French food – Travels with Ali

Flying from Kuala Lumpur to Penang on Malaysian Airlines took just one hour. Our flight was at 2 pm and we arrived in plenty of time for a change! We printed our own boarding passes and luggage tags and while I attached the tags I asked Anthony to hold the boarding passes along with the peeled off labels. When all was done I asked him for the passes back but he had just promptly walked over to the security desk and handed everything over to be thrown away. Back he went to retrieve them. Just one job was all I said.

For the next four days we were going to be exploring Penang and staying at The Prestige Hotel. Close to all the heritage buildings and many restaurants to indulge in delicious food.

A luxuriously large room with great amenities with robes and slippers! No view to speak of though, oh well can’t have everything. I love the way the toiletries are displayed.

**The Swimming Pool on the 4th floor rooftop – luckily not segregated!**

**Malayan Railway Building from the pool**

After checking in and leaving our bags we had a quick wander around the neighbourhood. As I mentioned before it was a long holiday weekend here and this was in evidence as many places were closed and the streets were empty.

Penang is rich in history and culture and is such a wonderful place to wander around. It is a Unesco Heritage Listed Site. On 11 August 1786, Captain Francis Light of the British East India Company landed in Penang and renamed it Prince of Wales Island in honour of heir to the British throne. Source: Wikipedia. Francis Light is now credited as the founder of Penang.
Many of the buildings are beyond repair now but there are a few that are still resplendent and have been restored and maintained. It seems on looking around that there are buildings under renovation now, even a few with steel girders propping them up.

The buildings below are ones we passed on our walk to dinner.

**Beautifully restored French colonial building**

We decided on a French restaurant that night, I’m not one for spicy foods but I knew tomorrow that it would be Anthony’s turn. The restaurant we chose was called Two Frenchies. Their website states – “Two very good friends who happened to be French . . . and knew nothing about running a restaurant , decided one lazy afternoon that they were going to bring their culture of food to Penang”.

It was all delicious and the service was excellent. The wife of one of the chef’s kept popping by to see if we were enjoying everything.

A fantastic end to our first day in Penang

It was over a year since our last visit to Melbourne, longer for hubby, and it was the second planned trip this year! Anyway we finally took the risk of no lockdowns during our six day trip (although that has come back to bite us on the backside!) This visit was to catch up with Laurence and Maddy, a weekend on Philip Island and a short trip to Sydney.

We decided to stay near them so as to maximise our time together and chose The Hamptons on Chapel Street.

Arriving late on a Tuesday afternoon, we checked into a very nice one bedroom apartment and met with Laurence and Maddy for dinner just around the corner.

Tulum Turkish Restaurant, Balaclava

This is one of my favourite restaurants in Melbourne, it has some very tasty tapas on the menu.

A delicious start to our stay in Melbourne

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Over the next couple of days we spent time walking the streets and soaking up the sights.

The street art around Melbourne is always so different and vibrant. I took photos of some fabulous murals on our walk around the city.

The above two murals are by Mike Maka from Melbourne (Australia) a painter who works in a variety of media, mainly on walls, canvas and illustration on paper. He has travelled and created work around the world, painting the Berlin Wall to the River Ganges. Source: Street-Artwork

The mural on the right was actually blocked off and I had to step on a small wall and balance on hubby’s back while lowering the net to snap it!

Painted by Heesco – a Mongolian Artist based in Melbourne

This brightly coloured mural was just outside our apartment block, such beautiful colours.

Heesco – a Mongolian born artist based in Melbourne. Have a look at his website, he is by far the best artist I have seen. His silo murals are extraordinary.

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Chez Bob, Armadale

One night we had dinner in a cute French restaurant out in one of the suburbs east of Melbourne. A fabulous evening with great food and service. We ate snails, scallops, pate, beef tartare, rabbit pie, duck and beef. A gourmet feast.

G2 Korean BBQ, CBD

Maddy chose G2, one of her favourite restaurants in Melbourne for our last night here. This is a very authentic restaurant with a burner of coals on the table. The staff that night were truly run off their feet as they like to cook for you. Although we did pretty well on our own.