AUGUST 15 — Just my crappy luck with a delayed flight. So there I was, waiting 30 hours in the lounge because my budget airline wanted to play "Let’s See How Many Passengers Prefer to Walk.”

Blonde-haired obviously-non-Malaysian passenger was talking about her upcoming cross-peninsular tour. Being the eavesdropping Jason Bourne wannabe, I overheard her utter a supreme blasphemy, "I think Kuala Lumpur could be a more exciting place than Penang.”

Good heavens! I nearly spit out my mushroom soup at Michael Phelps’ face on the TV screen! The horror.

Anyway, here’s why I think she should’ve read the sign at any Malaysian airport that says, "Penang, On Its Worst Day, Beats Kuala Lumpur Hands-Down In Any Most-Exciting-City Contest”.

Cars and weather

First, the traffic. 

In Penang you need barely five minutes to drive around (literally around) the city. In KL, by the time you drive from Istana Negara to Jalan Bukit Bintang, you could have switched five jobs. In Penang, only a state funeral or a pink moon will bring out traffic policemen. 

In KL, policemen double up as traffic lights and Ghost-Riders escorts for huge black cars with very important people on whose schedule the fate of national security depends i.e. if these vehicles slow down for even two seconds the Malaysian sky may fold in on itself, like in the trailer for Doctor Strange.

Bizarrely enough, I’ve been in Penang quite a number of times, I’ve never had a policeman tell me to make a left turn (and ruin my entire route) just because a guy in a suit has to be somewhere. (By the way, every time a cop in KL tells me to do that, I always oblige because I’m very sure the passenger in the back seat of the many-flagged car has something extremely important to do like, I dunno, defuse a bomb or deliver a baby or, like I said, stop the sky from falling?)

My point is, in Penang, even if Typhoon Dora hits and your car battery’s dead and all the buses have stopped running, you would still get to your office in George Town quicker than if you worked in KL and you lived in the same building as your office.

Second, the weather. In Penang, you’ve got fresh sea air and the beach is pretty damn close by. You’ve also got mountains and if you’re really depressed you can swim to Sumatra.

In KL, every breath you take includes hot air from air-con compressors and the only beaches available are fake ones in water-parks or ”beach clubs” i.e. tourist and yuppie fly-traps where you pay RM50 for a Coke and if you ever order anything even remotely resembling "Western food”, you better eat r-e-a-l-l-y SLOW to make up for the arm and leg you had to give up.

The food

Third, like Yang Amat Mulia Michael Jackson said: This is it. This is the crux, ladies and gents. Food and more food. Even if by other criteria KL is a Dubai 7-star skyscraping hotel and Penang is the heart of the Jinjang landfill, the island-state would still be better off due to this factor alone.

To even begin to compare Penang’s tastes with KL’s is to commit cultural suicide. That tourist or whatever should’ve known that Malaysians can have their passports revoked for even considering the possibility that KL food holds even an imaginary candle to Penang’s. Give a starving prisoner one bite of Penang fried oysters, then tell him the next dish is a KL specialty, he’ll throw the dish in your face and file an official complaint to the United Nations.

On Thursday I had two bowls of prawn noodles (termed Hokkien Mee in Penang) at this stall which named itself "888.” That’s two gorgeous mega-helpings bowls in 10 minutes. Why? Because the voice of the Kitchen God was forcing me to. Because if I didn’t order that second bowl, I would’ve had to run naked around Komtar as an expression of the injustice of existence itself.

But Hokkien Mee isn’t the only thing you’d willingly trade your soul for. There’s also char kway teow which is French for "Don’t Think — Just Chew, Swallow and You Can Die Happy.” There’s nasi kandar which is Spanish for "Shut up and eat everything on your plate, and if it’s too spicy just shut up and eat some more.”

Fyi, Penang is ground-zero for nasi kandar; this means that every two weeks all the nasi kandar sellers from KL make a trip to the island to kow-tow 30 times before the master of their universe, failing which the Angel of Death will descend upon KL and transform all the nasi kandar in the Federal Territory into grub that even Singaporeans will reject.

Then there’s the galaxy-famous cendol in that alley which, on some occasions, can produce a queue so long even the Thai border authorities start getting concerned. This cendol-seller is living-eating proof that food is art, and one of his cendol bowls better hang in the Louvre really fast lest the Mona Lisa starts to weep tears like green worms.

Note to anyone reading this who doesn’t know what cendol is: It’s the stuff that every Olympic gold-medal winner drinks before they show the silver-medallist who’s boss.

One of my personal favourites is this dish called Kueh Kak. This is carrot cake for the uninformed, but way different from that RM500-a-bite crap you get in Starbucks. Unlike that cosmopolitan what’s-the-Wi-Fi-password nonsense, Kueh Kak is fried to obscene perfection and served with goodies like taugeh, eggs and world peace.

There’s this uncle selling it near the ferry terminal, and he’s been frying the stuff since the Dutch invaded; when he cooks even God takes notes. Every time I visit him, I buy four huge packets and I refuse to share — because who needs ethical behaviour when you’ve reached heaven?

Anyway, I wanted to tell the tourist that when you visit KL, every other food stall will have the word "PENANG” in their poster or menu. "Penang char kway teow”, "Penang prawn mee”, "Penang government”, etc. It’s like Malaysia’s capital pays homage to the island-state because should it not, people will stop eating hawker food and spend all their money at KFC instead. 

However, the reverse doesn’t apply in Penang. You will absolutely NOT see any Penang food-seller advertise their dishes by citing "KUALA LUMPUR” as their origin. You will absolutely NOT see the sign "KL wantan mee” or "KL beef noodles” — to do this in Penang would be to perform professional kamikaze. Even the stray cats will be jumping ship and leaving s***ty comments on TripAdviser.

Bottom line: The food in Penang makes the food in KL look like glorified leftovers for the tenants at the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

And if any tourist brochure tells you there’s anything more exciting in the country than food? You’re in the wrong country.

**Mic drop**

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.