Kicked off our Day 4 in Penang with a hearty breakfast at the famous Transfer Road Roti Canai, which has been in business for many decades. Locals and tourists alike would flock to this breakfast spot super early in the morning just to dig into its roti canai banjir, i.e. flooded roti prata.
Transfer Road Roti Canai only serves breakfast/brunch and is open from 7am to 12pm every day.
If it’s your first time here, you’ll probably be confused or lost with regards to their ordering system, if there’s one to begin with, lol. The moment you arrive, look for available seats immediately. If there’s none, just look out for customers whom you think will be finishing their meal soon. Stand near the table and get ready to take over once they leave. Empty seats ‘sell’ like hot cakes and can be taken up within seconds so be alert of your surroundings when there! Why does it sound like a battlefield? Wahahaha!
When we finally got our seats, we just tried to catch the attention of one of the staff. He merely asked us how many people were in our group and told us to order drinks from another guy who was nearby. I thought I heard him say there was only chicken curry so perhaps that was why he didn’t ask what curry we wanted. Couldn’t quite understand him anyway.
Teh Tarik
As usual, I would request for my drink to be kurang manis (less sweet). This was a good tasting teh tarik. Very smooth and fragrant.
Roti Canai Telur with Chicken Curry
A piece of egg prata doused with curry sauce and topped with a whole chicken leg on top. That’s why it’s known as flooded roti canai, lol. It’s what makes it special from other roti canai.
The curry sauce was runny and didn’t have much body. It was also spicier that I expected. Non-spicy eaters, this may not be suitable for you.
Chicken was moist and juicy. However, the meat near the bone was quite bloody and pink.
The roti canai telur was very soft and soggy too after soaking up all that curry sauce.
For this roti bakar (grilled bread/toast), we had to join the queue and order ourselves.
Again, this was a completely different version of half-boiled eggs and toast that we are familiar with as the eggs were served on top of the bread. Eggs were perfectly cooked with nice runny yolks but overall, it was a bit too bland for my liking.
Final Thoughts
The roti canai and roti bakar were mediocre in my opinion. Nothing compared to what we have here in Singapore. I even prefer my own homecooked chicken curry with frozen prata, lol. Only came here because the locals highly recommended this place. Very overrated – that’s all I can say.