Sorry lah, but Penang wins hands down :P
Versus 
Auntie Penang Uncle Singapore
Char kway Teow. Fried flat rice noodles. Starch fried in lard with minimal fibre, with additional strips of deep fried crispy lard. Numerically irrelevant calories. Traditionally a labouring miner's staple meal. Sinful. State of Heaven. Grease baby grease.
Standing on the corner of the local "mamak" hawker stall, I breathed in whiffs of "wok hei", the distinct type of aroma that immediately alerted me that this was going to be the real McCoy. Yes, the real authentic Char kway Teow. The exact same taste that I reminisced when I had a plateful in some Kopi Tiam shop 12 years ago. And here I was, on my first day in Penang, ready to bypass the sights and sounds of the city and dive straight to the sole purpose why I came here. To eat char kway teooooow!
I had a few mouthfuls (because I already well satiated from a bowl of white curry mee 20 minutes earlier) and it was overwhelmingly tantalizingly damn. bloody. tasty. I could have easily devoured the entire plate if my belly permitted, but unfortunately, my trousers were already at the brink of going bust at the seams.
Nonetheless, I had my second opportunity during lunch as I was on the plane departing Penang for Singapore. It was not like the ones you get in Singapore, where they usually overdo the sweetness with too much kecap manis until the noodles look like an indistinguishable black mass. Penang's char kway teow tasted more savoury, because the sensible Penang Aunty was smart enough to skip the sweet sticky black sauce and enhance the flavour with more pork lard. Crude as it sounds, the artery-clogging pork lard is the secret essential ingredient that makes char kway teow so unmistakenly delectable to the tastebuds. I licked the remaining grease stains left on my lips after finishing a packet which I smuggled onboard. Wrapped in banana leaf, stored in a plastic bag. Much to the disgust of an American woman that sat beside me, who picked at her meal of black pepper fish and rice that air stewardess had served.
When you dig into a plate of char kway teow, the last thing you want to bring to mind is its potentially deadly health-related consequences. So, next time you dig in, very simple, Don't think. Heck with all that amount of saturated fat each plateful brings, otherwise you really won't enjoy it. What's life without a little lard right? :)
Enjoy each mouthful and praise the poor uncle/aunty who have been standing in front the wok the whole day, tolerating the heat from the scorching sun as well as breathing in carcinogenic fumes whilst they labouriously slave to make a living. oh, and dont forget to BURP :D
Saying this though, Char Kway Teow is not something I'd reccomend on a daily basis. Because as tasty as it already is, overdosing on too much of a good thing can make its appeal wane with the days. Moderation is the key folks ;)
*In case anyone decides to be adventurous and try their hand at frying char kway teow, heres a good link to check out! http://audreycooks.blogspot.com/2006/09/penang-char-koay-teow-flat-rice.html
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