Editor’s Note: We know food vendors rock the blocks on American ground, but street food is also the best way to learn about cultures worldwide. With that in mind, we’d love to hear about the street food you encounter in Rio, Montreal, Hong Kong, or wherever you may be. You know what to do – email me at amy@vendr.tv. Today we sample Char Koay Teow in Penang, Malaysia thanks to global grub trotter, Danny O’Sullivan of Street Foodie.

Ask a group of food lovers to name the great food cities of Asia and the same heavyweights invariably come up. Tokyo will be there, as will most likely Singapore and Hong Kong. Justifiably, these bustling metropolises are famous the world over for the high standard and diversity of their food cultures. Off Malaysia’s west coast, however, one little heard of island is quietly climbing up the ranks of the Asian must-eat destinations: Penang.

By food tourism standards, Penang is a quiet, unassuming sort of place. It doesn’t have any Michelin stars, and with a few exceptions, celebrity chefs rarely beat a path to its door. But what it does have is street food – lots of it. In the capital, Georgetown, curbside vendors exist in abundance, and outdoor markets and hawker centers are distributed thickly throughout the city center and surrounding areas. Even restaurants with roofs and walls spill out onto the street, setting the pavements alight with the thrashing of woks and clanking of tandoors. To a certain extent, Penang food is street food.

One of the island’s signature street foods is Char Koay Teow, a flat rice noodle dish with roots in the Chinese communities of South East Asia. Cooked at speed at a high temperature to imbue the dish with a vital quality referred to as wok hei (breath of the wok,) Char Koay Teow vendors can be found all over Georgetown. The dish is packed full of prawns, egg, blood cockles, beansprouts, chives, and little fatty cubes of pork and Chinese sausage.

The prawns are deliciously sweet and fresh, and the blood cockles add a terrific deep sea flavor. This is countered by the fatty velvety indulgence of the lard cubes and Chinese sausage, along with the crunchiness of the beansprouts. But the noodles are best of all: Fat, slightly sticky, and scented in soy sauce, garlic, chili, and essential wok hei.

Char Koay Teow is only one of the many street dishes to be had in Penang, but it is a fantastic example of street food at its best. Something that is cheap, local, and more often than not, made by people who appreciate the value of doing something the best they possibly can.

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