BW Tom Yam Noodles @ Asia Cafe, Air Itam, Penang.

I am pretty sure that most of you have at least heard of a famous Tom Yam stall operating at night which located at Raja Uda area (Joo Heng restaurant OR known as the Tom Yam right beside Kwong Hwa primary school), its rather troublesome for us Penangnites, particularly for those who are living in the island. Worry not, the famous Tom Yam stall has opened another new branch in Asia Cafe (opposite to Air Hitam's monument), which is two minutes drive from Penang Hill and Kek Lok Si. This stall is currently operating by the second generation from the main outlet at Raja Uda, with taste and price remain unchanged. The only thing changed was the variety, it has lesser choices compared to Raja Uda's. Another major disadvantage was the operating hour, you can find this stall operating from 5:30pm to 11:30pm, while the main branch at Raja Uda operates until late night, which most of the customers come around that time. And of course, the waiting time at Raja Uda's outlet was and ALWAYS is insanely long (it took them more than ONE hour to serve during my previous visit) and the environment was not that ideal (lack of ventilation) either, you would not find all these problems here in Asia Cafe, especially in terms of waiting time (mainly due to the customer flow), it took less than ten minutes for my bowl of Tom Yam noodles to arrive. 

Tom Yam Noodles (for your reference, this bowl costs me Rm7), I opted for the instant noodles instead of others, they do have vermicelli, white rice and porridge too. My previous experience on this Tom Yam was, the soup was too spicy to my favor, so I had to remind them again for not making it too spicy for me this time and the taste was perfectly okay. The soup has a great balance of both sour and spiciness, with a hint of mild sweetness as well. It goes pretty well with basically all the ingredients which you can choose to add in. My choices were fish balls, Enoki mushrooms and deep fried fish cutlets. Highly recommended.

As you can see, one can actually add in any ingredients they adore into their noodles. Various kinds of fish balls are up for grab, as well as mushrooms, egg, minced pork, deep fried bean curd, sausages and seafood etc.... You might want to ask for the prices (especially for the seafood) first just in case the noodles come in too expensive for you. Although I did not add in any of the seafood, but the portion for my bowl of Tom Yam noodles was actually quite big and I had added in a lot of fish cutlets and fish balls, and it ended up costs Rm7 only....which is much cheaper than most of the Tom Yam/Fish Head Bee Hoon stalls/outlets. One of the MUST-TRY ingredients will definitely be the deep fried fish cutlets, which I can assure you that you would not have any regrets after trying them out. The batter was so even and perfectly coated, and the fish cutlets were very fresh. Moreover, most of them still remained the crispiness and crunchiness after soaking in the noodles for few minutes.....Recommended.

Ratings:

Taste: 8.5/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Price: 9/10 (1-3 expensive, 4-7 average, 8-10 cheap)

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

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

Service Charge: No

Government Tax: No

Additional Information:

Address: Asia Cafe, Jalan Bukit Bendera, Air Hitam, Penang. (beside the roundabout between Jalan Bukit Bendera and Jalan Air Hitam).

Business Hour: 5:30pm to 11:30pm; Closed on every Wednesday.

Contact Number: N/A