Once upon a time, my ex-colleague joined us for a trip. We we're drinking at a pub, playing Q&A games. A question being throw to the gang, and each has to provide 1 correct answer. If failed to answer in 3 seconds, or answered wrongly, will have to drink a full glass of beer 🤣 When the question came, name an island in Malaysia, the manager accidentally answered Pulau Tikus.

As I have explained on previous post, Pulau is island in Malay, but Pulau Tikus is NOT an island, it's a commercial area IN the island of Penang. I can't possibly be passing this opportunity to snap a photo of the above and send a copy back to my friend to remind her she answered this 🤣 poking fun early Sunday morning.

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J-GARDEN

Throw back to Saturday evening, after church session we went to the next door to meet an old friend of mine, Luke who is a local. He used to study his college year in Kuala Lumpur, we met at the car club and become pal since both of us loves to deal with fuel saving driving techniques.

Since evening, there's little street light and the 3:4 setup does affect how the camera phone taking in exposure, I decided to come back and take a photo of the restaurant in day time. This is it, J-Garden. Not exactly sure why is it called that way, but I guess it has to be Japanese Garden? Since they serve Japanese fusioned food.

First dish caught my eye was the Hamburger Steak. I'm not fan of fusion foods, but somehow this dish imprinted in my head for years. I learn this from a TV drama series Beautiful Life starring Kimura Takuya 木村拓哉 back in the 2000. Imagine to have see this dish 22 years later, can I not order it?

Followed by a karaage fried chicken for the kids. They're not too hungry since I fed them enough junk food at the hotel earlier before we went to church for evening mass. It's supposed to be 4 pieces of those fried chicken. As usual, I'm the only one taking food photos and by the time I take photo for this karaage dish, half of the chicken went missing.

For some reason, Malaysian Japanese restaurant has anything and everything Japan. From tepanyaki to robataya, and even salad. We also ordered a portion of grilled chicken salad so we won't be over eating since it's late. Before we left the place, I managed to talk to the counter staff and learned this place was opened during the first lock down back in 2020. They're originally from Queensbay Mall. It's really brave of them and kudos they survived this whole crap. Food price isn't exactly "cheap", but I really don't mind to come back for dinner with the family again on our next visit.

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Midland

Back to Pulau Tikus day walking visit. This area is also known as midland back in the British colonised day. For one simple reason, it's at the middle of the island. The famous Gurney Plaza, Gurney Hotel is located at this stretch of the sea side.

J-Graden only operate after breakfast hour, but fear not. At this street there's enough eateries around. Next to J-Garden is this restaurant by the name of Huey & Wah. Weekend breakfast from RM13 a set! Let's forget about the "name" of the restaurant that sounded extremely Chinese, but the price is attractive enough. I even saw this white couple sitting inside enjoying their breakfast! I should have just brought the kids here for breakfast has I know this earlier.

Whilst waiting for home minister to finished her morning mass, I proceed to walk around the commercial area and explore for food so later I can bring her for breakfast. Majority of the shops remained closed, either I'm too early or they're off during Sunday.

Even Starbucks looks different here. There's this handicapable school around the corner, if that give you an idea why there's sign language at the signboard. Once again, my ultimate goal wasn't here to experience multinational franchise. We will come back to this place next time when we visit again without the kids. Hopefully a longer visit so we can explore as much as possible.

More statue of mouse to remind my ex-colleague about the Pulau Tikus is not an island incident 🤣

As I walk pass one of this bakery shop, I can smell the fragrant of flour from far. The banner hanged outside stated Korean style breakfast toast for RM4.90. Back in Kuala Lumpur, this will easily cost us like 8 bucks already.

As I walked to the other side of the road, and there is the coffee shop we visited the day before. Noticed it was a rest day for them, finally get a chance to take a closer look of the building itself. This shop located right opposite of J-Garden.

Sorry for the random photo out of the blue. I was referring to the name of this IT shop, by the name of Informatics. Totally reminds me of my college year.

Also found another coffee shop by the name of Bee Hooi. I was going to find a more happening, and more hawker coffee shop so I can bring home minister there. However, this coffee shop only has 2 active hawker in it frying and cooking. So I guess there's not much choice for us.

As I walk further, that's like a full kilometer out since the hotel, reached this place and saw a restaurant selling Halal food. I didn't sit down, by the look of the shop, I think their food can be really good. Not forgetting the shop owner cleverly retained the Chinese signboard 勝利. It means Victory.

This part of the town is extremely busy, and the road is extremely narrow. It's not a tourist spot as I have mentioned previously, it's place for hospitals, schools. It's an old commercial area, and I'm sure the peeps looked at me one kind because I dressed like a tourist and looked like a tourist got lost with a dead battery phone 🤣

We went for breakfast at one of the coffee shop, but that will be on another post. By the time we finished our heavy breakfast, we walked past this durian hawker. For Christ sake, nowadays they have all sort of fancy name for each type and look of durian. Like the Greek has every fancy god names to each star. Funny enough, as I was eating halfway by the roadside, suddenly the owner popped up and keep talking to me in local language. Just as I wanted to highlight his accent was a little bit off, to learn that the owner was actually from Klang 🤣 which is no wonder both of us can't speak local accent properly!