Last week Malaysia Kitchen (the folks behind the food truck a couple of years ago) hosted a winter market at Bryant Park, bringing a number of Malaysian food vendors to Midtown.
Malaysian cuisine is hard to find in Midtown. The closest places I know of are probably the Upper West Side branch of Penang and Singapura in Murray Hill, and then there are a few more spots in Chinatown. Considering how long the lines were at the winter market (so long that I didn't end up getting lunch there on the second day of the market as the lines were out the door), I think people were craving those unique flavors as much as I was.
Even though some vendors had come a great distance (like Bentara from New Haven, a restaurant I loved there), I ended up getting lunch from Penang. A reasonable line, a reasonable price, and a reasonable portion size were important factors for me. (For the curious, the longest lines when I was there were for Nyonya (even though that's easy to get to in Chinatown) and Auria's Malaysian Kitchen (which made sense since it's much harder to get that - and they had chili crab sliders!))
Penang was offering mee goreng (Indian style pan fried egg noodles in squid sauce with egg, tofu, chicken, bean sprouts, fried onion and potato) for $6. It was tasty and was a good fix for my Malaysian flavor cravings, even though I have had better mee goreng at Penang itself and other places. Of course freshly made noodles are better. But it was wonderful to have a Malaysian food option at lunch when there currently isn't one. I love mee goreng... maybe a cookbook project is in my future!
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