Penang is a place of taste treats — except, perhaps, for one

PENANG — Sensing that we're a little unsure about the menu, our waiter at the Bali Hai Seafood Market on Penang's Gurney Drive seafront invites us to "tour the aquarium."

We watch as a boy in shorts climbs atop tanks filled with fish and uses a net to scoop out crab and geoduck clams.

It's our first night in Penang, the island off Malaysia's west coast known as the cultural and culinary melting pot of Southeast Asia.

We select a small fish for two. The waiter writes down our order in Chinese, and suggests the fish be steamed with plums and ginger.

Beer arrives in an ice bucket as if we've ordered expensive champagne. We settle into our seats at a picnic table decorated like a beach hut with a thatched awning and twinkling lights, and take in the scene.

Groups of Chinese serve themselves family-style from lazy susans in the middle of big round tables.

A Malay family sits behind us, the mother in a yellow head scarf, matching silk blouse, black pants and sandals.

Indian women stand out in their colorful saris. American and European tourists and ex-pats sweat out the humid evening in outfits more suited for air-conditioned malls.

Malaysia is officially a Muslim country, but the crowd that gathers here nightly along the seafront mirrors Penang's diverse population, a fusion of Malays, with roots in Indonesia, Chinese and Indians whose ancestors were lured here by work opportunities.

The British colonized the island in 1786, establishing the main city of Georgetown, and trade prospered. Today high-tech companies such as Intel employ thousands, earning it the nickname Silicon Island.

A walk though Georgetown's compact streets is literally a religious experience, with Hindu temples and Chinese temples, mosques and Christian churches within blocks of each other.

Perhaps because the rest of the island is a beach community, attitudes are relaxed. Young Muslim women favor casually draped white head scarves worn with T-shirts and jeans. Beer is available most places and, when it comes to eating out, everyone mixes. McDonald's and Starbucks have moved into a new high-rise shopping mall, but modernization doesn't seem to have fazed the craftsmen and fortune tellers who ply their trades in old shophouses under covered arcades that serve as sidewalks.

While walking along Lebuh Chulia, nicknamed "Lonely Planet Street" for the small hotels that cater to backpackers, toward Little India, we passed a sign for Fatt Chye Wang's Palm, Face, Career Project and Card Reading, and found the Kimguan Coffee Factory.

Ong Kok Weng, the owner, wasn't in, but his helpers were there mixing up a batch of beans to which they add sesame seeds, margarine, salt and sugar. Starbucks not.

A walking tour laid out by Penang Heritage Trust led us to the workshop of Kok Ah Wah, a Chinese signboard maker. Now in his 80s, he still carves the signs many Chinese post at the front entrances to bless the comings and goings of their guests.

A few minutes more walking, and we began to hear Hindi music. Here, at an Indian drink stall on the corner run by a father-and-son team, we had our first teh tarik, or "pulled tea."

At 25 cents a cup, this is one treat I plan to have as much as possible. Sweetened with condensed milk, the tea is cooled by pouring it between two metal containers, one held above the head and the other at waist level.

"Penang is food paradise," a local man who was born here told me. Perhaps he's biased, but there is a long list of foods to sample.

So far, I've seen just one thing I think might be worth a miss: the green-bean sundae at McDonald's.