Mews Cafe

My wife and I enjoying a meal with our friends at Mews Cafe (11 January 2015)
Mews Cafe, also known as Kafe Mews, is a restaurant and cafe at Muntri Mews, the boutique hotel along Muntri Street in George Town. It occupies the ground floor on the front portion of the hotel. The menu for Mews Cafe presently leans heavily towards Malay-style dishes, with the deliberate intention of providing visitors to Penang a taste of Malay cuisine.

On 11 January, 2015, my wife and I were invited to dinner at Mews Cafe by the internationally acclaimed hotelier Christopher Ong. It was a meeting that has been long in waiting, and finally we got to meet and get to know each other. It so happened that my old friend Magdalene, who was the manager at Penang Heritage Trust when I was the Council Member there, had taken up a position at Muntri Mews, and so she linked us up.

The gado-gado at Mews Cafe (11 January 2015)


Masak lodeh and other dishes at Mews Cafe (11 January 2015)


As there were just the four of us, we chose a side table at a corner of the restaurant, so that we have the privacy to enjoy the meal. Throughout the dinner, I saw that the restaurant was doing quite a good business that night, as there were quite a number of tables filled, both inside and outdoors. It was such a pleasure to have Chris joining us for dinner, and telling us he managed to purchase the mews, which was one of the properties built by early 20th century magnate Khoo Sian Ewe. Having travelled and lived in many places in the world, he was finally coming back to Penang, and to Muntri Street in particular, where he had spent his childhood days.

Our dinner began with the appetizer, which comprised gado-gado and Malay-style pie tee. For the main course, we had nasi dagang. These are shaped into a cylinder and served to us. We shared the rice served among the four of us, as we are not the rice-eating type. The dishes were served to us on a platter. These are representatives of Malay dishes.

A platter of Malay dishes including fish curry, rendang served with kerisik, Malay-style otak-otak, mixed vegetable salad, and keropok lekor. (11 January 2015)


There was keropok lekor, which comes with a sweet chilli dip. Next to it was the Malay-style otak-otak. Unlike the Penang Chinese-style otak-otak, which is folded into a purse, the Malay-style otak-otak looked more like the Malacca otak-otak. They are held together with lidi. There was also a dish of curry fish and a rendang served with a cup of kerisik.

And finally, there was masak lodeh, a soup which my wife often makes for her father, as it is his favourite. The style of masak lodeh served at Mews Cafe is very different, and gave us a glimpse of how Malays create it. We were promised that we would get to meet the chef to congratulate him for the food, but somehow, due to the excitement of the evening, that never happened. When I get back to Muntri Mews, I need to thank the chef for the meal.

The rice that evening was nasi dagang, served on old-style plates, like those used for Hokkien Char (11 January 2015)


Dinner at Mews Cafe with Christopher Ong and Magdalene Ng (11 January 2015)

Getting there

Mews Cafe is part of Muntri Mews. It you go along Muntri Street from Love Lane, you will reach it on your left.

Mews Cafe on Google Maps Street View

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