<a href="http://www.accessatlanta.com/dining/restaurants/22360/DetailedList.jspd?activity=22360">Penang</a>
Wandering the streets of Singapore can produce a plethora of eating opportunities. A late morning downpour might send you running for the shelter of a hawker's food stall, where the comfort of one of hundreds of kinds of laksa, a noodle soup, will taste familiar, simply because its warmth will remind you of home.
Laksa is a popular dish in Malaysia, too. Where Singaporean laksa is often flavored with curry and coconut, Malaysian versions, called assam laksa, taste sweet and sour from the fish or shrimp paste used to season them.
I've found this elusive flavor, a mix of lemongrass and fish rife with flat noodles, at only one restaurant in Atlanta: Penang. Laksa may exist elsewhere along the Buford Highway corridor, but Penang's is the only one that takes me back to Singapore, where assam and curried versions mingle in diversity.
Diversity is what best describes Malaysian cuisine, a mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian influences, as well as "nyonyan" — the cooking style named for the daughters of elite families trained to cook by their mothers.
Penang's menu embraces them all in one way or another. And once you start visiting Penang, a ritual will ensue: A meal should start with roti canai, an Indian-style curry rich with coconut, served in a small bowl with a bit of chicken and potato with soft, pliable Indian pancakes for dipping. Achar (on this menu spelled achat) should come next – a mix of mildly pickled carrots, onions and cabbage seasoned with chiles, sesame and peanuts.
The Buford location of Penang (another is in Kennesaw) opened as a branch of a New York chain, but its grungy tiki room atmosphere and large, glossy wooden tables don't feel like cookie cutter duplications. And Penang has long been the go-to source for real Malaysian cooking in the area.
Get to know the fish on this all-encompassing menu: Most often red snapper, it's deep fried or steamed whole, and drenched in a variety of sauces, most notably assam sauce, made with fish paste and lemongrass, as well as tomatoes and okra. Crowned in a ring of fresh cilantro, this is one of Penang's greatest accomplishments — sweet, sour, salty all distill to one, covering fleshy white tufts of fish.
The menu can be a little overwhelming, but it is more easily navigated when you realize some of it is duplication. And items printed in red indicate a hot and spicy dish, though a good rule of thumb is that nothing in Malaysian food is as spicy as it is elsewhere in Asian cooking. Curries are milder, and even chiles, when used, are rarely five-alarm affairs.
Char kway teow could possibly be the most well known of Malaysian dishes, and Penang's is a mild take on this dish of flat rice noodles stir fried in a sweet soy sauce with garlic, shrimp, bean sprouts and bits of egg and calamari. Mee goreng, a crazy concoction of egg noodles stir fried with tofu, potatoes, shrimp, fried egg and sprouts in a fish sauce, then sprinkled with peanuts, shouldn't be missed either.
With all this going on at the table, it would be easy to skip dessert, but that would be ill advised. Penang makes a peanut pancake from a roti pancake filled with a sweet, crunchy peanut mixture I can only describe as a peanut butter made from Tom's old-fashioned peanut candies. It's not, or course, but it tastes like it is.
And that is Penang's true gift: From a dot on the map a world away, everything here tastes oddly, deliciously familiar.
Food: Malaysian
Service: Friendly, funny, sometimes even a bit kooky
Address, telephone: 4897 Buford Highway, Suite 113, Chamblee, 770-220-0308
Price range: $$
Credit cards: Visa, Mastercard
Hours of operation: Open for lunch and dinner daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Vegetarian Dishes: Almost anything on the menu can be made for vegetarians
Best dishes: Roti canai, assam fish, mee goreng, char kway teow, peanut pancake
Children: Anytime
Parking: Adjacent lot
Reservations: Yes
Wheelchair access: Yes
Smoking: No smoking
Noise level: Medium
Patio: No
Takeout: Yes
Web site: www.penang atlanta.com
KEY TO RATINGS
Outstanding: Sets the standard for fine dining in the region. Excellent: One of the best in the Atlanta area. 
Very good: Merits a drive if you're looking for this kind of dining. 
Good: A worthy addition to its neighborhood, but food may be hit or miss. 
Fair: The food is more miss than hit. Restaurants that do not meet these criteria may be rated Poor.
Pricing code: $$$$$ means more than $75; $$$$ means $75 and less; $$$ means $50 and less; $$ means $25 and less; $ means $15 and less. (The price code represents a meal for one that includes appetizer, entree and dessert without including tax, tip and cocktails.)
