Danny Penang Tua Pan @ Pandan Perdana

I came to know about this restaurant, Danny Penang Tua Pan @ Pandan Perdana, during the few times we went to this area for the famous yam rice and mixed pork offal soup.  Each time we passed by, I noticed that the restaurant was usually empty with ony 1 - 2 tables occupied.  From what I read online, they were originally located in Kepong but moved to Pandan Perdana a few years ago.

That scared me a little as a place is usually deserted when the food is not good but the word "Penang" proudly proclaimed in their signboard made the difference.  They know very well that food from other States (especially Penang and Ipoh) always tend to attract KLites.  But do be prepared that the portions here are rather small as similarly experienced by my blogger friend, phonghong bakes & cooks, recently too.  Why?  Do Penang Lang have small stomachs or they eat very little? @_@

Anyway, armed with the knowledge of a good Google rating, I dared to step in.  The menu was two-sided, one side showcased all the noodles (mostly priced at RM9 for a single serving) while the other featured dishes you can order to eat with rice.

Let's start with a noodle dish that perked up my initial interest (which is also part of the name of this food establisment) and that was the Char Hor Fun (Tua Pan) @ RM9 which is quite similar to our wat tan hor (fried hor fun or broad rice noodles).  Well, I don't speak Hokkien so I wouldn't know what tua pan means but I do know tua pui means fatty bom bom, so tua has to be big...heehee).

So, the difference I detected in this version is the use of broader rice noodles as opposed to our typical kuey teow though it also had small amounts of meehoon in it.  They don't use eggs cracked into the gravy unlike most versions of Cantonese fried noodles or kong fu chow (though some Penang versions also have eggs included).

This is a better photo to showcase just how broad the rice noodles are.  I've not had char hor fun in Penang, so I don't have anything to compare it to, so all I can say is that I prefer our kong fu chow with an eggy sauce though I did enjoy eating the tua pan to a great extent as it was slippery smooth and slurp worthy, not something we get to eat often here.

One noodle dish that I found unique too was this Fish Meat Fried Bihun @ RM9 as we seldom have noodle dishes that come with fish.  The meehoon was well fried with hints of wok hei and had fish cake slices, taugeh, choy sum, egg bits and chunks of fried fish (not sure what fish was used but my guess would be dory).  Overall, we thought this was one of the better noodle dishes here as it had good flavours and the portion was also much larger compared to the rest of the noodles we had.

One of my most liked stir-fried noodles has always been Cantonese-style stir-fried noodles with kong fu chow yee mee coming ahead of kong fu yin yong (mixture of meehoon + kuey teow) in terms of choice of noodles. But I only like it with a particular type of yee mee which I've not been so fortunate to find in most of the kong fu chow here.  Then I realised why after eating this Penang Ee Fu Mee @ RM9.

It seems the type of yee mee I'm looking for all this while is actually yee fu mee which is different from the yee mee that's widely used here.  Some yee mee even stay crispy after the hot gravy is poured over it (that I had to cook it in the sauce at home to soften the noodles) while some are too thin and will disintegrate into the hot sauce (like sang meen). >_<  But this yee fu mee, even after being fried, soaks up the eggy gravy (and softens) much better than yee mee.  I used to say (like many others), yee fu mee = yee mee lah...but now know it's not, ee fu mee is distinguishly different in texture to our yee mee and also more squarish in looks.

This Penang ee fu mee, cooked with prawns, pork, fish cake and choy sum in an eggy broth, tastes a lot better with the noodles having a bit of a bite.  Though the gravy isn't among some of the better ones I've had and I've always been searching for this particular type of yee mee which isn't easy to find, this ended up to be my favourite dish from here.

Also indigenous to Penang is this dish of Penang Hokkien Char @ RM9 which I've never really fancied (or maybe I've not come acrossed a good one yet).  Braised in dark sauce together with prawns, pork slices and choy sum in a mixture of meehoon + mee (not yellow mee), the noodle dish tastes a bit like mun (braised) yee mee style.

Of course no visit to a Penang eatery is complete without trying one of their most famous exports, the Penang Fried Koay Teow @ RM8 and because the Penang version is always eaten with just koay teow, you don't mess around with it by adding mee (which I like to do if it's a KL version since I prefer it with both koay teow and mee).

Their version of char koay teow with prawns, chives, taugeh, egg and the ever important lap cheong, cockles and crispy pork lard (had to settle for 2 out of 3, there weren't any sihum on the day I had it).  This fried noodles was also where the satisfying and tasty hint of wok hei was most apparent.  But unfortunately, I must rattle them off for the use of frozen prawns in this (Penang lang would roll in their graves) and all their other noodles.  It's unacceptable coz these cheap, translucent, overly crunchy prawns are totally tasteless...and adds nothing to the taste of the noodles! >:(

Seeing that we enjoyed the flavours of the fish meat fried bihun earlier, it prompted me to order the Fish Meat Bihun Soup @ RM9 which I soon regretted.  The bihun soup came with slices of fried fish meat, fish cake and choy sum in a broth that had a few slices of ginger.  Other than that, the broth didn't taste like it was cooked from scratch or boiled for hours.  It was so bland and one-dimensional that you'd probably only eat it if you were unwell.

What was worst was that the formerly fried fish meat was no longer crispy after steeping in soup.  That was my bad...I should have anticipated that, of course.  What was I thinking?  It was then that I realised confirmed that the fish was definitely dory.  Dory (unfortunately) has this overly soft texture when cooked in sauce or soup (besides tasting bland), that's why is not favoured by most people but (somehow) when fried it doesn't taste as bad when it's lightly crisp (and flaky even).

Besides fried noodles, they also offer a few types of fried rice and we settled on their Special Fried Rice @ RM9 fried with chicken, fish cake, lettuce, long beans and egg bits topped with freshly fried shallots.

What my son originally thought to be fried dory pieces turned out to be small nuggets of chicken (which I was quite certain they were but asked them just to confirm).  The fried rice turned out rather tasty (to our surprise) with good wok hei, so we will certainly order it again (which we did) as it's my son's favourite dish here.

If you prefer a stronger flavour with lap cheong (instead of chicken), you can order the more common Chinese Sausage Fried Rice @ RM9 as that's available too.

We also ordered a side dish of their Penang Lobak @ RM9 and found it thoroughly enjoyable with a good filling of pork meat that's not too heavy on the five-spice flavour.

When I said their portion of fried noodles is very small (at the beginning of this post), I wasn't exaggerating. They're so small that even the accompanying soy sauce/chillies/fresh garlic condiment plates were small, extra tiny that we thought it was kinda cute (others will think so stingy-lah).  The blue plate is the regular size, the pink plates are the teeny-weeny ones...I've never seen a sauce plate this small! :O

For people with a more ferocious appetites, one plate is definitely not going to cut it, they'll probably need at least two (some may even need three!).  Even I can handle two, I think (ok-lah, maybe one and a half plates).  For our first visit, the three of us handled 4 plates + 2 side dishes easily, on our second visit, the two of us had 3 plates + 1 side dish (struggled a bit but still managed to finish in the end) and on our third visit, we were the most behaved by having only 2 plates + 1 side dish...lol.  On hindsight, RM54 (6 dishes x RM9) for three people sounds more than reasonable but perhaps some people might deem RM18 for just a meal of noodles as too pricey.  Maybe that explains why the place is never crowded or full pretty empty during dinner time (perhaps they're busier at lunch time).  But if you love variety, then this place suits you as you can order more servings (of different varieties) to try.

My Personal Opinion

Overall, the thing that stood out the most was just how small the noodle portion sizes were (they come in only one size and you can't order a bigger size even if you wanted to).  The presence of wok hei in some of its fried noodles (especially the dry-fried type, the saucy ones not so much) makes them satisfying enough although there are consistency issues as some days the wok hei can be a little muted.

The negatives would be the small portion sizes and unacceptable use of frozen prawns (and mass produced fish cake and frozen dory although I can't fault them for this since the vast majority of stalls use these ingredients in their noodle dishes nowadays).  I just wish they'd use more fresh ingredients as I'm not for commercially prepared fish cake or frozen dory though I've seen fresh prawns (and cockles too) used in their noodles based on photos online.  Hope they can get back to that soon when seafood prices become more stable as I've been seeing more and more stalls relying on frozen prawns of late.

Although the noodles didn't blow me away (I think Penang lang would be even more critical), they're still decent enough (more suitable for those who prefer subtle flavours).  But the best thing I can take away from here is that I've finally found the type of yee mee (cooked Cantonese-style) I crave (which turned out to be actually ee fu mee), so this place will be a keeper (and I've been back regularly for my favourite noodles). ^_~

Danny Penang Tua Pan

35 Jalan Perdana 6/4

Pandan Perdana

55300 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 011-3611 7753