Eating in an unfamilliar town - look for the crowds

In August Rattu (from Bhutan) and I had lunch to discuss how to improve his written work. He felt that we should eat in a quiet place. I went along, but told him that in a food obsessed country a crowd is a good indicator of quality. Last week we went out for a farewell dinner (he is now home with wife, children, and cold weather). He commented that the restaurant was crowded and that I had taught him an important lesson.

So why am I mentioning this now? Today as I walked through George Town I joined the queue at "Penang Road's Famous Teochew Chendol." About 2 meters away was another "Penang Road's Famous Teochwe Chendol." Clearly in Penang one does not need to copyright their name to protect their business. BTW the chendol was fine - should it be famous? I have no idea, usually I get es katchang.



The picture does not begin to do justice to the chaotic used book store. It is on the second floor of a wet market. I didn't count the number of narrow sections with books stacked from floor to ceiling. There was no effort at marketing. Some areas seemed to contain relatively similar books,and fiction was everywhere. So I gave up on the idea that a random book would appeal to me. Finally I found the classics. (I wanted something to read on the bus next week. I am about 2/3 of the way through A Legacy of Ashes, so chances are I don't need anything else. Still I dread facing several hours on a bus with nothing to read. I decided on Heart of Darkness. I read it in high school and have taken a copy on several trips in the US. I never seemed to get very far. We will see if this time is different. My mistake - I didn't look up to see if there were sprinklers. I am sure there weren't.