Already, today is our last day in Penang. Caitlyn signed us up for a private cooking class starting around noon, so we wanted to get out and see a few things first as the class was going to take up most of our day. We headed out to go get coffee from a place not far from the hotel. We each ordered an iced coffee and eventually they brought the coffees over to us on a small tray alongside a container of simple syrup with lids and straws on the side, balanced on the hand of a small teenager. She stood there gesturing for us to make our coffees as we wanted while she continued to balance the small tray on her hand. This was super awkward and did not work well. It would have made much more sense to hand us the coffees, or to put it down on the table near us, but she committed and committed hard. We eventually got the coffee figured out, and while it wasn’t sweet enough, we did not want to ask for more syrup and deal with anything else.
We ordered a grab out to see two temples in the northern area that we weren’t able to see yesterday. We arrive and see that the temples are conveniently right across the street from eachother. We first go to the Burmese Buddhist temple of Penang and walk around the grounds. There were lots of sculptures, statues, and some ponds on the grounds. We went inside and Caitlyn eventually found some beautiful sand-painted scrolls for sale. She fell in love with these and found one with 6 monks she really wanted. We had just more than the right amount of cash to purchase it, so Caitlyn got a wonderful souvenier!
We eventually went across the street to the Chaiya Mangalaram Thai Buddhist Temple. This was also beautiful, with a few large dragon statues out front.
We walked this until we started closing in on having to be back to our hotel to be picked up for the class. It was very hot out so we went to a 711 to get a cold water and a tea. We had just enough money and then hopped in a grab back to our hotel. We got back and Caitlyn realized we may need money for the market as Chef Samuel was going to drive us to the market first to get some ingredients before cooking. Caitlyn went back into the hotel to freshen up and David walked a 20 minute round trip to the nearest ATM for some cash. Back to the hotel and drenched in sweat, David tried to dry his clothes some before we got picked up.
Soon after David arrived back we got a text from Samuel that he had arrived at the hotel to grab us. We went down and hopped in the car to head to the market. Along the way we tried to make some conversation, but quickly came to realize that Samuel is very quiet and shy. We did learn that he used to be a chef at a large hotel in Penang which required him to learn how to make all different cuisines, but his wife pushed for a change due to the long hours he had to work. His wife wanted to spend more time with him and start a family, so Samuel opted to quit the restaurant industry and start teaching cooking classes. He now hosts up to 2 classes a day, and offers them every day of the week. After getting this information out of him, he looked at us and asked “is this your first time in Malaysia? You ask a lot of questions”. Though we didn’t take this as him being rude, we did decide to maybe tone down our conversation. In no time at all we arrived at the market. We first started at the produce section. Before entering Samuel turned to us and explained that he has a list of all the ingredients we would be purchasing. He also said that he does not want to spend much time talking or explaining things in the market, and asked us to take photos of anything that we had questions about to ask him when we return back to the cooking studio. We both gave each other a look and laughed a little, as this was feeding even more into our idea of Samuel being a bit socially awkward and introverted. He quickly guided us through the market, picking out some of our ingredients including herbs, aromatics, chiles, chicken, and fresh coconut milk. Along the way Caitlyn forgot to hold her questions, and asked about two things she saw in the market. While he did answer the questions, it was noted that he was a bit short with his response. She remembered his request to hold the questions and took pictures to ask about later.
After grabbing our ingredients we made our way to the other side of the market to where food vendors are. Samuel directed us to a table and asked us to pick out a beverage from a menu; David picked the sugar cane juice while Caitlyn went with Samuels suggestion of calamansi sour plum juice. Caitlyn LOVED hers and David enjoyed his. We sat for a while making small talk with Samuel, not quite sure how fast or slow to drink the juice (was he waiting for us to finish to take us elsewhere? Were we waiting for food? Who knows). Eventually, a woman comes over to our table with a plate of assorted foods. Then, another plate arrives. And another. Samuel explained each of the dishes to us, starting with the plate of assorted foods. We went to grab a piece after he finished explaining the food when he suddenly yanked the plate back saying “no, this is later”. He then placed a plate in front of us with two dumplings, explaining that they are rice dumplings filled with scallions in one and a filling we don’t remember in the second. He finished talking and stared at us a bit before saying “eat”. We chucked a bit, as we purposefully avoided digging in after having the prior plate yanked away from us. The dumplings we sticky and delicious, with a tasty vinegar hot sauce on the side. Caitlyn liked the scallion best, while David enjoyed the mystery dumpling. Next he put a banana leaf in front of us with a filling. He looked at us a second or two before saying “eat” with no explanation first of the food. As we dug in he asked us what we thought the food was. Caitlyn said it had a texture like tofu and the flavor of fish. It turns out it was a minced fish dish that is steamed in a banana leaf. Lastly he put the plate of three foods back in front of us to try. This included a spring roll, fried tofu, and mixed vegetable fritters. Caitlyn enjoyed the vegetable fritters best while David liked the tofu. We finished up and Samuel quickly ushered us back out to the car.
We made the short drive to Samuel’s studio, which turns out to be in his apartment. As we pulled up to the building he explained that next door to the apartment building is an old cemetery. He shortly followed this up with stating that they make good neighbors, as they’re very quiet. It took us a second to get the joke but thoroughly enjoyed his humor. We parked and made our way up to the 38th floor. Exiting the elevator we had a beautiful open air view of the foothill region. As we took in the view we realized that you’re able to see the giant statue of the area we had walked around yesterday. He took us over to his apartment, for us to see that they had an even better view of the downtown Georgetown area along the water. Sitting at the kitchen table was Samuel’s wife, who instantly starting chatting it up with us. We quickly understood the dynamic of their relationship; while Samuel is quiet and awkward, Jacquelyn is SUPER outgoing and chatty and would instantly make you feel comfortable. We chatted for a while telling her about our travels, while Samuel got the kitchen ready.
Samuel’s kitchen had a great set up for a cooking class with a huge center island and multiple burners. We donned our aprons flipped through the menu to see what we were in for. Samuel announced that we could now discuss questions from the market. While caitlyn asked several already, she did have one fruit that she didn’t recognize and asked about. Samuel then proceeded to explain the set up for the course. He provided the bare bones for four recipes based on our request; hokkien mee soup, curry laksa, kapitan chicken curry, and chicken randang. This cooking class was much different than our last, as Samuel took time to explain cooking concepts to us, teach us about new ingredients, and make sure we understood the WHY of what we were doing so that we could recreate the dishes at home with some creative freedom.
Three hours of cooking flew by, and we sat down feeling proud and slightly fatigued. We started with the Hokkien Mee soup, which is made with simmered shrimp shells. The flavor was absolutely amazing, and we couldn’t believe that we had cooked this ourselves. Next up we tried the curry laksa. While it was tasty, the ground up fish in the soup was not as much to our liking, as it gave it a gritty texture. Samuel had mentioned that it was possible to omit this, and we made note to not include it in the future. Finally, the randang and kapitan curry was last. Both were absolutely fantastic with such complex flavors. While we each loved both, David enjoyed the randang better and Caitlyn enjoyed the kapitan better.
We finished up our meal and spent some time chatting with Jacquelyn about the rest of our travels and her recommendations. Before we knew it, it was after 5pm. Our class was supposed to be finished at 4, but we had enjoyed the experience so much that time got away from us all. We packed back into the car and Samuel and Jacquelyn dropped us off at our hotel. Along the way we talked about how Samuel had accepted a 3-week job based out of Miami to help start up a restaurant and train the staff. He asked us all about the US and the best travel recommendations.
Back at the hotel, we decided to take a break and do some packing for tomorrow before continuing with our day. We got a reasonable amount done and decided to see the views more from a rooftop bar at a super tall hotel called “HH rooftop bar”. We each got a drink and looked at the city from hundreds of feet up. We got to watch day turn into night, and even got to see two bats flying around!
We finished up and decided to walk to a speakeasy recommended by Jacqueline called “The Good Friends Club”. We followed directions and eventually found where it roughly should be based on Google reviews. We got lucky as while we were trying to figure it out, a man behind us asks if we are looking for the good friends club. It turns out he is an employee and they are temporarily across the street at another speakeasy called “Drunken Gelato”.
He walked us over and let us inside. There weren’t a ton of seats, so we felt lucky to get two right up at the bar. Half of the menu was from Drunken Gelato and the other from The Good Friends Club. Drunken Gelato had a menu with a few drinks that could either be in a “low abv” gelato form, or done as a full on cocktail. The Good Friends Club had lots of very interesting and creative cocktails. We didn’t even know how to pick between them, but we went first with the “Unbra-lah” for Caitlyn and the “something corny” for David (see descriptions below)
Both were really good and interesting, and we decided to share a pineapple express gelato based on the bartender’s recommendation. It was really tasty, and Caitlyn in particular loved it.
We decided to try one more speakeasy not far from here called Backdoor Bodega. It is literally located through a non-chalant door at the back of a clothing store that you would never notice
This was a bit more high-class seeming, and we ended up getting a cocktail each. Both of ours had clarified milk as an ingredient, which we have enjoyed before from a bar in DC! Caitlyn thought the cocktails were fantastic while David wasn’t the biggest fan. One highlight was the snack they gave us in a small cup (like a chip). It was amazing and we even snuck the rest out in Caitlyn’s purse so we could finish it later.
We headed back towards home but found one more bar on the way back that caught our eye called Junk Bar. It was a bar that Caitlyn had actually book marked prior to coming to Penang, but walking by and seeing the atmosphere drew us in. It was a mixture between a tiki bar and your crazy aunt’s house, with a smattering of random antique-seeming objects and curios. There are no words to describe the music being played or the attendees of the bar, but it was impossible not to love it and want to stay for more. We were pleased with how reasonable their prices were, and we saw our beloved soju, so we got a beer and a soju and soaked in the vibes
We finished up here and decided to keep walking home, but in the spirit of the night where new places keep pulling us out later, a lively and cool hookah bar caught our attention. We sat down and ordered a hookah together and played some cards that they supplied at each table. We puffed some and played bullshit until we decided that we had enough.
It started POURING at this point, and we only had one small umbrella between the two of us. With tonight being pretty boozy, we were happy to see that there was some street food outside. A small middle eastern food stall called our name and we got a shwarma for Caitlyn and a small order of chicken wings for David. We took it to go and huddled under our umbrella for the 15 minute walk home.
We finally got back, pretty wet with the one umbrella. We took turns showering and had our late night snack before going to bed around 2:00am!
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: while David and I have visited a few cocktail bars during our time in Penang, we noticed that the flavor is always very fruit and mixer forward with very little flavor of liquor. At our first speakeasy today, we noticed that pours in Malaysia are very light compared to US bars (about 2/3 less). No wonder why we have experienced little to no feelings of a buzz despite having sometimes 2-3 drinks in a night.
Steps walked: 13,069 (many of our steps were after midnight so they go to tomorrow. Oh well!)
Miles walked: 6.3
Bluming Travelers 