Penang Food Adventures - The Sire Museum Restaurant

Our first meal with friends was at the new-ish restaurant named The Sire. This place opened sometime late 2008 and is unique as it offers a dining cum history lesson experience all within the same building. One half of the building is designed specially for dining while the other half houses antiquities from the home of Yeap Chor Ee - a prominent businessman in Penang, founder of the Ban Hin Lee Bank. Entrance/tour to the museum part of this place is RM10 but this is waived if you are a diner at the restaurant. The decor is breathtaking and gives insight into how the Chinese came about to be in Penang.

While the decor was a sight to behold, the food did not disappoint either. Alex and I shared a soup for starters and ordered our mains separately.

Norwegian Seafood Soup - This was a creamy soup with mussels and salmon. Lemongrass added another layer of flavour to the soup and to our surprise there was a tangy end note to the soup. That unexpected flavour made the soup a winning dish so much so I think it beat out the two mains to win the title of favourite dish of that night.

Alex ordered this - a steak of some sort. I forgot the name :) To its credit, the steak was cooked perfectly to our request and was well seasoned.

My dish - a stuffed chicken of some sort. I forgot the name too. It wasn't a cheesy dish. And again it did taste good. I remember liking the mash that came with it but I don't think it was a potato one. To my defense I did say the favourite dish of the night was the soup right? Everything else was quite a blur after that. Haha..

After our nice meal we took the tour around the place. Photos were not allowed beyond a certain point hence what you see below is only the start of the tour. The museum contained precious possessions from Yeap Chor Ee's previous home - The Homestead. His mansion was donated for educational purposes per his will and all the antiquities in his wealthy home was then moved to this place.

Note the intricate woodwork on the door panels. This was in the function room.

There was some hanging greens separating the function room from the museum. This was a very nice touch, breaking up the space and it looked nice from all directions.

The walkway from the function room to the museum. I believe the ironwork you see on the rails came from the original home as well.

Some of the antiques - 5 piece dining set with a marble table (as in the olden days), antique clocks in the background and other antiquities in the glass cupboard.

For more info about this place and a map to it, go here. There was a lot to take in and if you are an antiques buff, I believe you will enjoy this experience. If you are a curious cat and just want an insight into the beginnings of the chinese people in Penang (a very successful one at that), then this is also a place for you.

Just remember to order the soup.

cheryl