STEAMBOAT !!

It’s the Penang version of the all you eat buffet.  You select your food, take it to your table and prepare it in on a pan which sits over a gas burner ring.  The outside rim is flat and covered with tin foil.  You smear butter on it and put whatever foods you want to cook there.  In the center is a divided container with water which comes to a boil.  You put your delicacies in there to cook as well.  One way to do it is to put cut up veggies in one side and you meats and fish in the other.

The choices of foods are endless.  There is one section about 30 feet each which contain a variety of meats, fish and vegetables. 

Another section just as long contains many things which I don’t have a clue about.  I’ll have to go back and at eat another time to see what they are.

Not only do you have a choice of foods to cook, there is a pork station where you take your meat of choice which is already on a skewer and immerse it in a container of boiling water at the end of the table to cook it.

If that weren't enough there is a dim sum table with a large selection.

And you are even met at the entrance by a someone who will make you one of Penang’s signature dishes – seafood and noodle dish called koay teow.

If you’d rather have tea instead of a fruit drink you have a choice of two different teas to put in your pot and make your own.

I made a meal similar to this in Siem Reap, Cambodia, except I used a piece of pork fat to grease a pierced dome which sat over a charcoal brazier.  All the good juices from the bits of meat and fish you cooked on the dome ran down into a trough filled with a little water.  You tossed some cut up veggies in the water to start.  The more you cooked pieces on the dome the more juices ran down into the trough and the richer the broth became.

That experience led me to concoct a piece de resistance seafood ‘soup’.  I first charred a few shrimp on the flat ring to enhance their flavor before I tossed them in the water.  In went some glass noodles and a few pieces of napa cabbage.  That was followed by more shrimp, large pieces of two different kinds of fish, cockles, and tiny clams.   

The water simmers with your goodies in it and soon you get a delicious seafood  'soup'.

Here are some of the fruits of my labors.

I took my time eating this and some of the glass noodles began to dissolve toward the end which made the broth even thicker.  I think I’ll use this technique in making some soups at Chez Greenbrier.

And, finally, there is dessert.  You can choose from three flavors of ice cream, frozen pops and a tray of fruit and cakes.

I chose a scoop of strawberry and the lavender one which is coconut and a few slices of watermelon.

A nice steaming pot of green tea rounded out the meal.  Come to think of it the meal rounded me out a bit more too.