Penang Malaysian Cuisine

We lucked out and found a great place to eat. We originally tried to eat noodle palace, finding out they closed down. Everyone was irritated and we needed food. So we gambled and while we were already on the second floor, to eat here.
They had a regular menu and a picture menu with some food. We order sizzling beef, pineapple fried rice, shrimp fried rice, roti canai, beef chow fun, deep fried eggplant and ALL WERE DELICIOUS! We are planning a trip to eat again, when lent is over since some of us couldn’t eat meat of fridays.
The downside is they only accept cash but well worth it.

This was my first Malaysian cuisine experience, and I loved it! I guess I would describe Malaysian cuisine to be like a cross between Thai food and Indian food, but a little less strongly flavored. This particular restaurant was a nice little place, well lit and decorated and clean. The waitress was very friendly, and quite helpful. We ordered the Basil Noodle ($ 7.95), the Ayam Rendang ($ 11.95), and the Pineapple Shrimp ($ 14.95). That last one was a little expensive, but I will get to why!
The Basil Noodle was probably my favorite of the three dishes. It was kind of like a pad kee mao, but with thinner noodles and a different sauce. It had sliced mushrooms, thinly sliced green and red bell peppers, onions, and Chinese broccoli. The sauce was very light, and lightly sweet. Although it tasted nothing like pad kee mao in flavor, it sort of resembles that Thai dish in style.
The Ayam Rendang was quite interesting. It had chicken on the bone covered in a thick red curry sauce. it was very lightly spicy (compared to Thai food or Indian food), and kind of had an Indian curry flavor, but was a lot lighter than your typical Indian curry. I quite enjoyed this as well, particular because I don’t like the heavier Indian curry styles. This was ice over a bed of white rice.
The Pineapple shrimp was a little pricey, but it is served in half of a pineapple husk, and with fresh pineapple. The flavor was very light, and a tad sweet. This was kind of like a breakfast dish for me. I don’t know if I would order this again as it was just a little bit bland for my tastes, but the pineapple presentation was amazing.
Overall, even with the CASH ONLY rule, this place is rockin. I would definitely go again. If Thai food and Indian food are just a little too much for you, I would definitely recommend trying Malaysian food as it is toned down in the spice/​flavor department. Very nice!

Being in Vegas for nearly 1 week, I was craving for something hot, spicy, and flavorful. While there are numerous «famous-​chef» restaurants and buffets galore on the strip, sometimes you just need a break from mass produced hotel food.
Penang Malaysian Cuisine fit the bill perfectly. Located on Spring Mountain Road on the second floor of a mini mall, Penang is a medium sized, modest looking restaurant on the outskirts of Las Vegas’ Chinatown area.
The first thing that struck me when we arrived was how empty the restaurant was… where were the people? Only 1 table was filled, but from the way they were eating, it looked like they were enjoying the food.
The menu is extensive and offers a large variety of appetizers, rice dishes, noodle dishes, curries, seafood, beef, pork, chicken, and vegetables. I loved that in addition to the list of menu items, there are pictures for every dish! This helped a lot since my husband and I are not all that familiar with Malaysian cuisine.
We ordered the roti canai, a stir fry vegetable dish with shrimp paste (similar to chinese spinach, ong choy), a spicy curry chicken, and a rice noodle stir fry. All of the dishes were delicious. The roti was light, flaky, and hot. The accompanying curry dipping sauce was the perfect vehicle for sopping up the yummy sauce. So flavorful and spicy. The vegetable stir fry and noodle dishes were also tasty. The star of the show, however was the curry chicken. OMG! I wish I had a second stomach to eat more of that dish. The curry was spicy and dripping with flavor. Just thinking of it is making my tummy grumble and mouth water…
The service was friendly and attentive. They kept filling our water and wanted to make sure we were happy with our food. The prices were reasonable and portions just right.
Overall we were extremely happy with our meal and will definitely be returning!

I don’t know why they were not busy when I went that night. They have a very big dinning area and the food was good. I’m surprised that except us there was only 1 other table there.
I ordered the Hainanese chicken of course it was really good. But my fiancé got the dark meat one. All he got was bones, it was a very big difference when you get the white meat vs. dark meat.

I’ve been here twice. As with many things in Vegas, this is a bad, overpriced replica of something elsewhere.
How could they screw up the Hainanese Chicken?! It’s such a simple dish. The Hokkien Mee was unrecognizable on seeing or tasting. The only barely acceptable dishes were the Bak Ku Teh and the Roti Canai.
I wonder whether they just don’t care because they expect to get tourists. The locals must know that this place sucks, which must explain not having more than 2 tables occupied at any given time.

I got taunted by a friend about how he was gonna go to banana island, in Daly City California, for their roti canai…
I went Unilocaling for any place that could possibly have roti canai. I ended up here at Penang Malaysian Cuisine. I was VERY disappointed in the roti canai. It had parts of the flour that wasn’t fully cooked due to being way too thick. The curry dipping sauce just like other comments was almost to the point of being cold when brought out. It was a HUGE Disappointment.
I ordered the Hainan Chicken and that was also a let down. The chicken was too soft and not a little chewy at all. Seriously I guess I should just stick to ordering it at a Chinese place instead.
I also ordered the Chow Teow? number 42. on other words, «it tasted like chow fun at a food to go place». Save your money and go to a food to go place instead of spending 8 bucks + tax on this dish.
No wonder the place was so empty.

Went a few months ago and wanted to try something different. I love Malay style food and sounded perfect to try. Good thing we saw the CASH ONLY sign first!
I had a goat curry and BF had a noodle plate that really escapes me right now. I liked my curry a lot, lots of nice flavors and spices, but it didn’t taste like goat. Maybe it was, but it did not have that «goat flavor» to it… has a bit of fat, but not grossly so I liked it. BF said his noodles was okay and I took a few bites and yeah, we’ve had better elsewhere.
I did enjoy my curry so I am curious what else they have to offer. I’m a fan of Malay dishes and really this is the only place around, I hope most will be on point. To be continued…

I was on my way yesterday (4−16−10) to try Bosa 1 on Jones, but when I got there, I found they close at 3:30 on Friday afternoons. I headed to Spring Mountain Road to do some exploring. As I came alongside the Pacific Asian Plaza, I remembered a friend saying there was a great Malaysian restaurant there. There was Penang on the second floor.
I got an order of Curry Puffs for an appetizer. I wondered what was taking so long. The puffs are 4 good-​sized pastries filled with a very good ground potato, chicken, tofu mixture with a curry seasoning. They were very hot from the oven — hence the wait. They were excellent.
For the main course, I got the Homemade tofu with scallops and lobster sauce. There were no scallops, but there was a good amount of shrimp. The tofu was absolutely sensational!
I decided to give the Malaysian iced coffee a try and it was good. Not something I’d get every time, but it certainly was worth a try.
I’m glad I stopped here. I have enough leftovers for dinner tonight. The portions are so large, there is enough for two to share if you want. Service was excellent. And note, this is another Chinatown restaurant that does CASH ONLY.

If you’re tired of eating Asian «fusion» food from the strip, consider trying this restaurant if you want authentic Malaysian food.
What is Malaysian food? I would describe it as Chinese food incorporated with a lot more spices and seafood, resulting in something incredibly tasty!
My Malaysian aunt (who is a foodie with a picky palatte) introduced me to this place, and it was love at first bite! Consider the «chow guei teow”(sp) for starters! And the beef penang (beef curry) with coconut rice. Correct my spelling and names, if I’m wrong. It doesn’t matter because this food is bomb!
Now, I wish the portions were a little bit larger, but this may be standard sized around the area. I’m used to Los Angeles Chinese food portions!

The food here was yummy. First day in Vegas and this is where my family brought me. Great choice.
I had their seafood wet chow fun. You know what I mean right, I can’t remember the name of it. That was delicious. My dad had the Red curry. For an appetizer we had the Roti Canai. Very good roti! Way better than Banana Island in Daly City, CA. Not all crispy flakes, it had substance.
The owner was really nice and our food came out in a timely manner. Oh and the best thing, if you don’t know what to order they have a menu with pictures of all the food. How good is that? When I go back to Vegas, I’m going again.

My first real Malaysian dinning experience. The flavors were definitely unique to me.
Asam Lask — order the wrong flavor — fishy smell that was pretty gross, but the Laska noodles were slippery and delicious. I like their lemon and lime soup noodle base too. Nasty tuna smell to the particular version we picked tho.
Roti Canai — always wanted to try this and it was surprisingly good. I saw a mom pouring a little sugar on the side for her child to dip the bread in and I followed suit. It was good that way too. Served warm, would be better if it was hot (temperature wise). Asked for it to be reheated, but it was still just warm.
Kari Ayam — basically the roti canai dipping sauce all by itself in a bigger bowl. Again, not hot enough and wish there were more potatoes. Yummy to eat over their chicken flavored rice. A little oily on the top, but it is easy to skim the top layer off.
Hainanese Chicken Rice — all white meat. The chicken was not dry at all and it was super juicy and flavorful. Unlike traditional Hainanese Chicken rice, there is not oil/​ginger sauce to dip, rather, there is a special soy sauce that it sits in and it was super tasty. The chicken flavor rice was particularly good as well. We ordered many more bowls.
Service was kind of slow despite them not being nearly close to a full house. Food was served warm and not pipping hot even though there was a lot of steam coming out of their food.
Awesome lunch special deals M-​F 11AM to 3 PM.

My dad and I were dropped off in front of Raku (Japanese restaurant across the street) at around 5 p.m. When we saw their ‘hours’ sign, it said they opened at 6 p.m. GREAT. We were in the middle of NOWHERE and it was freezing so we decided to venture across the street to the Pacific Asian Plaza.
My dad saw a sign for Thai food so we went upstairs to take a look… except there was no one in there and I refuse to go into an empty restaurant. But a few steps from that Thai restaurant was Penang. The photos of the food looked really good and I searched around their door looking for Zagat signs or whatever and then I saw « Unilocal LOVES US.» I WAS LIKE OH YES WE ARE EATING HERE.
The food was sooo good!!! I had been craving Hainan Chicken Rice for the longest time and I finally got my fix there. Their ba gut deh (spelling?!) was very tasty and reminded me of the soups back at the night markets at home. We ordered some fried noodle dish too but it wasn’t that great.
The service was good too but probably because we were in the only customers inside at the time. But a few more parties came in after us and I noticed every table had ordered the Hainan Chicken Rice, HOLLA! I was thinking that they must be known for that dish.
We waited forever for a taxi to come pick us up but the food was definitely great and memorable. Oh and they are CASH ONLY.

This visit is quite disappointing. I went in twice in 2 days. I think the only decent dish is the chicken rice and the char kuay teow (fried rice noodle.
The curry chicken is quite lousy. They didn’t manage to make the curry taste asian enough. Something’s missing. Kari mee is not good too. Sauce is too thick for noodles. The Kang Kong belachan is pretty good if you like spicy vegetables. The Singapore fried Mee Hoon is disappointing too. Not much of a taste except for oil. The Mee Goreng (Malaysian fried noodles) is quite ok too, noodles a little soggy.
We asked about the Malaysian coffee and the nice owner said its coffee is condensed milk. They use nescafe for that.
We had the plum juice. It was way too saltish. Not sweet and not sour enough. Tasted a lot like salt water.
Generally a rather disappointing experience.

Living in LA for the last 6 years, it’s been impossible to find any real Malaysian food. The closest thing we have is Indonesian food, and even still, there are only a couple of those restuarants nearby. Indonesian food is basically the same as Malay food, but the two cultures tend to emphasize different areas in the flavor spectrum. I usually find that Indonesian food has more coconut milk and sambal than I prefer.
I spent 3 summers in Malaysia during my early teen years, while my dad was working in Kuala Lumpur. That being said, I have many fond memories of eating Malaysian local food. Penang Malaysia helped me revisit those flavors that I have been craving for so many years!
Roti Canai — Delicious fresh and flakey roti, much better than the frozen paratha that I’ve had at other places serving this dish. The chicken curry for dipping was also amazing.
Nasi Lemak — Classic Malaysisan breakfast dish. I substituted beef rendang for the curry chicken. This dish really brought back the memories… the coconut rice was somewhat on the mild side, but the beef rendang was perfect. With just a touch of a coconut milk, the sauce was heavier with sweet chili flavors, and the chunks of beef were falling apart. The dried fish in pickled onion/​chili sauce was a little more on the sour side than I’m used to, but still went great with the sliced cucumbers and hard boiled egg.
Belacan Kang Kung — Ong choy stir-​fried in shrimp paste. They did a good job of not overcooking the vegetables, keeping the hollow stems quite crispy. The flavors leaned towards the sweet side, and kept the saltiness and shrimpiness of the dish at a moderate level. This was a good thing, since our other dishes already added plenty of saltiness and heaviness to our meal. I ate half of the plate by myself!
Hainan Chicken — The chicken itself was steamed to perfection. The flesh was very moist and tender. I would have prefered a ginger-​garlic dipping sauce (their’s was more of a sweet-​chili garlic sauce) but otherwise, the dish was great. The broth-​cooked rice was freshly made and the flavors mixed well together.
I wish that I had come with a bigger group because there were so many other dishes I wanted to order. Penang char kway-​teow, bak ku teh, mee goreng, mee laksa, fried fish with chili sauce, niang tofu, ice kacang, ahh I want to go back…
From now on, I’m going to have to eat here everytime I’m in Vegas.

Visited here for the first time with Steve R. It was also my first time eating Malaysian. Wow. Loved it. Here’s what we had:
Roti Canai — This was awesome — the roti was so good. I could just sit there eating this.
Hainanese Chicken — Tender chicken with very subtle flavors. A little too subtle for my taste buds — but the chili sauce it comes with helped in that department.
42A — Forget what it was called, but it had those delicious rice cakes in it. This was my favorite dish. Steve R. said it reminds him of an Asian gnocci — I agree.
Kang Kung Belacan — this was a simple dish but the star was the fermented shrimp paste which I really wanted to try. It did not disappoint — stinky and tasty!
Can’t wait to go back! My mouth’s watering just thinking about it.
Those dishes plus a soda and tip was $ 45.

This was my 2^nd time to Penang. As usual, it wasn’t busy when we showed up at 11:30am on a Sunday. On my first visit there (minus hubby), most notable was the roti canai, the wonton and the char kway tiau.
This time around, we ordered the following:
roti canai — yummy as usual. the potatoes and chicken were steeped in curry flavor
wonton soup — great broth, great wontons with pork and shrimp
seafood chow fun — my hubby insisted on ordering this although I pictured plain boiled rice noodles topped with seafood gravy sauce. was pleansantly surprised when the dish came with the rice noodles cooked like char kway tiau first and THEN covered in gravy. DELICIOUS!
basil beef — this dish was light on the basil and heavy on the sugar and lemongrass. at first i wasn’t too crazy about it but soon acquired a taste for it.
ayam rendang — chicken w/​spicy red lemongrass sauce. very flavorful and good although I’ve always been wary of bone-​on chicken pieces covered in sauce.
We both had the Malaysian milk tea. I enjoyed it quite a bit… tasted like they use evaporated milk. Hubby took a few sips of his and hated it!
As per usual, we ordered enough food for five so we ended up packing the leftovers for the long tirp back to Orange County!

Everything we had here was very good except for the shrimp dish. I know shrimp are bottom feeders… but exactly what bottom were these shrimp on? Easily the worst tasting shrimp I’ve ever had in my life.
That being said. all of the other dishes we had were very good. I also like how they have a picture of almost every dish available on the menu. So eat anything else but the shrimp!

Great find for Vegas with its plethora of mainstream, mediocre restaurants. So far have tried the roti canai, fried taro bowl, and fish head soup among other dishes. Worth a visit if you want something off the typical Asian food path.
UPDATE
Recommended: rice cakes with egg, radish, and chile paste (#42a) The West Covina location is definitely not as good.

Stopped by this restaurant since Ichizan down the street was closed for lunch.
Came by at ~2 pm and the restaurant only had a couple tables. We were immediately seated and ordered a Roti Telur, Chow Kwai Tiu, and some Chicken dish my buddy got.
The Roti Telur was mediocre. It wasn’t crispy enough and too doughy.
The Chow Kwai Tiu was also mediocre. The calamari and shrimp were pretty small. The sauce was slightly spicy, which was good.
All in all, a mediocre lunch at ~$ 11/​person.

We actually stumbled across this place because we were looking for Noodle Palace, one of the restaurants which we found on Unilocal.I love Penang style Malaysian food so we thought we should give this one a shot.
There was only one table on the weeknight that we visited. The owner’s little boy was running around which didn’t bother us at all. He was kinda cute, coming up and checking lil guy out and then running off again. We noticed he was playing with the stereo system and commented on how funny it would be if he suddenly turned the volume up really loud.
I perused the menu and located some of the items I wanted to try and promptly ordered.
Roti canai ($ 3.25) is a must when eating with hubby and lil guy. The one here was outstanding. The accompanying curry sauce with a piece of chicken and potato was so flavorful that lil guy ate the entire thing on his own. Hubby and I ate a piece each to taste. Lil guy even ate the spicy curry sauce and it wasn’t lame like the one at Satay Malaysian Grill. This one had some heat to it. I was very proud that lil guy’s taste buds were so refined, and most of all refined enough to like this one over the one at Satay. He was right, this one was far better than the one at Satay.
My other favorite dish is Hainan Chicken Rice ($ 5.75) and when it arrived I immediately dove in. WOW. The chicken was tender, the soy sauce was perfect and the accompanying chili/​ginger sauce was awesome. I had to ask for more sauce it was THAT good. The chicken flavored rice was also delicious. Lil guy even liked this dish. I was very very happy.
We also got the Hokkien Char Mee or Hokkien style fried noodles ($ 6.95) was the weakest dish of all. They used the wrong noodles… should’ve been egg or ‘oil’ noodles in Chinese, but it tasted like they used a variation of udon noodles. It was either that or they overcooked it so the texture became mushy. Wrong texture but good flavor.
Service was so-​so, not bad but not outstanding. However, the meal was excellent so I was happy. I’m definitely coming back for more Hainan chicken rice next time we’re in Vegas. I’m docking half a star for the noodles so 4.5 stars!