Chinese New Year threw a huge monkey wrench into my Penang plans; something like 75 percent of the restaurants I tried to go to turned out to be closed.
But in the case of Tong Lek 8 Cafe, I’m not even mad. I randomly found it after the place I wanted to go to turned out to be closed; I’m so glad I got to try out their amazing food.
I wasn’t planning on going to Kafe Ping Hooi, but the restaurant I wanted to go to turned out to be closed (thanks again, Chinese New Year!), and it was right there. I figured I’d give it a shot.
I’m not gonna lie, I had very low expectations for Ah Cheng Laksa.
I had just arrived at Kuala Lumpur’s Sentral Station, which is attached to a fairly large mall. I was about to head to my hotel; it was late, and I wanted to get a quick bite to eat before I checked in.
Dan Dan Hamburger is a southern Taiwanese fast food chain with locations in Kaohsiung, Tainan, and Pingtung. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed it.
I showed up at Qiu Jia Xiao Juan Mi Fen about ten minutes after it opened, and the place was already packed. Suffice it to say, the place is quite popular; always a good sign.
I think there might have been other stuff on the menu, but this place is known for one particular dish, and that’s what everyone was eating: squid noodles.
I just mentioned that a cheap Michelin-rated restaurant is basically guaranteed to have a line. Well, Lin Dong Fang is (relatively) cheap, and it’s Michelin-approved, so yeah, there was a line.
Further proof that if you see a line-up for food, you should immediately get in it: this delicious noodle soup that was in heavy demand at 8:30 in the morning.
Pancakes shancakes. Cereal? Get out of here with that. Noodle soup for breakfast is clearly where it’s at.
Funnily enough, one of the best things I’ve eaten in Bangkok isn’t Thai at all — it’s Chinese, from a Michelin-rated restaurant in Bangkok’s Chinatown called Nai-Ek Roll Noodles.
When I sat down to eat fish noodle soup (a Vietnamese dish called bun ca) at around eleven in the morning, I started to wonder: is this a mistake? Maybe eating a potentially very pungent fishy soup for breakfast isn’t a great idea?
Pho may be the thousand pound gorilla of Vietnamese noodle soups — it’s the one that pretty much every single person on the planet has heard of — but it’s certainly not the only one.
Take, for example, bun bo hue. I just had a bowl of it at Bun Bo Hue Nam Giao, and it made a strong case that there should be room in your life for more than one noodle soup from Vietnam.