Goh Teo Kee Restaurant @ Sungai Ara, Penang.

Finding a Teo Chew Chinese Restaurant in Penang can be a really troublesome, especially when you are not familiar with Penang, Goh Teo Kee Restaurant is one of the famous restaurants in Penang that serves Teo Chew chinese food. There are actually two branches in total, which located at Taman Sri Nibong and Sungai Ara, and my main focus today will be the outlet at Sungai Ara. Aside from Teo Chew cuisine, the branch in Sungai Ara serves Thai food too, which you can't find in Taman Sri Nibong's branch. Finding this restaurant should not be too hard if you are familiar with the area, from Relau (PISA), drive approximately 3 minutes, pay attention to your left hand side, upon reaching a Malay school, you will notice a junction (on your left), turn left and turn left again, drive for another thirty seconds, you should be able to see Goh Teo Kee on your right hand side. Parking can be easy, ample parking spaces around the area, there are also some parking lots right in front of Goh Teo Kee for customers too. This place can be very crowded especially during weekends, do try to make reservation first to avoid disappointment. Prices are on the higher side, there will be 10% of service charge and peanuts/facial towel charges added to your bill too.

Deluxe X.O Scallop Sauce Tou Fu (金牌干贝XO豆干, Rm24 Medium) The soft and silken tou fu cubes were deep fried till perfection and topped with the luxurious X.O scallop sauce and some deep fried onions, together with some soy sauce. The deep fried tou fu cubes were still crispy but have successfully maintained the silky smooth texture inside, to go with the rich and flavorful soy sauce and X.O scallop sauce. Just perfect to go with white rice.

Stew Herbal Chicken (药材鸡，Rm12 Medium). The chicken does not posses a very strong herbal taste to me, but it does work well with white rice due to there was excess sauce, which has mild herbal taste. Rather calling it sauce, it was more to soup instead, but I would prefer a slightly thicker and richer herbal flavor.

Braised Duck (卤鸭, Rm14 Medium) The duck was just okay, it has successfully maintained the "meaty" texture, not over cooked nor it was too soft, but it lacks of a bit saltiness in my opinion, it would be better if they could add in extra pinch of salt, but it works well with the chili sauce given, pretty common and nothing to shout over this duck, more like those can be found at usual hawker centers.

Stir Fried Eggplant With Sambal (辣炒矮瓜, Rm8 Medium) was pretty decent in my opinion, especially the soft and juicy eggplants was perfectly cooked with some Sambal sauce. It was not too salty nor it was too spicy, just nice and perfect for me.

Stew Pork Leg And Buns (焖猪手, Rm18 Medium). It comes with six small little steamed buns, there are two ways to enjoy the buns, you can either dip the buns into the sauce and savor it OR you can slightly cut the bun into half and stuff a piece of pork into the bun and sandwich it. The pork leg was nicely done, the meat has a very soft and juicy texture, however, more fats were given compared to meat, would be better if they could give us more meat instead of the fattier parts.

Tom Yum Soup (东炎汤, Rm6 per bowl) was expensive in my opinion, they were charging us Rm6 per bowl, minimum order of five bowls needed, which making it Rm30 in total. The Tom Yum was very flavorful  (a balance in terms of sweetness and sourness) and appetizing but the ingredients were not satisfying, there were just one piece of fish, a small prawn and a mussel, and it costs Rm6 for one small bowl of this Tom Yum, definitely pricey enough. The soup has a very strong basil flavor and it was quite spicy.

Ratings:

Taste: 7/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Price: 6/10 (1-3 expensive, 4-7 average, 8-10 cheap)

Service: 6.5/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Parking: 7.5/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Service Charge: Yes 10%

Government Tax: No

Additional Information:

Address: 78, Jalan Dato Ismail Hashim,  11900 Sungai Ara, Penang. 

Business Hour: 11:30am to 2:30pm, 6:00pm to 10:00pm, Closed on every 1st and 3rd Wednesday.

Contact Number: 604- 644 3072