| Teluk Tempoyak of Penang Island |
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| Written by Scha |
| Sunday, 06 September 2009 01:00 |
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During Ramadhan, it has been very common for my family to try out different sets of meals from different restaurants. Fasting makes people desire more to eat, and everything we see seems delicious, even though we cannot fill our stomachs as much as we thought we could. After so long not having a proper family dinner, because I have been in Italy for one year, we made a reservation at a restaurant in Teluk Tempoyak, Penang in Malaysia.
Teluk means bay, and tempoyak is a kind of durian when it's getting old. It is named this way because there are so many durian farms here.
Since this place is surrounded by sea, it is very common to find houses built above the water. From far, they look like floating.
And I believe they use boats to connect the houses to the land.
The restaurant where we made reservation is known as Restoran Seri Idaman, specializing in seafood of fresh caught fish.
The setting is very near to the beach of Teluk Tempoyak, and we could see some fishing boats nearby. This restaurant also has some fish tanks with living fish for customers to pick on their own of which to be cooked.
My brother, Amirul, who is a big fan of Arsenal soccer team, has made the reservation under the name of 'Fabregas' (or Fàbregas if spelled in proper way). This ridiculous act of his drove people to actually stay there and wait for a person called Fabregas to arrive. Meanwhile, while waiting for the time for dinner, my whole family went for a short tour around War Museum (which was closed at 6PM and we couldn't enter), and some smaller parts of the city where we found small houses and narrow streets that led us to dead ends. The locals looked at us with so much curiosity, since that was the day they were having fogging (a method of using fog covering some rural areas for some hours) to prevent mosquitoes, and they don't expect visitors on such days. Afterwards, we just spent some minutes at the beach, watching sunset and the water level going down. Some of us went to throw pebbles on the sea water, making them bounce several times.
The great thing of beaches in Malaysia is that it's never too far to find one. It takes maximum 2 hours to reach the closest beach, and every beach has different views, smells, and creatures. Malaysia is such a small country that you can travel anywhere in it without wasting so much time and money. In this case, Teluk Tempoyak is a bay of Penang that doesn't get commercialized like Batu Feringghi. Bays like this, where people can sit around, fishing, painting pictures, or just reading a book, without being interrupted by tourists. I find complete peace here, that I even saw someone just like me (except that he was using a more professional camera), taking pictures of anything he saw. This beach is still recovering from tsunami in 2004. I still have the old seashells where I collected before it happened.
Now, they don't appear anymore on any beaches that got hit by tsunami here. However, I was told by my father that these sea creatures now have to be caught in the sea, instead of beaches like before. And when the sun was almost down, I saw some mudskippers coming out from the rocks.
After that, we went back to the restaurant, to the table that had a label with 'Fabregas'.
Our dining time had been explored by so many people around us. They turned to look at us while eating, and went talking to one another, smiling, and looking at us again. We even had an extra chair, which made it look like we were expecting another person. I was wondering if we had my husband Dani with us, who is a white guy. People here would have thought he is related to Fabregas. They were too curious that one of them even stopped my sister Yun to ask where she came from. That's what I dislike about Malaysian culture; busybody. However, it was a fun night to spend with family members. And the meals were great too.
I just couldn't resist the fried squids; the one I always ate in Italy too.
I hope Teluk Tempoyak will stay as beautiful and peaceful as it has always been, for many more generations ahead. It will be such a loss for people who don't know how to appreciate.
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| Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 December 2009 13:48 |
