Sunday, November 27, 2005

Ronda Butterworth

Today we had our whole morning spent at Butterworth.

After going to Jawi for chai koay, I suggested to take the opportunity to visit the Raja Uda market, the largest market in Penang on the way back. (I have been longing to visit it since long time ago oh!) . Mind you, I really had a tough time trying to park my car coz it was so damn congested. Every single space available at the nearby residential area, shophouse area or opposite the road there was parked. It was very common to see people parking their cars far+far+far away to walk themselves up to the market.

The Raja Uda market was located by the road side. You will not miss the very long stretch of stalls starting from the traffic light junction there because that was where the bad traffic started. All the stalls were jumbled up inside there, not confined to only one street, but spread throughout the many cross-roads there, the so-called cabang-cabang lah. Ah ha! it was rather messy but I LIKE IT! Ya, I like such kind of market which is still unorganized or not yet allocated inside any appropriate MPPP buildings. That reminded me of the Sartok Market back in Kuching, Sarawak too.

We just had a quick ronda for ~20 minutes or so then we realized that the market was really LARGE and definitely needed MORE time to explore if we were really keen on ‘looking for something’. We decided to come back some other time during weekdays or perhaps when the little kid was not brought out together with us.

I WILL BE BACK ! :)

On the way back, while passing through the Wolley Avenue (if not mistaken, I think this area which consists of the whole stretch of 3-storey shop houses is called so), I came across this Kocha Kopitiam (Jalan Raja Uda, Butterworth). Hmm…its style was very much similar to the Old Town Kopitiam at Prai Megamall. Hence, we stopped by to try it out.

One glance at the menu, it offers wider range of choices than Old Town Kopitiam. It also serves 'proper' noodles and porridge. (Old Town Kopitiam serves nissin instant noodle right?! :) ) We ordered garlic bread, butter kaya roti, milo, teh o ais and classic kopi.