Arts and Eats on Mother's Day

We were in Pulau Pinang, and it was a beautiful Mother's Day Sunday when B and I went into Georgetown to have another one of our 'artsy-fartsy' outings. But first its makan-makan before our jalan-jalan; we had a wonderful lunch at the Kapitan Restaurant in Lebuh Chulia. Kapitan is well-known for its tandoori and briyani. We had our tandoori chicken with naan, and believe me, the taste is really very syiok!

Kapitan's tandoori chicken and cheese naan (CNB 2014)

We walked around the inner city to seek out the famous street art of Ernest Zacharevic done for the 'Mirror George Town'  in 2012, and the Cats 101 project (of the George Town Festival 2013); all certainly deserving their own blog posts. We also came across other street art, even graffiti, and some of the 'Marking George Town' wrought-iron caricatures (with anecdotal descriptions of the streets that they are on) which I did not find artistic at all. Also as Timothy Tye of the Penang Travel Tips website wrote "... the caricatures are too Chinese" and he reminds us that "George Town is more than just a Chinese city. It had a cosmopolitan mix of Malay, Indian, Eurasian and many other ethnic groups before the Chinese became the dominant group in the city."

We were walking under the blazing sun for some time before retiring a while for a nice cup of hot chocolate, coffee and cakes at the China House cafe. The passion fruit and coconut cake we had was most delicious. But when we wanted to order another slice, there was no more. Ces't la vie.

B at the China House cake table (CNB 2014)

By a blue door of China House (BB 2014)

Hot chocolate, coffee & cakes (Man in the mirror, 2014)

Here are street art or graffiti as the case may be, of two that we found rather interesting. The 'blue boy' is trying to teach Hokkien, while the turquoise (stray) dog is waiting for a succulent steak to fall into its wide open jaws. As the artist Kenji Chai intended, many pose interactively 'handing out' the piece of meat to the mutt, as did we!

B and 'Kah lu kong Hokkien' (CNB 2014)

A dog & yum, yum juicy steak (CNB 2014)

Our last stop of the day was at the shop that was selling a snack food (is ice shaving food?) from our my childhood days of the 50s - ais kepai/kepal. Luckily the compacted ice shaving (covered with my choice of sweet, sweet syrup and sarsi) was served in a plastic plate and skewered with bamboo sticks, else you'd get frost bite from holding it with bare hands, like we used to before, in those good old days.

Ais kepai and I (BB 2014)

A note on the trivial: The shirt I'm wearing is a 20 year-old favourite, bought in Robinsons, Bangkok. But of course every time I wear it, I get the "oh no, not again" looks from my family, heh-heh!