Tai Tong dim sum, Penang

I first took note of Tai Tong dim sum when Babe wrote about it some time back..
Since it was right in the city and we'll definitely pass by that area, we decided to pop over for breakfast (more like brunch) when we were in Penang..

Elaine has been to Tai Tong a few times, hence it was relative easy for us to locate the restaurant...

Tai Tong is definitely old school, very nostalgic; we were greeted with the sight of ladies pushing dim sum carts, families tucking into the dim sum, few old men chatting happily and tan cha (enjoying tea)....

While we were busy checking the place out and figuring what to eat, Andrew, who was very hungry that morning, took some bad looking dim sums without our knowledge :-(. shall talk bout that later...

The default order, obviously were the siew mai and har gau.

The siew mai was very fresh, sweet and tasty. Have it piping hot, definitely settles the rumbling stomache..

As for the har gau, it was alright, springy, sweet prawns and ok skin. Think the siew mai was better though..

I didnt get to try the lor mai gai, but francis and elaine said it was very tasty.

The char siew bao was delicious, very fluffy and soft, while the filling was laden with char siew and some nice, sticky (but not too sweet) sauce.

The chee cheong fun was just average, I find the layers (chee cheong fun) too thick for my liking..

We had some yong tau foo too. Quite nice, sauce a tad starchy though..

My fave from Tai Tong has got to be these huge babies..

Steamed lotus with salted egg bao. Must have it piping hot, this is so delicious that we pack loads back to KL (not cheap though, it's RM3.50 per bao). The lotus paste was just nice, not too sweet nor bland, the salted egg yolk was very fresh and balanced the paste nicely. The bao skin was the winner though, somehow, the skin texture was like flower mantau, if you look at the picture closely, you can even see layers (in the bao) which gives a perfect fluffy, soft as cotton texture..

There were some bad stuff ordered though (mostly by andrew ;p) such as..

Some wor tip (pan fried dumpling) look-a-like. I mean, look at this! It looks so very unappetizing, would you order this? Nobody wanted to eat this, andrew ate a few while elaine took one too. They didnt look like they enjoyed it (we nearly played spin-the-bottle to see who will have the last piece).

The deep fried oyster with stuff fish paste and salted egg yolk was another disappointment..It was served cold, the skin was soggy and the oyster tasted really fishy..

But the worst was the fried bao..It was rather cold, base was oily .. and the filling yucky. was not the chunky pork that andrew was expecting, but sort of fish paste+pork. None of us ate it except for andrew (since he ordered it..wkakaka)

We ended the meal with a plate of sang meen. I thought it was quite delicious, lots of egg gravy to soak the fragrant crunchy noodles. Not the best, but quite good. Andrew didnt like it though..

Tai Tong Restauran is located at 45, Lebuh Cintra, Penang. For the map, check out babe's post.