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)
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)
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