Jalan Macalister Durian Guide for George Town

We drove over the mountain from Balik Pulau, Penang, ready for a smorgasbord Jalan Macalister Durian Hop in George Town.

It felt a little bit backwards, because all the durian grows in Balik Pulau and gets sold for higher prices in George Town. For most people visiting Penang, it’s far more convenient to nip down the street to Jalan Macalister Durian Fix than to hire a taxi and drive the 45 minutes through Farlim’s tangled traffic to Balik Pulau.

After all, Jalan Macalister has 7 durian stalls on a 1km stretch of very walkable sidewalk. It’s a bit of a durian dream.

But it had been 3 years since I’d wandered around George Town, and I felt almost a little bit guilty for neglecting it.

I have special memories of my first George Town Durian Hunt back in 2014 and the special people who joined me on that stormy day, which was also the first time I tasted Black Thorn durian. It’s still one of my favorite durian days ever.

My last trip down Jalan Macalister had been around 2018, just before The Durian Tourist’s Guide to Penang was published and before I met Richard.

Even though our first unofficial date was a durian hunt in George Town, we had gone everywhere else except Jalan Macalister. Richard had never done the walk.

So it was well past time, because let me tell you, things have changed A LOT since I blogged the 2018 Ultimate Georgetown Durian Guide. The durian scene in general tends to evanescent in normal times, and after the pandemic there’d definitely been some big shifts.

Here is a list of the durian stalls we found on Jalan Macalister in August, 2023.

• Durian Bamboo
• Durian Dynasty
• Island Durian
• Durian Central
• Ah Teik’s Durian
• Durian Planet
• Ah Leng Durian Jalan Anson

Parking on Jalan Macalister

We parked our car across the street from the Bamboo Durian Stall and downloaded the Penang Smart Parking App for the first time.

Since I didn’t have any money in the wallet, I visited the Happy Mart next to Durian Dynasty to top up and pay the Rm0.80/hour to park the car.

An hour would be enough to eat our way along the Jalan Macalister Durian Stretch, right?

Wrong. We needed 2 hours.

Durian Dynasty

We chose Durian Dynasty as our starting point after our friends Ali & Marcus raved about how this small shop kept them sane during the pandemic.

Jin and Oscar founded Durian Dynasty as roadside stall 2017 and moved online to fulfill orders by Grab, but didn’t have any brick n’ mortar shop. In 2021 when many shops were closing, they snagged this strategic location on Jalan Macalister.

They had almost zero walk-in customers for their first year at Penang’s most infamous durian street, but on the post-pandemic day we visited the narrow shot-gun shop was crowded with tourists.

Jin used to manage durian farms in Balik Pulau and seems to have many contacts over there to buy the durians directly from the farm, while Oscar has been a durian seller for over 7 years.

Together, their experience is paying off.

We noticed the durian seemed pretty fresh and smelled good, considering the lateness of the season.

We selected a D2 and a Horlor from the pile and settled into a table near the front of the stall.

Despite the sunny afternoon, the inside of the shop felt dark and cool and was lit with harsh fluorescent lighting.

The durians were very good! The D2 was especially surprising, with its smooth whipped texture

Durian Central

We walked the 1 block to Durian Central, a large corner shop featuring Air Conditioned Eating Room.

I knew where I was immediately.

This is where Khor Hun Hin and Ah Bing used to park their durian truck. The big open space in the overhang was gone, as was the truck. In 2015, the truck was damaged but survived a freak accident when a lighting rod fell off the top of the UMNO building and drove another car 10 feet into the tarmac. Apparently it had not survived the pandemic.

The new corner shop was lively with people.

I peeked into the Air Conditioned durian eating room, curious if it would smell like stale durian the way smoking rooms smell like stale cigarettes.

Surprisingly, inside the air conditioned room smelled the same as outside – the bakery sweet, slightly musky aroma of Musang King wafting through the air.

The shop was a bit busy, so we didn’t try any durian here and kept walking another block to an old Penang favorite – Ah Teik.

Ah Teik

I was somewhat relieved to see Ah Teik was still perched on his wooden stool, surrounded by durians.

It’s somehow comforting when some thing never changes. Ah Teik has been selling durian on this same corner slot since he was a 10 year old boy, over 60 years ago now. He’ll probably be here for another 20.

I was excited to visit Ah Teik’s again, as so many people have written to me asking about his Ginger King and Butter King durians.

I’d tasted Butter King in 2014, but couldn’t remember it exactly. I’d never tried the Ginger King.

We were greeted by James, Ah Teik’s son, who helped us select a Butter King to try. The Ginger King’s unfortunately, looked old with withered stems, so we decided to wait until next time when the stock might be fresher.

We sat at the same round tables smooshed between the wall of the Sun Yat Sen Center and Jalan Macalister. It was loud with traffic whizzing by and the people at the next table exclaiming over the durian in Chinese.

The Butter King had thick, delightfully plump pods with the texture of cream cheese. It was very thick and tasty, and had the familiar, unmistakeable milky after taste of D24.

A D24 by any other any name still tastes like cookie dough, so we enjoyed this durian a lot. But even looking at the photos as I’m writing this blog post, it still looks like a D24 to me.

Durian Planet

In front of the Red Rock hotel we spotted another durian stall that I’ve seen fulfilling orders online, Durian Planet. I considered crossing the street to say hello, but it was now getting a bit later in the afternoon and it looked like they were running out of durians.

We had one more durian stall to visit before dark, one that I remembered being quite good, so we saved our RM and our time and hurried the last 500 meters around the corner to Jalan Anson.

Jalan Anson Ah Leng

Ah Leng’s stall is not technically on Jalan Macalister – it’s on a cross street called Jalan Anson. But it’s so close, and so easy to reach by foot, that we include it in the Jalan Macalister Durian Hop.

As we approached Ah Leng’s Jalan Anson stall, it looked exactly how I remembered it. The same low-hanging tarp draped over the wooden tables, Ah Leng busy opening durian and avoiding eye contact, and even the same super friendly worker who I remembered being very kind to us.

Ah Leng was busy packing Musang King and Black Thorn durians into airport-safe packaging for a group of Indonesian tourists headed home.

The durian stall sits on a wedge of land that has no buildings. I remember it being sort of an empty lot filled with trash, with a huge rain-tree draped over one corner.

Since my last visit, the empty lot had been transformed into a mini-park with a green lawn and white gazebos and benches. It had become a beautiful, peaceful little oasis.

The same super-friendly staff member greeted us with smiles. I don’t think he remembered us, but we were never frequent customers to George Town anyway.

I loved the friendly vibe and relaxed feeling of sitting in the small park, away from the traffic. If I’m coming back to George Town with friends, I might come here just for the ambiance.

How to do a Jalan Macalister Durian Hop

Jalan Macalister is one of the spokes in the wheel of roads running away from Komtar tower. This makes it very easy to reach on foot from all of the popular places to stay in George Town. If you ever get lost, just scan the sky for the silhouette of Komtar.

Here’s a list of the shops we found again, just for convenience:

• Durian Bamboo
• Durian Dynasty
• Island Durian
• Durian Central
• Ah Teik’s Durian
• Durian Planet
• Ah Leng Durian Jalan Anson

Do I expect all of these shops to be around in 2024? Nooo. I imagine someone will leave, and someone new will take their place or pop up somewhere etirely new. That’s the thing about the durian – it’s dynamic.

Durian will give me the chance to write many, many more Georgetown Durian Hop Guides in the future. But I even if I am writing this post when I’m 90 years old, I suspect that a Jalan Macalister Durian Hop will still be a delicious idea.