Robert’s Penang Char Kuey Teow @ Restoran Golden Kimwah

Penang, is a food heaven that prides herself for famous local delights like Hokkien mee, char kuey teow, cendol, loh bak, etc. Her fame has caused her name to be misused in other states, leading to many shops and stalls that are titled with “Penang Char Kuey Teow”, “Penang Rojak”, “Penang Hokkien Mee”, etc. back in Klang Valley and KL, as well as other states.

We do believe that authentic Penang taste does found here, so we never give up in looking for a good plate of Penang char kuey teow, our all time favourite. But most of the time, the taste don’t cross, hit or match, and we often come to an agreement that, these so called originated from Penang delights don’t seem to tail the good taste from up north. We tried out countless plates of char kuey teow in Klang Valley, almost all fall short in taste, except the one in Asia Cafe SS15. Until we heard of Robert Penang Char Kuey Teow from numerous bloggers, we back to believe that there’s good Penang char kuey teow in Klang Valley, just waiting us to find them out.

We went through almost every Robert Char Kuey Teow related post from 2009 till 2012, and found that most reviews gave thumbs up to their char kuey teow. Some did mention that the stall had shifted, some said that the stall has branches in different places. Not sure which parties are correct, we follow the address given by a blog post written in July 2012 (the latest we can find), for we failed to find any written in year 2013.

The first visit was a disappointment, for the shop had closed when we reached. We turned more clever the second time, for we rang up ” Mr. Robert” before heading there. Asking if he is Mr Robert CKT, he said yes, so we were convinced that it is the char kuey teow stall we wanted to go.

Happy to see that the coffee shop was still on brisk business when reached. We don’t see any Mr. frying char kuey teow there but just a woman doing all the jobs. Her wife? We think so. But where was Mr. Robert? Don’t know. But judging from the newspaper cut placed in front of the stall and the aromatic smell that welcomed us, we predicted that we were at the right place. Not wanting to “judge the char kuey teow taste by its chef”, we ordered a plate — large, extra spicy.

Char Kuey Teow

Decent portion with succulent prawns, lap cheong, yellow hue scrambled eggs, chinese chives and cockles loaded within the fluffy red coloured kuey teow. Looked tempting physically, the taste didn’t live up to our expectations. It lacked the essential requirement of a good char kuey teow- dry body and rich wok hei.

Not sure the reason behind the less satisfying taste char kuey teow was because it was not prepared by Mr. Robert himself, or we were actually eating char kuey teow from the wrong stall. We did went back for second try few weeks later (and it rains again), hoping to see Mr. Robert in action. But the stall was seen manning  by another very young man with a foreign staff instead, and it tasted even worse compared to last time- Bland, soggy, unevenly fried noodles. Readers, guide us to the right stall, if you know. From what we had seen from reviews, it could have taste better.

Putting aside Char Kuey Teow, there’s lot of other options to choose from in the coffee shop. Vegetarian economic rice, chicken rice, wantan mee, kolo mee, claypot chicken rice, pork noodles, yong tau fu, etc.

Craving for something hot and soupy, the girl orders a bowl of curry mee, after scanning through the row of food that all stalls have to offer. The curry mee came in beautiful reddish colour, with decent amount of poached chicken, bean sprouts and cockles. Smelt nice too. For taste, it was medicore, but good enough to get the girl’s curry mee desire fixed.

Seaweed Popiah

The combination doesn’t match into good flavour. The seaweed, the popiah skin, the sengkuang, the

carrots, the crispy bits and the mayonaise, all stands in individual taste. The roll of popiah didn’t seem to make a difference, whether you eat every ingredients separately, or in whole. Special, but not memorable.

We will return to the shop again, until we get to taste the legendary Robert Char Kuey Teow. And if we are wrong and you know the right place, do direct us, so we don’t return to the same stall and order blindly again and again. Thousand thanks in advance.