When the sun starts to set in George Town, bathing the colonial buildings in orange and pink, we step out into the street to hunt for dinner. Visitors to Penang never just have dinner; they hunt it, as if the meal were hiding in some darkened nook, guarded by a grey-haired auntie frying noodles.
We squeeze into the the open-air Line Clear restaurant, famous for one of Penang’s signature dishes: Nasi kandar, a heaped meal of rice with various curries and sides. Big metal trays and pots of curry grace a metal trolley along the wall, the oil congealing around the rims. A slim Indian man loads a plate with rice and begins ladling the contents of the pots over it.
“Won’t the sauces run together?” my friend asks.