Metro

My ratings: 2 Stars

Cuisine: Street Foods

Location: Notham Road, Penang (opposite Northam Hotel)

Non Halal

RM5-15 per person

Just newly opened in early May 2009, right next to the now famours Notham Beach Cafe. Slightly smaller (narrow) it offers a variety of street foods. It also has a number of mini stalls selling fashion items to toys and assessories.

So the first thing I did was to scan around for something more special than the regular street foods. I found one stall selling Thai/Vietnamese cuisine. One of my favourite dish when I was in Australia, was the Vietnamese spring roll. So I ordered a set. Then I found a dessert stall selling fruity creations to puddings to traditional chinese dessert like glutonous rice balls in gingered syrup and honeydew sago. Right next to the dessert stall is the western food and the today's special caught my attention. It was the "Spaghetti Bujang" - what a strange name! It is basically Spaghetti Aglio Olio with Smoked Chicken Sausage and Corinder Pesto. Great I like Corinder! Amanda had a more familiar Bak Kut Teh

The Vietnamese spring roll (RM3.50 per set of 2 rolls) was the first to be served. Great presentation. Colourful salad in a rice sheet roll with a tangy chilli sauce and corinder leaves. Not bad, light and refreshing but the rice sheet is slightly thick. A perfect Vietnamese roll should have the thinest rice sheet, so thin that you can see through the sheet to the inerts of the roll and melts in your mouth.

Next was the Bak Kut Teh (Pork meat in herbal soup). Nothing spectacular and slightly expensive at RM8 per person serving including a bowl of white rice. The spice is slightly overpowering that you can tell that they over did it with the star anise spice. They also added a lot of sugar coz the soup is borderline sweet, more than savoury.

Then the dessert. I ordered a mango pudding with fruits. This was a disappointment. Nothing special and also expensive. At RM5.50 per bowl, the price is not justified. Portion is small and nothing spectacular. Basically it was a bowl of mango pudding with cubes of exotic fruits like kiwi, lychee, dragon fruit and fresh mango.

Last was my Spaghetti Bujang (RM10). It was OK for me. Favourful and the smoked chicken sausage and the corinder pesto brings out the aroma of the dish well. I would prefer more pesto. but one ingredient that I think was out of place in a dish like this was fresh cut chillies. What? It just made the spaghetti spicy hot! I prefer not to have the frsh chillies in it so I have to spend some time to pick them out of the dish.

Overall, the place did not offer the food that it really good that would keep the crowds coming back. Furthermore, the price is high. Parking is limited during the peak period and one thing that annoyed me and I think it is dangerous is that the entrance is too near to the intersection. So if you are coming from Burmah/Pangkor Road, you really have to drive forcefully across 3 lanes of traffic to try to catch the turn to the entrance I think is about 50m from the intersection. If you are not careful, accident is just waiting to happen.