GEORGE TOWN: In conjunction with the 65th National Day celebration, a mee sotong seller offered customers a "buy one free one promo" at his stall in Padang Brown Food Complex here.
The stall owner Mohamed Ghazali Haribu Mohd Arif, 35, said the offer was to commemorate the country's National Day.
"We decided to do this as a way to thank our customers and to cherish the National Day spirit," he said when met at his stall.
The third-generation mee seller said the promotion - from 4pm to 8pm on Monday (Aug 29) - was also meant to help those in the B40 group to enjoy the Penang delicacy and at the same time, to promote the local cuisine to visitors from outside the state.
He said some 150 plates of mee sotong sambal worth RM7 each were bought by customers for the first three hours of the promotion and he expected up to another 50 plates would be sold by 8pm.
He said he planned to do this promotion as a yearly event.
"The response has been good, I may want to do this every year from now on," he said.
First-time customer Azmi Saad, 46, from Kelantan said he heard about the famous dish from his friends before he came to Penang two days ago.
"I did not expect to get the offer and felt lucky when the owner of the stall informed me about the promotion," he said.
The businessman said the price of the mee sotong was not expensive as the portion was big and delicious.
Another customer Norhatipah Abdulllah, 48, also from Kelantan, echoed similar feelings and thought the offer was good and reminded people about the National Day.
"It is a unique way to remind the public about National Day, it is a good effort," she said.
Penang Muslim Tanjung Association president Mohammed Nasir Mohideen praised the effort by the stall owner to attract customers.
"It is not about getting profit from the sales but the intention to remind the public about the country's National Day," he said.
He urged other traders to emulate Mohamed Ghazali's effort in promoting not only Penang delicacies, but also invoking patriotic spirit among the public.
