You know how some restaurants don’t seem to have an identity? You know, like Jack in the Box but in full restaurant form. Well, Sun Penang in Squirrel Hill is one of those restaurants. The only identity it really has is “Asian,” but Asian covers a lot of groups and so does Sun Penang. From Thai to Dim Sum to Malaysian, it is a hard place to choose a meal, but choose I did.
For some reason I was feeling the Thai part of the menu and ordered myself some Curry Chicken with Potato and my wife felt more Chinese and went with Beef and Broccoli. My curry was of the red variety and also came with cilantro, while her dish came with exactly what it said it came with, but she had them add water chestnuts, which I find much more acceptable than broccoli.
The result? Maybe it’s better to stick to one thing and do it well. While the dishes were certainly beautiful, they seriously lacked in flavor. This is not to say that they tasted bad. In fact, there can be nothing negative said about the flavor because it really wasn’t there. Perhaps we were there on an off day, but the name of the game on that day was bland and with so many other options in the area, bland isn’t something worth returning to.
