Penang Photos Part 4: From Armenian Enclave to Street Burgers

Uploading photos to this blog lately has been a huge exercise in frustration. The free wireless connection for use of the residents in my apartment building is rarely turned on and never on a consistent schedule. The rare occasions that it’s connected to the internet the speeds are extremely slow and it takes forever to upload a single photo. If there’s an error on one photo, the WordPress uploader simply moves on to the next so it can be difficult sometimes to figure out which pictures in the batch didn’t make it to the site. In an effort to try and get the article published before the connection is turned off, I’ve stopped adding information in the “title” field — I’ll try to add that information at a later date. Looks like I’m going to have to schedule a several hours’ session at an internet cafe to finish this Penang Photos series…

When I last left off, I was wandering through George Town’s Armenian enclave on my way back towards Chulia Street with the hope that the food vendor carts would be setting up along the street. All that walking tends to make one hungry. My big problem, however, when I do come across the street food is that I have no idea what most of it is. When I’m alone I’m usually not brave enough to plunge right in so I find something that looks okay and then stand around waiting for another tourist to attempt an order. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don’t! At any rate I was looking forward to the attempt and specifically had in mind to search for the famous Malaysian-style burger usually known as the Ramly after it’s inventor. Along the way I unexpectedly came across Sun Yat San’s headquarters during his stay in Penang. This post also includes several photos of the Penang Chinese Town Hall where he delivered a famous speech (I’d attempted to upload those photos in Part 2 of this series but the upload failed).

Once I arrived back on Chulia Street, I was still a bit early for the majority of the street food to show up so I took a quick shower at my guesthouse so I felt a bit fresher. When I ventured out again there were dozens of carts, mostly along what I believe is the western side of the street (I believe it runs roughly north to south). I found a couple of hamburger stalls — one didn’t have any signage and didn’t appear ready for orders any of the three times I walked past but the other seemed quite intriguing. The signage had soccer logos adorning the red-and-gold cart with large signage proclaiming it as “Old Trafford Burgers”. An extensive menu listed dozens of different varieties of burgers as well as a few hot dogs; french fries were even on offer. I watched the cook for a while and soon determined that the egg burger was cooked in the “Ramly” style — the patty is slit in two halves, topped with a heaping scoop of what I assumed was butter, and an egg cracked and fried on the counter top after which the burger is wrapped within the egg. I ended up ordering one egg burger and one cheeseburger and both were absolutely wonderful. Much better than anything produced by McDonald’s and, possibly, Burger King. I asked for medium rare and it was nice and juicy with a very beefy flavor still evident beneath the copious toppings (including mayonnaise, an unknown sauce which had some Worcester in in, pickles, onions, and lettuce. Oh, how I wish they were available in the day time as I really wanted another the next day…

I finished out Wednesday with some computer work and read a bit in my tiny under-the-stairs broom closet room before turning in, feeling very Harry Potterish.