Yeng Keng Hotel, Chulia Street – Dining in A Heritage Boutique Hotel

Dining in a well restored Classical Boutique Hotel that serves both Chinese and Western Food with reasonable pricing and good service are among the criterias to make it to become a popular choice.

Yeng Keng Hotel is located at the center of Georgetown, Penang. If you know the way to Komtar, just ask around and you will know how to go to Chulia Street which is just a few stones’ throw from Komtar. Yeng Keng hotel is located at Chulia Street.

Yeng Keng Hotel is just a few doors away from the 7-11 convenient store at Chulia Street. The entrance of the hotel is a century-old restored arch with the name written in Chinese as “燕京旅社” which means Yeng Keng Hotel.

Upon entering the hotel, you will see there are rows of dining table at both sides of the hotel.

The hotel has indoor and outdoor dining area. The outdoor dining area lets you enjoy your meal under the moon and stars.

Whereas the indoor is protected from rain and dust. This section is also a pub area where people come here for a mug or two and to enjoy football match session on TV. However, for both dining area there are no air-conditioning but equipped with fan and natural air instead.

The picture below shows the hotel lobby. There are 20 rooms available and each room costs RM300.

Hainanese’s Style Spring Roll (2 pieces) – RM12. I find that the price for this plate of Spring Roll is over priced. The ingredients in this roll is nothing much than bangkwang (yam bean), carrots, green beans, fried onion and chicken slices.

This dish is good with the nice aroma of yam bean and other ingredients when spring roll is cut into pieces. The skin was deep fried to crunchiness while the inner part was still very juicy. Everthing of this dish is good except for the price.

Fish & Chips – RM15. The fish fillet was battered and deep fried. It was then served with french fries and coleslaw. The lemon slice is for a soury twist to the fish.

This fish & chip was nice and the portion provided was quite big also. The french fries was nothing special yet the coleslaw was sweet and sour. I find the sweetness was a bit too over for me. Other than the coleslaw, there is no complaint for the remaining of this dish.

Grilled Fish with Butter Sauce – RM18, The fish fillet was grilled with lemon butter sauce and topped with lemon slices and olives. It was then served with sauteed potatoes, coleslaw and vegetables.

The taste of the grilled buttered fish is rich. However, they balanced it well with lemon. Rather than too rich, the taste was appetizing. The fish was fresh and it was of butter smell.

Grilled Rib Eye Steak – RM35. Selected rib eye steak was grilled according to customers’ preference. There was a choice of eithere black pepper sauce or mushroom sauce. It was served with sauteed potatoes, coleslaw and vegetables.

I requested my steak to be cooked to medium rare. The tenderness of the steak was just nice and even without the sauce the aroma of the grill was good and the texture looked appetizing too.

The mushroom sauce blended very well with the steak. However, there was still a minor flaw upon getting the steak to perfection. The tendon of the steak at the side way was not cleared properly which made the meat harder and chewy.

Hainan Mee – RM10. Stir fried yellow noodles with chicken, seafood and vegetables in Hainanese’s style gravy and covered with plenty of fried onions and spring onions on top.

There is a dilemma in determining the authenticity of this dish. Some said that this type of noodle is the authentic Hainanese noodle. However, to some they claim that this type of cooking is actually Hokkien’s style of cooking. To me, I only know that this dish was good.

Yeng Keng Chicken Chop – RM15. The deep fried chicken thigh coated with batter was served together with homemade red sauce. The dish came together with a lot of fries, vegetables and topped with plenty of green peas, corns, carrot and mushroom slices.

This chicken chop was neither an authentic Hainanese nor Classic’s Style. Instead it was a fusion type which combined both Hainanese and Classic Style. The deep fried chicken chop was very crunchy and juicy. It mixed very well with the red sauce and veggie.

Overall, the food, the service and the ambiance here were up to standard. However, the pricing for certain dishes here are on the high side. The may be due to its ambiance at an exclusive well-restored heritage hotel. There are some parking lots located just behind the hotel which is free for the diners and hotel guests. However, the lots are limited. The ambiance here is focused on Heritage and therefore, the dining area is on natural air instead of air-conditioning.

Editor’s Review (5 Stars Rank):

Taste
Price
Food Presentation
Service
Overall

Quick Facts:

Family Friendly
Parking (Limited Space)
Pork Free
Alcohol
Credit Card
Smoking
Reservation
Private Room
WIFI Available

Operation hours: 8:30am – 10:30am (breakfast); 12:00pm – 10:00pm (lunch and dinner) (7 days a week)
Contact: 04 263 3177; 012 427 1956 (Jacky Chung – GM)
Address:362, Chulia Street,10200, Georgetown, Penang
GPS: 5° 41′ 91.00″ N, 100° 33′ 49.70″ E