Penang. A World Heritage sight.
Food.
Street art
Really old shops
Natural scenery
Asam laksa
Such a nice well-balanced laksa. I really like this one.
The blend of textures, the blend of flavors here is well-balanced in every way.
Asam laksa, a complex dish and packed with flavors
This bite right here.
Regarded as one of the most iconic dishes from this island
Here we go
Our first taste of asam laksa here in Penang.
We're only 10 minutes away from the center. It feels like we're in...somewhere else.
It's very rustic.
It transported me back growing up in a wet market area
And the drive all the way here is like food, endless food, left and right
Here we are. We're gonna have our first asam laksa here in Penang
This is the most popular, famous asam laksa.
This is our first one here in Penang, so we gotta go with the OG, the one that's very famous here as our baseline.
It smells great. You see it's thick chunks of this minced fish that I believe is mackerel.
You have this black shrimp paste
You have the rice noodles
Kind of like that round rice noodle. I love that texture.
So if you saw our, we've actually had asam laksa in New York City several times
We actually put it in our New York City Malaysian food video. Check it out up here, we'll put a card.
But this one just smells so...has like that fishy soury like asam laksa should have.
I'm so excited, I'm just gonna go ahead and try a little bit of that fish first.
Mmm it's got a spicy kick. Not a strong sour flavor, but you definitely taste the fish.
And that mint comes in there too. That's what's beautiful about asam laksa, there's so many different ingredients.
Still feeling that heat. That heat just kinda lingers in the back like that.
What I like about this soup in general right here is that you have these different textures and flavors that work together.
So you get that little bit of texture from the fish, you get that liquidy broth then you also get the crunchy elements from cucumber.
There's that mint in there that gives it a refreshing flavor to go with that very slight sourness.
Less sour than other asam laksa that we've had before
But that mint gives it a really refreshing kick.
And the spice is really what surprised me the most out of this. I didn't really expect that little bit of spice to linger in the back.
I just love these slippery noodles to go with it too.
Very good. And you also taste that shrimp paste.
Reminds us of petis that we've had at Indonesian restaurants.
Similar kind of taste
Excited for this. We got the asam laksa here from Taman Emas.
Taman Emas is a little outside of Georgetown center. This is more in the Pulau Tikus area.
And it's one of the local favorites I've read about.
And really curious to try it. You know we already had the really famous Air Itam laksa that everyone says to come try.
So we got our baseline. Now am gonna try this one.
Already it just smells nice and aromatic. I already smell the mint. I see the slices of pineapple here.
The cucumber. Those nice slippery rice noodles
And at first glance, it's got a nice amount of fish, but not too much.
And they give you the spoonful of the shrimp paste in there.
Put that in
Mix it up
Let's take a sip of that broth first.
Oh that's got a nice spicy kick. It's got a little of that sourness and it's not overwhelmingly fishy.
Oh man. Gonna try a bite here with the mint and the minced fish altogether.
I just love that refreshing mint flavor. It just really adds so much to this laksa.
And we have these nice slices of pineapple and cucumber
Now gonna have some of these nice slippery rice noodles. They are literally slipping right off my chopsticks
Such a nice well-balanced laksa. I really like this one.
And also a must-order here is the popiah, the spring rolls
They cut them up with the scissors. Try one by itself first
So what you gotta do here, the pro move from what we've heard, is to dip it in the laksa
Here we go. Got some of that mint, some of that minced fish in there
Still maintains the crispness, but you submerge it a little bit and it gets some of that moisture from the broth. This is an excellent asam laksa here
My turn to have this. Let's see what we have here.
Ooh look at these noodles.
Should I leave you some?
Ok, so what I'm gonna do next is get the spring roll, or popiah, dip it in a little bit of everything here
So good
We are back here in Ayer Itam and we're just right across the famous laksa
So this one has no name. It says "Laksa," but it's inside the Pasar Annex here in Air Itam
Literally across the famous laksa. Wow
Like a lot of things in here, mixtures of different things and looks - it just looks very appetizing
Our Grab driver, she was a little bit impressed that we even knew about this place.
Like oh this is where the locals go
This laksa looked very different than the very famous one that's right across the road
Immediately what caught my attention is that it's not saturated in the minced fish.
It's just got a smaller pile of the minced fish.
You can see it looks like there's a lot more aromatics in here. A lot more herbs.
There's a big pile of the pink torch ginger on top, which really struck me right away
And it looks great. The smell - smells wonderful.
Take a sip of this broth.
Mmm wow! Right away I taste that laksa leaf, that torch ginger.
You really get that nice sourness from the tamarind in here.
I say this is probably the more sour of all the laksa we had.
Which is fitting because asam means sour. Asam laksa should have some sourness to it.
Still has that nice layer of fish, but I really love the aromatics and the tangy sour flavor in here.
Such well-balanced laksa. And it's got a kick too.
I think even more than the first two that we had, this one has a real kick to it.
Those nice bouncy rice noodles. The blend of textures, the blend of flavors here. It's well-balanced in every way.
The crunchy, the bouncy soft noodle, sour, spicy, that nice flavor of fish, the aromatics.
This is a wonderful bowl. May be the favorite bowl of asam laksa we've had here in Penang.
Taman Emas quite good as well.
But if you're coming to Ayer Itam, come to this place. The local favorite for a reason.