Hainanese Delights Restaurant • Penang — Restaurant in George Town

Housed in a colonial pre-war shoplot along King Street, This establishment used to be in another place called 1926 along Burmah Road as part of a hotel.

Evoking a sense of nostalgia as you walk in and is greeted with the dining room and the traditional room partition which separates the front and the back of the house, the menu also features dishes from a bygone era as well.

The standard nonya dishes are all here, and has a few small surprises, do ask the friendly staff here should you be curious about any particular dish.

The dining room is a little cramped, due to the size of the room, but still can seat about 70 persons or so.

The food is not bad. While some complain about the spring rolls, I found them to be passable, albeit missing the crab meat. The hailam mee was also passable, even though it was bordering a little on the sweet side. I especially liked the jiu hoo char (cuttlefish) which rarely has more than a few slivers of cuttlefish - this one was quite packed with it, and therefore making it really good.

Prices are reasonable, and do call or make a reservation before attempting to come during peak hours or you'll be...

We got here on Monday around 8pm, it was empty, then a table of 5-6 arrived, someone who seem to know the owners. This looks a family business, saw the brothers both attending to customers and taking orders. Sometimes it felt like even though it wasn’t a busy night, they weren’t that attentive to customers.

There were only 2 of us so we decided to go for a spring roll and the lamb stew. The spring roll (RM8.50) has the right level of freshness and crispiness, the ingredients tho is more towards the taste of five spices meat than regular Hainanese spring rolls. The lamb stew was… honestly disappointing. We were expecting some amount of lamb but we only got 2.5 small pieces each (shared among 2 people), altho the pieces were rather soft. The rest were just the fu juk (bean curds) and mok yi (wooden ear mushrooms). The broth could be a little thicker, it was almost like soup instead of stew. It was RM36 for...

The restaurant is set in a beautifully restored old shop lot. We went there for dinner and parking was a breeze at night, which was a welcome respite from Penang traffic. The owner took the time to recommend their specialties to us, describing each dish with pride in their cuisine. Our orders came very quickly and they were delicious. The spring rolls are a must, as they have a slightly sweet twist to them. The chicken rice was very flavourful, which called for an extra helping of rice. The fried bitter gourd was surprisingly crunchy, retaining the flavour of the bitter gourd well, nice. Kangkung belacan was good, as well as the asam curry fish. The Hainanese fried bihun came with a bit of gravy, which was different from what I was expecting, nice surprise. I believe they serve their version of Hainanese food, and they've done well to give us diners a pleasant gastronomic surprise....