Every morning, much of Penang sits down to a bowl of koay teow th'ng: wide rice noodles in any combination of duck, pork or chicken broth with floating fish balls and hunks of meat, all garnished with crispy browned garlic.
每天早上，许多槟城(Penang)人都会坐下来喝一碗条汤：宽米粉随意搭配上鸭肉汤、猪肉汤或鸡肉汤，再加上鱼丸和肉块，最后撒上油炸蒜子。
The dish, thought to be an iteration of a noodle soup introduced to the island by Chaozhou immigrants, may well be the island's most popular. So ubiquitous is it between 7 a.m. and noon that at least seven koay teow th'ng stalls operate simultaneously within a three-block radius of my George Town home.
这种美食被认为是由潮州移民引进岛上的一种汤粉演变而来，它可能是这座岛上最受欢迎的美食。早上七点到中午时分，它可以说无处不在，我住在乔治市(George Town)，在以我家为中心三个街区为半径的范围内，至少有七家 条汤摊在同时营业。
Yet I rarely see tourists among the throngs of eaters. Most visitors to Penang, even those well versed in local street foods Malaysians and Singaporeans excepted seem unaware that the dish exists.
但我很少在成群的食客中见到游客。多数到槟城的游客，即使是非常熟悉当地街头美食的游客──马来西亚人和新加坡人除外──似乎都没有意识到这种美食的存在。
It isn't the only Asian street food to be loved by locals but ignored by visitors. Tourists pound Bangkok's pavements in search of the perfect pad thai but pass on koay teow lad naa, flat rice noodles stir-fried with black soy and doused with mild gravy. Travellers to Hanoi seek out pho, yet overlook northern Vietnam's bun ca, rice noodles in a dill-fragrant tomato and seafood broth with fish. Perhaps the best example of a hometown favorite unloved by (mostly Western) foreigners is congee in Hong Kong.
它不是唯一一道受当地人喜爱但却被游客忽略的亚洲街头美食。游客们在曼谷街头寻找完美的泰式炒河粉，但却错过了湿口条──一种淋上清淡肉汁的酱油炒扁米粉。游客们在河内寻找河粉，但忽略了越南北部的越式鱼肉米粉，一种用小茴香调味、番茄和海鲜做汤底的鱼肉米粉。也许不受外国人（主要是西方人）喜欢的家乡人气美食的最好例子就是香港的粥。
"I'm not flying all the way to Asia to eat rice porridge," an acquaintance responded recently when I advised her to seek it out during her three-day stay in the SAR.
最近，当我建议一个要在香港逗留三天的熟人去喝粥时，她回答我说：“我大老远地飞到亚洲可不是为了喝米粥的。”
I've often wondered what makes some local specialties sing in the eyes of visitors while others go neglected. Some suffer from the Plain Jane Syndrome: a combination of monochromatic appearance and deceptively simple preparation that reduces surface appeal. To the uninitiated, congee appears to be little more than a creamy near-paste of overcooked rice; it's only natural that many would pass it over in favor of golden egg noodles garnished with succulent pork.
我常常疑惑为什么一些当地特色美食受游客青睐，而另一些却被忽视。有些美食患有“壁花综合征”：单调的外观加上看似简单的烹饪方法降低了其外表的吸引力。对于外行人来说，粥看上去不过是一堆粘糊糊的熬过头的米饭。与配上美味多汁的猪肉的金色鸡蛋面相比，许多人会自然而然地偏爱后者。
And then there is what Leela Punyaratabandhu, a food writer whose cookbook of classic Thai dishes will be published next year, calls the Intimidation Factor. She observes that just as many visitors to Penang shun koay teow th'ng stalls, so do tourists tend to avoid Thai wet-dry noodle shops.
此外还有美食作家利拉•蒲涅叻班徒(Leela Punyaratabandhu)所说的“胁迫因素”，利拉将在明年出版一本经典泰式菜肴烹饪书。她发现，正如许多来槟城的游客不会光顾 条汤摊一样，到泰国的游客往往也不会光顾泰式米粉店。
"If I were a foreign visitor to Thailand … I wouldn't know how and what to order," she says, noting that knowledge of how a bowl of noodles is composed and what ingredients are commonly available are prerequisite to confidently customizing an order (sample instructions: "fat cellophane noodles, dry, fish balls, no crispy wonton, no beansprouts").
她说：“如果我是一个到泰国的外国游客……我会不知道如何点米粉，点什么米粉。”她指出了解一碗米粉的成分以及常见的搭配食材是自信点单的前提条件（示例：“冬粉，要干的，配鱼丸、不要脆皮馄饨，不要豆芽”）。
But maybe the biggest reason some dishes, no matter how well-loved on home turf, never achieve global street-food fame is rooted in an imprecise alchemy of migration and marketing. By all rights pho, a deceptively simple combination of broth, rice noodles, meat and bean sprouts, should take a back seat to a dish like bun rieu, an intoxicating crab and tomato soup featuring cloud-like "dumplings" of crab fat. But as Australian food writer and street-food tour leader Mark Lowerson points out, the large number of pho shops opened overseas by Vietnamese emigrants mean it's "rare for a tourist to come to Vietnam not knowing or having tried it somewhere".
但是某些食物，不管本地人多么爱吃，却从未获得全球街头美食声誉，最主要的原因在于它没有受益于移民宣传的神奇功效。不管怎样，越南河粉这种肉汤、米粉、肉和豆芽的看似简单的组合，都应该逊色于蟹肉汤粉──搭配云朵形蟹黄“饺子”的美味蟹肉番茄汤粉──这样的美食。但正如澳大利亚美食作家和街头美食导游马克•洛厄逊(Mark Lowerson)指出的，越南移民在海外开的大量河粉店意味着“很少有到越南的游客不知道它、没吃过它”。
The dish's popularity overseas has even looped back to influence how Vietnamese at home advise visitors. Proud of what Mr. Lowerson describes as "Vietnam's most renowned contribution to world cuisine," most are likely to name pho as the top must-try dish.
这种美食在海外的受欢迎程度甚至反过来影响了越南本国人对游客的建议。多数越南人都为洛厄逊形容为“越南对世界美食最著名的贡献”的河粉而自豪，很可能将它排在必尝的美食之首。
There are lessons here for travelers in search of great, but underrated, street foods. First, forget what you know of the local cuisine from restaurants at home. Second, don't be daunted by the challenge of ordering with inadequate information. Finally, don't be fooled by appearances they're not always an indicator of taste.
对于想要寻找美味但被低估的街头美食的游客，有一些建议。首先，忘掉你在自己本国餐馆中得到的对当地美食的印象。第二，别被需要连蒙带猜的点单挑战吓倒。最后，不要被外表蒙骗。外表不一定能说明味道。
(Robyn writes about food and travel. She's lived in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Kuala Lumpur. Two years ago she moved to Penang ─ for the hawker food, of course.)
（本文作者Robyn Eckhardt撰写关于美食与旅行的文章。她曾在香港、上海、曼谷、胡志明市和吉隆坡居住。两年前，她搬到了槟城──当然是为了这里的街头美食。）
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