I remember someone asking about Malaysian restaurants in Chicago. Penang opened October 3, located on Cermack right across from the big Three Happiness. Funnily, they also have a sushi bar and Japanese food on a separate menu, but we all ignored it. They are a small US chain and have restaurants in NY, NJ and GA. I went there with 3 Singaporeans and thought I'd briefly report on what we tried. The assam laksa was very good, with plenty of laksa leaf and a nice strong, spicy fish stock. Everyone liked it. If you don't like tamarind (assam) then try the lemak laksa, which is a coconut curry base. We didn't try it, but it's probably comparable. The Hokkien Mee was not in a style familiar to the S'poreans, but was good as well...if you want the pig skin in it you'll have to ask, they don't automatically put it in. I didn't care for the Ha Mee, I thought it was too one-dimensional, but others enjoyed it. I thought the Chaw Kway Teow was pretty good for a restaurant in the US and so did 2 others, but the bf likes mine so much he didn't like this one...try it for yourself and see. The Mee Goreng was not Indian-style and this disappointed the S'poreans. As I've never eaten this dish in S'pore or Malaysia, and had no frame of reference, it seemed tasty to me. However, it was quite rich and I wouldn't want to eat the whole dish myself. We were very disappointed that they were out of chendol, a very yummy SEAsian dessert with mung bean noodlish things (they look like green worms) scented with pandan and served on top of shaved ice, drizzled with palm sugar and coconut milk. If you go, try some or some ABC for dessert. Overall, if we were in the neighborhood, we'd go back. Since we cook a lot of this stuff at home, it's probably not something that we'd go out of our way to go to, since the bf is so particular about these dishes. However, if you aren't a cook, and like Malaysian food or want to try it, I'd recommend it. The other two will be making special trips from South Bend and Milwaukee to eat there again. As of Saturday, they weren't accepting credit cards, but plan to. They also didn't have any alcohol, although it's on the menu. I'd call ahead and see if you need to byob before you go. regards, trillium
Chicago, IL
Penang, a new Malaysian restaurant
On Mon, 05 Oct 1998 17:00:21 GMT, [email removed] (t r i l l i u m) wrote: >I remember someone asking about Malaysian restaurants in Chicago. That was me! Thanks for remembering. >Penang opened October 3, located on Cermack right across from the big Three >Happiness. Funnily, they also have a sushi bar and Japanese food on a >separate menu, but we all ignored it. They are a small US chain and have >restaurants in NY, NJ and GA. I had given up on the restaurant actually happening months ago, so it was a terrific surprise to note it suddenly pop into existence last week. They've done a great job with the space, haven't they? After years spent wandering between Chinatown, Little India and the various Thai restaurants dotted about the city, I found the food here to be strangely satisfying. They may be going a little light on the chilis in deference to the American clientele, but everything else seems just right. One small disappointment to me is that there are no Kelantanese dishes represented. If I could get ayam percik or murtabak there, I'd probably never leave! But since it's part of a chain, I suppose special requests are out of the question. As it is, I expect I'll be going back quite often. That's a large menu to work through! Dan