Mouth-watering delicacies: Stall operator Kee Lau Hoon (centre) and her workers showing Taiwanese vegetarian delicacies available at their stall in Madras Lane in George Town.

GEORGE TOWN: When celebrating the Nine Emperor Gods (Kew Ong Yeah) Festival in Penang, food is a must but it has to be vegetarian.

The annual festival, where devotees mostly Taoists observe a strict vegetarian diet for the first nine days of the ninth lunar month, begins tomorrow.

Numerous makeshift vegetarian stalls bedecked in yellow cloth have been set up on the streets here, and some hawkers have been busy preparing ingredients for vegetarian dishes.

Besides rice and fried noodles, many of these stalls also sell dishes like vegetarian meat rolls, bak kut teh and curry mee. They also have Western dishes like vegetarian burgers and pizza.

Some stalls have snacks such as cakes, biscuits, dumplings, crackers, tau sar pneah, doughnuts and ham chim peng.

Stall operator Lee Eng Kok, 51, had be- gun selling vegetarian meals on Saturday as some devotees observed the diet a few days earlier.

Lee prepares bak kut teh and mixed rice dishes.

His is the only 24-hour vegetarian stall in Madras Lane.

“I hire about 40 part-timers who work in shifts,” he said, adding that the prices had gone up by between 5% and 10% due to the increase in costs of some ingredients.

A biscuit seller, who only wanted to be known as Yew, expects brisk business over the next few days.

“I sell more than 30 different biscuits,” he said. “Devotees would buy these and cakes as offerings when they pray.”

During the nine days, devotees also gather at the Kew Ong Yeah temples to burn joss sticks and offer prayers for health and prosperity.

The festival is dedicated to the nine sons of Tou Mu, Goddess of the North Star, who is said to control the books of life and death.

Her sons, deified as jen huang (human sovereigns), are said to have the ability to cure sickness and bestow luck, wealth and longevity.

The festival ends on Oct 23 with an au revoir procession to several beachfronts on the island. There, the deities will be ceremoniously sent out to sea in a mini boat laden with joss papers and offerings.

• Malaysia tycoon Vincent Tan plans IPO of football club Cardiff City
• Google, like Facebook, in talks to buy Waze for about US$1bil
• Crown selling entire 10% in rival Echo, partly owned by Genting(Update)
• First edition of 'Great Gatsby' to be sold at auction, can fetch US$150,000
• Malaysia leads the way in Basel III debt
• Markets face rough summer ride as Fed pullback feared
• Wall Street sags, HP hits 52-week high
• Commodities trader sues BP, Shell others for alleged oil price fixing
• Billionaire Icahn seeks up to US$7bil for Dell bid
• Google faces new federal antitrust probe
• Goldman Sachs unveils checks on conflicts in bid to fix tarnished image
• Air Asia's Tony Fernandes to ‘fire up’ investors
• Maybank bullish on growth, to expand regionally under new leadership
• Khazanah appoints Nor Mohamed deputy chairman
• Lafarge Malayan Cement to finalise next expansion plans by August

• British police arrest two men on diverted Pakistan flight (Updated)
• Britain scrambles fighter jets to escort Pakistani passenger plane
• 5,000 cave paintings discovered in Mexico
• Cars, schools ablaze in fifth night of Stockholm riots
• London's Heathrow airport closed after emergency landing
• Far East quake felt in Moscow, tsunami warning lifted
• Police make new arrests in London soldier killing
• Britain's press demands jailing of Islamist preacher
• Tsunami warning in Russia's Far East after 8.2 quake
• US bridge collapse sends cars, people into river
• Strong quake strikes off Tonga
• Jury fails to decide on US murderer death sentence
• One killed in Brazil giant fuel depot blaze

• British Open: Nicol David deals with disruptions for semi spot
• Kingston leads, McIlroy in Wentworth woe
• LPGA plans 12-hole rounds in water-logged Bahamas
• Ryan Palmer sizzles with 62 to seize lead at Colonial
• Kelly overcomes scare to clinch title in KLGCC
• Time to make amends Garcia wants to meet Woods to defuse racist row
• American Johnson back to defend Colonial crown
• Rain dampens debut of LPGA Bahamas event
• Tianlang adds another US event to schedule
• Clock ticking for next golden generation
• Nadal wants to create history at Roland Garros
• Serena out to tame French Open demons
• Zheng Jie stuns Wozniacki in Brussels
• British Open: Ramy Ashour racks up 38th successive win
• Nicol David sails into quarter-finals of British Open in 35 minutes

• Please wait.

• KL car number plates to bear ‘W1A’
• Air Asia's Tony Fernandes to ‘fire up’ investors
• Singapore GDP growth surprises, beats economists’ forecast of contraction
• Tian, Tamrin and Haris released after remand denied (updated)
• Malaysia leads the way in Basel III debt
• Inventions a-plenty, but no real innovation
• Robber shot dead after attacking out-of-uniform cop with meat cleaver
• Thousands throng thanksgiving rally by DAP
• Lafarge Malayan Cement to finalise next expansion plans by August
• Three held over May 13 statements