice Cream $5.95

Pisang goreng means "banana fried". Of course fried banana fritters with ice cream is forever a hit with families everywhere. I enjoyed the fact that the batter did not 'overpower' the banana or vice versa. So many times I find this dish really uses too much batter, which is like cheating by trying to spoil the customer, or the batter is too thin and it is like cheating again, this time like being too cheap to use enough batter and trying to 'pull the wool over' the eyes of customer.

I am starting to really enjoy this little Malaysian cafe tucked behind a cherry blossom tree on Rupert Street. I will definitely be back, with friends.

Note: photos in this blog posting were shot with my Canon G11 as my Nikon D300S was left at the office. Image quality is less than ideal as I had the camera set to AUTO ISO. Most of these photos came out at ISO 800, which is a far cry in quality from lower signal gain numbers, especially with the smaller sensor.