Siam Road Charcoal Char Kuey Teow — Restaurant in George Town

Char Koay Teow with Egg (Spicy) = RM9.00 No Service Charge

This is a Michelin Bib Gourmand Food Stall.

Queueing 50 Mins for this is probably one of the Stupidest Thing I've ever done in my Life, and I promise I will never do this again.

Located in a Dedicated Shophouse of its own, with a Residential Section on top. I reckon the Owner probably lives here too. When I arrived here at 1.16pm on a Friday Afternoon, there was a Super Long Queue that was at least 25 People Deep. It stretches all the way into the Eatery itself.

The Interior is full of people already sitting at Tables while waiting for their Friend in their Queue. Not Airconditioned although there are Fans that thankfully made it feel Less Warm and Stuffy.

The Chef is a Middle Aged Man who is doing all the Cooking and he is assisted by 2 Assistants who help him with taking orders and prepping ingredients. Once your Queue is reaching near to them, just order what you want from the Assistant and pay her directly. Once done, it will be just 2-3 Mins more before you get your Food.

Protip: If you are a Solo Diner, don't expect to be able to sit down because ALL the Tables would have been taken. I myself had expected to just stand and eat but I was very lucky that a Fellow Patron offered her Seat to me because she is still waiting for friend who was still in the queue. She will probably never see this Post, but I would like to thank her for Generously offering her seat to me. Of course after I finished, I signalled for her to come reclaim her seat.

Total Control of the Flame

The first thing you will notice is the Pile of Charcoal on the Floor next to him and he will occasionally take a piece to put into the Burner with what looks like a Self-Jury Rigged Air Blower with Dedicated Manual Controls. While Frying the CKT, he will actually push some buttons on this Air Blower to manually control the Fire. It is quite Fascinating to see how he controls Every Little Aspect of the Flame like this.

Char Koay Teow with Egg (Spicy) = RM9.00

With all that being said, how does the Actual CKT taste like?

First Bite of it, was Sweetish, Salty and Savoury. It certainly has Wok Hei to it. Sweetness, Saltiness were all just at the Right Level. The Noodles have a Noticeably Stickier than usual sort of Texture for some reason. Its the Sort of CKT where after the 1st Bite, you want to keep eating more.

Also Very Fragrant due to the Presence of Pork Lard. Chilli also very Mildly Spicy. I feel compared to Jin Kor CKT that I reviewed previously, it is slightly more 重口味 but not as Heavy as Singapore Version of CKT. Again, Kicap Manis is not used in this Penang CKT.

That said, I feel this is a Very Small Plate although is just nice for 1 Person. There are 2 Fat Mid-Sized Prawns, Pieces of Pork Lard, Lup Cheong and all the Ingredients you'd expect from a CKT. The Cockles here are one of the Smallest I've ever seen for a CKT. They are so Small!

Conclusion and Closing Thoughts

At RM9.00 (S$2.70), it is definitely worth the Money because this CKT really does taste Very Good although I wouldn't specifically fly to Penang just to eat this, much less queue 50 Mins for it.

The Precise Fire Control he does here fascinates me more than the Actual CKT itself. Self Jury-Rigging an Air Blower just to have Precise Control of the Fire is just Next Level Dedication for me.

Like I said before, No Food No Matter How Good, is never worth more than 20-30 Mins of Wait. I can recommend this, but you must be prepared for a Long Queue. Given that they open at 12.00pm Noon, your chances of seeing Little Queue is pretty slim.

Having said that, I do admire his Endurance. For me, it was a 50 Mins Queue. For him, he is standing infront of a Blazing Heat in this Crazy Hot Weather for over 6 Hours, 5 Days a Week. Can't imagine how he can tahan like this.

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We were roaming the area wondering what to eat as we had Nonya Kway for our late breakfast. We saw a Siam Road Char Kuey Teow on Google Maps so let's head on over to take a look. The signage is promptly displayed but as we draw closer.. OMG.. look at the queue? There were easily 20+ people queuing.

Since we were still quite full we decided to queue not knowing what's ahead of us. There were limited seating from what we can see outside but as we walked into the dining area we can see there's another area at the back. There were more people waiting than eating. My fiancée and I decided.. let's queue and if there's no dining space available we will just take-out back to our hotel. As we queue there's a lady looking out for available seats for your party. She will usher a representative to queue while the rest take their seat. In other words, the number of people you see queuing is probably the number of customers waiting for their food. Each person could have several orders.. so be warn. With about 20+ people ahead.. we queued for more than an hour. The queue hardly move for a good 10-mins occasionally. That's when I suspect there's a big order. My fiancée took a seat and ordered our drinks. After about 30-mins she wanted to swap, reluctantly I agreed. By then my ice barley is "iceless" and a tad warm. Alias my fiancée waited another 30-mins or so. We decided to try one plate of spicy and the other non-spicy. I would say if you can take spice.. go for the spicy. As I queued I saw others ordered the fried chicken wings. It's the whole wing for RM7. It doesn't look that appetizing.

When we finally got our Char Kuey Teow and tasted it.. it's all worth the wait. The wok-hey is good as it's cooked with charcoal heat. It's tasty and the two prawns are fresh and sweet. The cockles if you can find them is ok... nothing spectacular. We ate and we left.. turns out that the wait time is so much longer than the eating time. But if I had to do it again.. I'd probably would except next time I would come earlier and queue for it.

Give it a try.. I'm fairly sure you would like it compared to those almost tasteless char kwey teow...

We tried this CKT on our recent trip to Penang due to the good reviews we saw on social media. My verdict would be that it's just all hype. Below are my take on this place:

1. We arrived at the place at 11.50am, though the place opens for business at 12 noon as we are aware that the queue can get very long. The stall was not open, and we literally had to wait and watch the stall owner slowly arrive and make his preparations. At 12.25pm, he started frying his first plate CKT.

2. Though customers are given a number(mine was no 3.), we are required to leave our table , go and queue at the CKT stall to order and wait for our plates from the CKT couple directly. Note that you will need help to carry the plates if you are ordering more than 2 plates if you come in a larger group and are ordering for everyone.

I ordered 2 plates and was passed 1 plate immediately while the other was prepared. I asked if I could collect both plates together since I don't want to be standing there holding 1 hot plate of CKT, the lady boss wasn't happy and kinda of toss the readied plate onto the counter. I finally got my 2 plates, said my thank you nevertheless, and went back to my table to have my CKT finally.

Verdict : The CKT taste was so so only, they uses chicken egg instead of duck eggs as Penang is so famously known for in it's CKT. The cockles are small and given a small amount. I'm seriously not impressed at all.

Ordered the chicken wings, which was tasty, juicy inside, and slightly crispy outside.

The lady that runs the restaurant is in charge of drinks only but is pleasant and efficient.

Will I go back to this place or recommend their CKT to a friend? It's definitely a no and will not return myself as there are other more customer friendly place which...