[Penang] Thai Private Dining by Ma Barclay, Batu Ferringhi

klyeoh · September 9, 2022, 3:19pm

Private dining has been rising in popularity throughout Malaysia and Singapore in the past two years - partly due to the pandemic, where people who want to dine out opted for a private dinner function where all the guests are known to each other.

And one of the best private dining options in Penang has to be the Thai dinner by Ma Barclay.

Ma Barclay is a Penangite of Chinese-Thai descent, a self-taught cook who learnt her art from an exacting Siamese grandmother. “My childhood playground was the kitchen”, Ma said, explaining how she learnt the family heirloom recipes by assisting her aunts in carrying out cooking duties: preparing the spices as the adults perform the rhythmic pounding manually using mortar and pestle, and watching her grandmother, a consummate perfectionist, orchestrate the kitchen movements like an obsessive-compulsive conductor.

Ma Barclay hosts her private dinners at her palatial home in a quiet suburb off the beaches of Batu Ferringhi. Her dinners are restricted to 10 guests per evening - and based on our experience yesterday evening, diners here are in for a smashing time - delicious food, amidst a beautiful dining room, and an entertaining host in Ma’s husband, Will Barclay.

Founded by the British in 1786, Penang has always had a long history with the British Empire, and many Britishers opted to retire in Penang under the MM2H (Malaysia My Second Home) scheme. Will Barclay was one of them - the Englishman is the great-great-grandson of Joseph Gurney Barclay, the head of their family’s Barclays Bank in the UK back in the 19th-century. Will Barclay is known as a sketch artist in Penang, and now, as an entertaining host during their private dinner functions.