Famous Teochew Chendul @ Lebuh Keng Kwee Penang

People always say Penang is famous of its cendol, a cold drink consists of green pandan-flavored noodles (a.k.a. cendol), red beans served with shaved ais, gula Melaka (palm sugar) and coconut milk. I believe when people said this, most of the time they are referring to this stall, the one located at Lebuh Keng Kwee, an alleyway at Jalan Penang who called themselves as "Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendul".

Sometimes it's hard to explain why an isolated stall can get such a big name just by selling cendol. I always say it is either the quality of food served or its legendary. I'm not sure the story behind this one, but from the big name visited the stall before, such as the 1st "opposition CM" (Chief Minister) of Penang Lim Guan Eng and also famous Singapore's iconic comedy characters "The best in JB and some say Batam.." Phua Chu Kang and Rosie and of course many others local and foreign personalities, you just couldn't underestimate its popularity!

When you walked into Lebuh Keng Kwee from the busy Jalan Penang, you would see 2 stalls selling the similar product. Don't get confused, the one on the right would be the authentic one. If you still not sure, you can always find the one with the logo as shown in the photo below, or look for the stall with Phua Chu Kang's photo taken with the stall's owner who has a similar mole with him, or just look for the crowd!

There is no seat for the customers, but the patrons just don't mind to queue under the hot sun and enjoy the cendol on the spot. One good thing is that you don't need to wait for long as a bowl of cendol will be served to you in just few seconds time. The serving speed is quite amazing and I believe you can't achieve this without long term practices.

Anyway, the owner of the stall had made some improvement to its business by renovated the ground floor of her house to become a comfortable space filled with air-conditioner for customers to enjoy their cendol in a more relaxing manner. The space with proper seating is just few steps away from the stall. After we ordered and got our cendol, we had been invited by the taukehnio to enjoy our bowl of cendol inside this air-cond area.

If you feel unsatisfied by just enjoying cendol, you could also order Asam Laksa as well as Rojak at the stall in front of the air-cond seating area which I believe is some kind of business expansion and diversification by the cendol stall owner.

I believe what made this cendol so famous is because the coconut milk a.k.a. santan used were sufficient. Most of the cendol i ate were covered by shaved ice but this one was totally different. The entire bowl of cendol was filled with coconut milk then the shaved ice just submerged underneath. Thus you need less time waiting for the ice to melt before you can fully enjoy the beverage.

The volume of Gula Melaka added was just nice and it gave a very nice flagrance to the solution while it was not too sweet. One more thing is the green grass-like jellies (I called it "green pandan-flavored noodles" earlier) inside the bowl of cendol were really so much until it emerged outside the coconut milk! Maybe this is what "Teochew cendol" is different from other type of cendol?

The red beans were soft and nice to eat as well. With the size of the beverage served, RM 1.80 for a bowl of Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendul was certainly worth the money! No doubt it is a nice beverage to quench the thirst especially during hot day!

If you wish to try, here are some of the information about this cendol stall:

Address: 475, Jalan Penang, 10000 Pulau Pinang (outside Joo Hooi Cafe)
Business Hour: 10.00am - 7.30pm
Close: Open daily except if rains heavily

p/s: There is no exact spelling for the word "cendol", so "cendol", "chendul", "chendol" or "cendul" are all refer to the same thing.