Penang Malaysian and Thai - Chamblee Atlanta Georgia

You can find Penang at 4897 Buford Hwy Ste 113, Chamblee, GA 30341 in the shopping center just south of the crux of Buford Highway and Chamblee Tucker Rd, Southeastern quadrant. This shopping center is anchored by the venerable Hoa Binh Supermarket - Penang is on the end close to the market. The shopping center also contains a handful of restaurants worth trying, including Pho Bac, Harmony Vegetarian Chinese and J's Mini Hot Pot. There's a lot of available parking, but these restaurants (and the market) do get quite busy so you may have to park around the corner.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Penang. This is one of the first Malaysian/Thai restaurants that I discovered in Atlanta - it's been around for a very long time. I first tried the food here while still in the restaurant business - we used to make periodic stops at Hoa Binh as it was the first Asian market close to the restaurant in town and one of the only places around where you could find authentic ingredients for (at the time) little known Asian dishes - stuff like fresh lemongrass, jars of sambal and shrimp paste come to mind. The food here is of good quality and to my tastes fairly authentic. The problem I've had here in the past is with the service. I've sat forever waiting for someone to take my order, experienced long wait times for food and once had to hunt someone down to fill our water glasses. I had eaten here many times and basically called it quits as there are many more options available now with better service.

On this occasion my regular Buford Highway Restaurant Crawl group had Penang as the location - this was on a Wednesday night at 8:00 PM. So I decided to give Penang another try as it had been several years. The restaurant only had a handful of tables so we were immediately seated. I'm happy to report that things seemed to have changed in regards to service as it was quite good. Our orders were taken quickly and our server quite attentive. But how about the food?

There were only three of of on this night so we ordered three entrees and an appetizer. Instead of getting the classic Roti Canai we opted for the Shrimp Puff - this is minced shrimp in puff pastry wrapped with bacon - tasty but slightly greasy. Someone ordered a very competent Chicken Pad Thai which was good but slighty sweet. Another dish we ordered was a Beef Rendang - I thought it a bit heavy on the cinnamon and cloves and slightly greasy but otherwise good - I think the others liked it quite a bit. I ordered a vegetable curry that I thought quite good - spicy and very savory (it was my favorite dish).

So in all we had a very good time with good service and I look forward to coming to Penang again - next time I'll focus more on the traditional Malaysian dishes as they looked quite unusual and very tasty - especially the seafood options.

(also posted to Yelp)
 

Harmony Vegetarian Restaurant - Chamblee Atlanta Georgia

You can find Harmony Vegetarian Restaurant at 4897 Buford Hwy Ste 109, Atlanta, GA 30341 in a shopping center just south of the crux of Buford Highway and Chamblee Tucker Rd, Southeastern quadrant. This shopping center is anchored by the venerable Hoa Binh Supermarket that contains a handful of restaurants worth trying, including Pho Bac, Penang and J's Mini Hot Pot. There's quite a bit of available parking, but these restaurants (and the market) do get quite busy so you may have to walk a bit.

Harmony is a vegan Chinese restaurant that features flavors that are a bit more authentic than you typical swag Amer-Chinese Panda Express - what makes it interesting is that most of the dishes are made using flavored tofu with beef, chicken and fish options. The food here is pretty good and offers up an alternative to eating meat-filled dishes so you don't feel so bad bringing your vegan friends and finding out there's not much on the menu they can eat. At Harmony it's all at least vegetarian and mostly vegan.

As for why your vegan friends would want dishes that taste like meat, that's more a question around why they are vegan. For instance, I have many friends that are culturally vegetarian where meat just isn't part of their diet - these meat-flavored tofu dishes for the most part just don't taste good to them. I always find it interesting when I come here with American vegans who just rave about the flavors and wolf down Harmony's dishes - seems a bit hypocritical, but who am I to judge? Eat what you like, I say.

On this occasion I showed up with friends from my weekly Buford Highway Crawl group - quite a few who don't normally attend showed up (several vegans in the group) so this was a treat for them. Some of the dishes we tried:

* Curry Pockets - these are fried dumplings that approximate samosas

* Steamed Shanghai Dumplings - these are a veggie version of a soup dumpling

* Beef with Broccoli - we ordered this spiced up which helped a lot

* Sliced Pork Szechuan Style - the flavors were good but the texture didn't quite make it for me.

* Ma Po Tofu - I ordered this dish extra spicy - it was hot but not super hot. I liked it quite a bit.

* Beef with Mixed Veggies - this was one of my favorite dishes and approximated beef the most

* Sesame Chicken - others liked this quite a bit but I thought it too sweet.

 

Service is very good here - it's obvious the restaurant has been open a long time and the owners really care about the dining experience. Everyone for the most part enjoyed the food and had a good time.

(also posted to Yelp)