Street Food in Gurney Drive with America’s Celebrity Chef Todd English

Celebrity chef, restaurateur, author, entrepreneur, and television personality, Todd English was in Penang recently for the filming of his TV show. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, Todd English is best known for his restaurant, Olives, located in both Boston, Massachusetts, and Las Vegas, Nevada and his TV cooking show, Food Trip with Todd English, on PBS.

When Nadge contacted me about meeting up with Chef Todd, I quickly took up the invitation and tagged alongside the acclaimed chef and the crew during the recording of the show. The outing was truly inspiring, and has opened up a world of ideas for me, seeing the chef ‘in action’.

Gurney Drive huge outdoor food court is one of the better known food court in Penang. This was Chef Todd first stop whereby he took viewers on a hawker food trail, hitting several tempting stalls. His presence attracted many curious onlookers who paused to watch him prepped up the tasty hawker treats. His first cooking station was at the Oh Chien Stall No33.

This dish is more like a fried egg omelette with oysters. He was pretty impressed with his oyster omelette which was done with a savory and tantalizing way, with a little guidance from the stall owner Sharon Leow of course!

Chef Todd was definitely enjoying himself and having fun at the Rojak stall no9! He chopped-up all the ingredients that he had chosen before spicing it up with the brown sauce of peanut flavor.

Chef Todd introduced viewers to the Char Koay Teow, a favorite Penang hawker food. He watched the owner of stall 47 explaining and sharing the step-by-step procedure in frying a perfect plate. In no time, he took over the stove and dishes out a plate of Char Koay Teow with spiciness and wok hei (pan heat).

Gurney Drive Food Court is just one of the places that Chef Todd visited while in Penang. His visit was indeed a memorable night which will be long remembered by the stall owners and Penangites.

Many thanks to Nadge and Boolicious, and most of all to Chef Todd as well as the crew for having me.