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Jalan is what you call a street or road in Malaysia.

You can also say jalan jalan, which is a verb, meaning "to stroll" or "to hang out and have a nice time," and is what my mom says to my dad when she takes his arm and wants to amble around on a nice, clear night.

In Penang, Malaysia, the jalans seem to be paved with food. This both makes sense and doesn't: The temperature hovers at a haunting 80-plus degrees year round, meaning it's too hot to eat inside though it is also, actually, too hot to eat outside. There are cooks everywhere, standing over hot woks and huge broth pots, barking an unfamiliar Chinese dialect (it's Hokkien) while dispatching plate after same-looking plate as though they've been doing it forever-and many of them have.

All food is fast food in Penang: If you're ordering to go, drinks come in plastic bags outfitted with a piece of raffia to hang from the handlebars of your scooter; rice comes in banana leaves or newspaper packets. Noodles are bagged and soups are too. If you're eating "in," you're still eating outside or half outside, and you're expected to eat fast, then go on to eat the next thing - fast. Colorful melamine plates and bowls and chopsticks get washed in huge buckets, and dirty dishwater spills into the streets.

The only rule: Do not fret about where to find "the best."

Street food in Malaysia - and especially in Penang - can be overwhelming: the abundance, the no-nonsense-ness, the speed. There are hawker stalls on small streets, on big streets, hawker centers outside and inside of coffee shops. One comforting fact: the same foods repeat themselves everywhere, reliably. Wherever you are in Penang, you can usually find the entirety of Malaysian street food on offer. The scenarios in which you'll encounter these foods repeat themselves, too. Once you stop fretting about where you'll find the best, you'll begin to see the patterns emerging from the shrimp-paste-covered chaos, and the cornucopian abundance becomes a very enjoyable problem to tackle.

After being named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008, George Town, in northeast Penang Island, now attracts leggy blonde tourists from Australia and New Zealand who'll be out late at night, drunk al fresco. This does not change the fact that the city is a bunch of falling-apart low-rise buildings that date back to British colonization. The stores always appear to be closed, and the place would be a ghost town if it weren't for the liveliness of the streets and food carts, which are everywhere.

You can find chendul/cendol, a sort of cold dessert soup, on Penang Road, a tiny road just large enough for a single car to drive slowly through. Chendul refers to the green Jello-ish squiggles, made from mung-bean flour and stained green with pandan, the leaves of a tropical plant that taste sort of like vanilla. The squiggles, along with red beans, float in a soup of santan, coconut milk, and palm sugar. The soup is ladled over a big lump of ice, and condensed milk goes all over that. It's served with a spoon but the spoon is unnecessary.

Where: This stall is Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendul. 27 & 29, Lebuh Keng Kwee, George Town, Penang. Mon-Fri, 10.30am-7pm; Sat & Sun, 10am-7.30pm. More info here and here.

7. Koay Chiap (Duck and Noodle Soup)

Kimberly Street is sleepy in the daytime but, like the nocturnal stink badger of western Malaysia, active at night. The most bustle surrounds two dudes in backward hats and aprons at a stand dishing out koay chiap, an offal-y dark soup of duck meat shreds, gizzards, coagulated blood, a soy-sauce-boiled egg, and curled-up scrolls of rice noodles. Chinese celery bits imbue a nice herbiness.

Where: Kimberly Street at night.

The NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRINK rule is reversed in cafés, kopi tiams, in Malaysia. You're supposed to collect your food from the stalls outside; the coffee shop itself provides seating, drinks, and cigarettes. The arrangement is mutually beneficial to both shop owner and hawkers: the coffee shop collects rent from the vendors and benefits from extra customers, while the hawkers benefit from the centralized destination for foot traffic, and in most cases get to store their carts in the place overnight, rather than having to push them home. The vendors outside Sin Seow Fong Lye Café on Macalister Lane mostly peddle noodles.

Walter Green

In the quieter, more residential parts of Penang, you'll still find street food barely tucked away into corner lots of long shop blocks. Sri Nibong Café is a corner-lot café on Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah in Bayan Lepas, and has stalls open from morning to lunch.

Walter Green

Jalan Pantai Jerjak 13 is a street of shops, including the Michelin tire-repair place, a branch of the local bank, and a coffee shop called Sin Saw Keat, with tables and chairs where you can bring in any of the foods from the street. Across from the brick-and-mortar building, a row of hawkers sets up shop every day. Hawkers have to pay a monthly fee for their license (forty-five Malaysian ringgit, about fourteen dollars), and on top of that some of the stalls pay rent to the café, where they store their carts overnight and wash their dishes.

My aunt Mei Hwa (my mom's youngest sister) lives nearby and often picks up her family's meals from hawkers here.

"Jalan Jalan" by Rachel Khong is reprinted here with permission from the Winter 2014 issue of Lucky Peach, a quarterly journal of food and writing. The issue is available for purchase here. Subscriptions are available here. You can also follow Lucky Peach on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

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27 Malaysian Street Foods You Need To Eat In This Lifetime

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You can also say jalan jalan, which is a verb, meaning "to stroll" or "to hang out and have a nice time," and is what my mom says to my dad when she takes his arm and wants to amble around on a nice, clear night.

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Kuala Lumpur prices - food prices, beer prices, hotel prices, attraction prices - Price of Travel

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Malaysia (Part 2) Malaysian Culture, People & Places Slideshow Series

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Malaysia Explorer is an epic slideshow series showcasing Malaysian people (Malay, Chinese, Indian), places, culture & religion. Each slideshow video consists of 20 photos from various places in Malaysia, including Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, Melacca, Batu Caves, Cameron Highlands, Tamah Rata, Penang & George Town.

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The prime minister was interviewed by the country's Malaysia's Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) at the weekend. The agency then spoke to the unidentified Middle Eastern donor that it has previously said made the payment.

"It's a donation, a gift," Mr Najib said in an interview with state television TV3. "A donation is not illegal under any legal provision."

"There is no intention at all to cheat or to commit an offence because the Bank Negara [central bank] had been notified about the existence of this account.

"But, do not be confused, the account is in my name, but it is not like a personal account. And I am sure that once the investigation is completed, the truth will prevail."

The details of the payment emerged during the course of an investigation into corruption allegations at 1MDB, the state investment fund set up by Mr Najib.

Mr Najib has denied any wrongdoing and said that the payment was a political donation and did not come from 1MDB. The fund is being investigated by several foreign agencies, including the FBI.

Against a drumbeat of criticism, Mr Najib has sacked senior figures in his government who publicly asked questions about the 1MDB scanda l, including Mr Muhyiddin.

Mr Muhyiddin remains UMNO's deputy president. Denied his usual speaking role during the congress, which starts on Wednesday, he laid out his criticisms forcefully in an address to supporters on Monday evening.

"I would like to suggest that the prime minister take a rest for now," he said. "Allow the investigations to proceed freely, transparently and fairly. Go on leave until the case is over.

"I would rather appeal to UMNO to undergo painful surgery than face the uncertain future in a state of coma and slow death later.

"Let me be straight, whoever is the cancer and pus in UMNO must be discarded. In order to save the party, race and country, we must get rid of the cancer and pus."

An UMNO disciplinary committee is studying his words to decide whether he violated party rules. Mahathir Mohamed, the veteran former prime minister and one-time Najib mentor, also launched a withering attack on the country's leader.

Even Najib loyalist Hishammuddin Hussein, the defence minister and an UMNO vice president, acknowledged that the party "is now facing a trust test, which is very complicated and worrying".

But Mr Najib, 62, still enjoys the backing of most of UMNO's powerful division chiefs.

And he has undercut dissenting voices among journalists, lawyers and politicians with an intensifying crackdown on critics.

The opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, a former UMNO deputy prime minister, was jailed on charges of sodomy in February in what his supporters have said was a politically trumped-up case.

Last week, the lower chamber of parliament rushed through passage of a draconian new bill granting sweeping powers to the prime minister to suspend civil liberties in the name of security.

The opposition called it a blatant move by Najib to shore up his power that took Malaysia down the "road to dictatorship".

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Malaysian leader Najib Razak insists conscience is 'clear' as ruling party gathers for congress

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The prime minister was interviewed by the country's Malaysia's Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) at the weekend. The agency then spoke to the unidentified Middle Eastern donor that it has previously said made the payment. "It's a donation, a gift," Mr Najib said in an interview with state television TV3.

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But the search for the missing Boeing 777 will continue.

The formal declaration, read Thursday by civil aviation director Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, will allow the families of those presumed dead to continue the compensation process with the airline or with insurers.

"It is therefore, with the heaviest heart and deepest sorrow that, on behalf of the Government of Malaysia, we officially declare Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 an accident in accordance with the Standards of Annexes 12 and 13 to the Chicago Convention and that all 239 of the passengers and crew on board MH370 are presumed to have lost their lives," Azharuddin said.

It is believed to have gone down in the Indian Ocean far off the western coast of Australia.

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malaysia declares mh370 passengers and crew 'dead' - cnn

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Malaysia declares MH370 passengers and crew 'dead' - CNN

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But the search for the missing Boeing 777 will continue. The formal declaration, read Thursday by civil aviation director Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, will allow the families of those presumed dead to continue the compensation process with the airline or with insurers.

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Explore the best of Malaysia with this comprehensive Audley itinerary, including George Town, Penang & Langkawi.