Penang’s glorious bites of colour have not only survived, they are now cool to eat.
A Mother-Son Venture
With its colourful variety of nyonya kuih, Li Er Cafe has been tantalising taste buds since 2015. Situated along Jalan Burma, the cafe is run by mother-son duo Tan Lee Ngau, 54, and Tan Kei Vin, 30.

A litigation lawyer by profession, Kei Vin decided to quit his job in KL to go into the kuih-making business. “The trade has been pigeonholed as a sunset industry because it requires manual labour, which most people would rather avoid these days. But what they don’t realise is that its value will only increase in the years to come since there will only be a handful of us left with the knowledge to make kuih.”
Not only is it difficult to make, the perception surrounding nyonya kuih also affects its popularity: “For the longest time now, nyonya kuih has had the misfortune of being associated with pasar (market) food,” says Kei Vin. “They’re especially unpopular with youths today because they lack the ‘wow’ factor typically associated with cafe bites. But I think it’s high time we reverse that perception.”