Pengkalan Street / Second Street (二街) Hawker Centre @ Sungai Petani, Kedah

Pengkalan Street Hawker Centre, or more well known to local as Second Street (二街) can be equated as Gurney Drive hawker centre Sungai Petani version, as it houses a variety of great yet inexpensive hawker food. There are perhaps about 30 hawkers from various ethnics - Malay, Chinese, Indian here, and exodus of crowd can be seen flocking here during dinner time. Few stalls are open during lunch hours though.

Koay teow theng (RM 3.30 - small; RM4.00 - big) is a must try here. The dried (kolo) version has dark soy sauce spreaded all over the smooth koay teow, yet not too overwhelming to cause distasteful. The silky smooth koay teow was best eaten as the addition of garlic oil (蒜油) greatly unleashed the taste, with the slight scented garlic oil smell lurking in the mouth as aftertaste.

You could opt for chili and mix it with koay teow to lighten the dark soy sauce taste, and I personally find this combination works best.

The highlight will be actually their own made fish balls. Made of fresh smooth wolf herring (西刀鱼; ikan parang), It is one of the best own made fish balls I have tasted, as it bears the original grey colour with almost no acrid fish smell. It exhibits decent chewy texture and if you feel 3 pieces are not enough, you may order it separately. The fish balls here extinguished itself well with other commercial fish balls out there

亚祺自制西刀鱼丸 (Koay Teow Theng)

Operation hour: 1:00pm - 8:00+pm (Close on Wednesday, or there is no herring fish to make fishballs)

Own boiled tea here is selling for RM1.00. It is hard to find such inexpensive price at this post GST era.

Apart from koay teow theng, Jawa Mee (RM3.30 - small, RM 3.80 - big) here is great to have. The soup, or I should call it sauce instead, is thick and rich in flavor, and seasoning it with peanut imparted a gracious feeling. Do not underestimate the small spoon of sambal as it will spice up the sauce much to your surprise.

It seems like this Jawa Mee has a great reputation because it was featured in the TV channel "Ho Chiak" previously and there are certain loyal customers who purposely come from Penang for a bowl of Jawa Mee only!

Koay Teow Theng

Operation hour: 1:00pm - 8:00+pm (Close on Tuesday)

From top right, clockwise. An enormous quantity of lobak, deep fried yam coated salted egg, otak-otak and yam roll.

My attention was casted onto this stall offering various stuff while I was waiting for my Jawa Mee. Deep in my heart I was wondering, will all the food sold off late in the evening? Intrigued by its fortress alike food formation, I went to the stall to have a closer look. There are some peculiar fried food which I never come across in an usual lobak stalls - Yam rolls and deep fried yam coated salted egg.

I enjoyed the deep fried yam coated salted egg (RM2.80 each) much, it looks something similar to scotch egg. The concoction mimics the earth structure, with a crispy layer (crust) coating the yam (mantle) and salted egg yolk (outer and inner core). The salted egg possesses the natural salty taste but it was well offset by the soft texture yam and crispy crust. Usually one will feel overwhelmed consuming a whole salted egg but this different presentation of salted egg works fine for me. I would definitely make another trip to try out the other ingredients offered by this stall.