This was an exciting weekend of food, food and food, well maybe for some others, The Penang Bridge run and St. Anne festival in Bukit Mertajam. Indeed, this is a busy weekend for the folks here in Penang. On Friday, me and a few colleagues visited Subway on their grand opening at E-Gate Penang. To our surprise, the place was jam pack, we queued up to the next shop. It was ‘grand’ opening with so many customers, and mainly I believe is attributed to the buy one free one sub promotional opening offer, you can get yours here. It expires on Aug 4th, so get it fast. With the coupon, you will find yourself paying around RM15-17 for two sub with two large drinks, and so this works out to be around RM8 per sub and drink. Without the promo, you are staring at RM9-12 per sub, and RM3.50 for a combo. All in all, I paid RM27 for two meals on my second visit (yeap, I have been visiting the joint almost on a daily basis so far).

A little pricy, and I am truly disappointed at the fact that the pricing was so high. I remembered I had a sub a few years back in KL and it was only RM5-6 per sub (my memory may be wrong). More over, E-gate is not exactly a place that have a high traffic of visitors, it is a F&B and business building, of which, do not get that much people traffic. Maybe the target market are rich patrons who do not mind paying RM9.80 for a Chicken Sandwich(sub), or maybe Subway is trying to create a culture of eating expensive sandwiches. Anyhow, I hate myself for saying this, but I don’t think they would survive long. Truthfully, after the promo period, I don’t think I would continue to visit the restaurant, merely for the cost. I just could not afford a sandwich at this price. If those who remembered Deli France, who also offer similar sandwiches, all of their branches closed in Penang, and I believe because of loosing out to other fast food and less healthy chain.

Penang is just not ready for such market yet, there may be countless rich buggers here, neverthless, the misers among them are also close to countless. For such an F&B business to survive, it needs to have the daily human traffic, and frankly, I don’t believe E-gate and particularly Subway will get the required traffic to survive. To the contrary, on my visits so far, the restaurant have been packed, and today, the queue was again up to the door. So, I may be wrong, anyway, I continue to patron the place, up till the offer runs out. After that, I will make my own sub at home.

Hawkers Paradise
Penang is truly famous for it’s hawker food. So much so that TheStar Publication has decided to publish a compilation of Penang’s top hawker food cookbook with great recipes from your favorite Char Koay Yeow, Assam Laksa, etc… The launch of the book was celebrated by a hawker fare at the Upper Penang Road on Friday evening. Being a hawker food lover, me and my wife could not resist and visited the fare right after work. The small Pedestrian road was covered with a long canopy and under it, all the best hawker food the island has to offer. We surveyed all the stalls and recognized some of our fav hawker uncles and aunties. Nothing much to be said about the food, as it is simply the best, and do get the book. For more of the event you could read The Star write-up on this link. By the way, for those who knows me, you will recognize someone familiar on the photo over at The Star write-up. On the next day, another Hawker food carnival was organized at Gurney Drive. This was much more grand, with the Prime Minister officiating the event…..

On this day..

• Training for Round Island - 2011
• The Corridor - 2003