FoodZealot.com

It's a little overcast and gloomy today, but about 83F and comfortably humid. My buddy made reservations for me at the Cititel Penang, so I finally have a chance to break out my AC travel adapter kit and wireless card. It's rated four star (not sure by whom), so it's plush compared to what I have been staying in, although about 6 times as much per night. Still pretty reasonable, all plushness considered. By the time I got settled, I was ready for another snack.

Right across the street is a 24 hour Malay/Indian place called Jaya that called to me right away. I don't know how it compares to other places around here, but it had a steady stream of locals and it looked promising. They cook to order in the back, but all the action is at this table up front. I think this is sometimes called the banana leaf style of eating, or rice plate. [clarification: this is a nasi kandar place, which is muslim Indian. Banana leaf usually means Southern Indian, like from Tamil-nadu, Kerala, etc] A counterman starts with steamed rice on the plate, then the customer chooses from what's available. A thin sauce that goes over all the rice is also chosen. The red chunk is a piece of fish, I guess like tandoori. Then I got a chicken stew (I think there was turmeric, garlic, clove, some cardomom and a few other things in it) and some green beans. With a bottle of water it was RM 7.80 or about $2.00US. I'm not sure how you could beat that for value. I'm pretty sure I'll end up there again before I leave.

Also nearby are two street corners of ad hoc mini-food courts where Chinese food is served from carts lining the street. They offer such as roast duck over rice, yam rice, Hokkien noodles, Hainanese Chicken Rice, etc and customers sit on the inside of the ring. I may hit some of those as well. I also stopped at a convenience store and picked up some interesting drinks.

By the way, if you're ever in a situation like I am in this hotel where you're composing a long email or blog entry in IE or Netscape or Opera, and the Internet access is on a timeclock rather than flat rate, here's a trick. You can economize your time by getting to the new entry page (or webmail new message page), stop the clock, then compose the entry, so that the clock isn't running during the time you taptaptap, umm, maybe, nah that's dumb, retype, etc. the way I do. Then just turn the clock back on before you send or submit the page. That's because the WorldWide Web is setup as a client/server scheme, where the client sends a page request blahblahblah.

Another way to do it would be to compose your text in MS Word, then start the clock, get to the page and copy and paste the text into the webpage. BTW, the access here is RM 20 or around $5US for 24 metered hours.