#tek sen

I travel to Penang every now and then for work, and while it’s usually a dreary task, getting to eat local Malaysian food is always a nice perk. On my most recent trip, a colleague kindly brought me to Tek Sen - a zichar restaurant best known for its homely Chinese dishes.

Thanks to it being ranked at #4 on Tripadvisor’s list of top restaurants in Georgetown, we saw many a foreigner dining at Tek Sen. My colleague shared that in the early days, Tek Sen didn’t even have printed menus and the staff mostly conversed in Chinese or Hokkien. But its popularity with foreigners have led them to be more tourist-friendly, with English menus and English-speaking staff.

In typical zichar style, we ordered a whole lot of dishes to share and all of them, including the Salt and Pepper Squid (top left), and the Sambal Kangkong with Shrimp (top right) were competently executed, though not mind-blowing.

But there is one dish that absolutely seals a return trip to Tek Sen. See that plate of black pieces at the bottom that looks like our Singaporean fried carrot cake? That’s Tek Sen’s Twice Fried Pork Belly, which apparently has its roots as a dish made from leftovers. Housewives would buy roasted pork belly for a meal, then use dark soy and chilli padi to re-fry the excess meat. Here at Tek Sen, the fatty pork bits are coated with a heavily caramelised soy, and the sweet and spicy combination, together with smokey wok hei, is a winning one.

Tek Sen Restaurant is located at 18 Lebuh Carnarvon, Penang, Malaysia 10100.