Trip to Sabah 2012 - Fisherman Village Seafood Market Restaurant

As this was a company trip that was organized, the travel company actually arranged for a dinner at one of the tourist restaurants as I would like to call it and its non other than the famous Kampung Nelayan Fisherman Village Seafood Market Restaurant. I had heard of this place before and was hoping for some really awesome seafood. What makes this place popular is the fact that they also have a traditional dance performance in the night where its like a cultural show to showcase the traditions of Sabah! But I was to be disappointed as the food was sub standard. Sorry but I do like my food and performances is always second in some cases. What I did notice is probably that the package we got was of a lower price one and thus we got not as great food. Thus if you plan to come here, be prepared to get slaughtered!

The colorful neon signboard

Trip to Sabah 2012 - Food at Filipino Market

In the main town of Kota Kinabalu, there is a famous place for locals and tourists alike for awesome and affordable food. Be it seafood or others, the Filipino Market has it all. Well, the people here are not Filipino's la, but I would guess that almost anyone can sell their food or goods here. Its a great place to check out and its open daily from the evenings till late night every day! So do have a look as some of the photos I managed to get. By the way, as you scroll down, you will be able to see my dinner for that night! The largest prawns I have eaten in my life!

Fried or BBQ seafood. There are various stalls selling this and the seafood is first BBQ or deep fried. Its not cooked fully and if you choose it, they will then reheat and finish the cooking for ya! Just look at those huge tiger prawns and even lobsters! 

This other stall has crabs, squid and lots of choices of fish waiting to be feasted.

Orchid Live Seafood Restaurant at Singapore

What would be an extraordinary lunch? Well, for those in Singapore, really envy you all as I do not see any similar place like this in Penang which serves lobster porridge for lunch. Yes, you heard me right, that is no ordinary porridge but live fresh lobster porridge! 

When I first heard of it, I thought that it would be those like big prawns but boy was I wrong when I arrived at this place. For your information, this place is located in the outskirts of Sembawang in one of those farmers places. As you reach the place, you will see many aquariums filled to the brim with lobsters. Hardly one will see so many lobsters placed in 1 aquarium and I guess they have so many because its consumed fast! They have both an indoor and outdoor seating place and I was told that they are pack in the evenings! So do read on for those looking for something special for their lunch treat!

Just look at those yummy lobsters! We ordered a portion  for 2 person and each person got 3 lobsters, though in different sizes. Looking at the photos is making me drool now! The meat was so springy and sweet and they purposely remove it from the porridge when its serve to ensure that the lobster do not get overcook!

So many of them all crammed up in there. Only fresh lobsters may apply!

Long Beach Seafood Restaurant

With more friends and colleagues available, we decided to give Long Beach Seafood Restaurant a try after mentions from many that this is a popular seafood place that is near to Orchard. Its located at Dempsey Hill which is like opposite the Botanical Gardens if I'm not mistaken. The place was packed to the brim when I arrived at about 8.30pm and luckily my colleagues have already gotten a table and ordered. I believe they ordered from a set menu thus thats good to know. No need to think too much I guess. So do read on for those that have a knack for some seafood in Singapore ya!

So this is the first dish we have! Do you able to guess what it is? Sorry for the poor lighting as we were sitting outside and it was really really dim!

This is the salmon and geoduck sashimi platter!

The sashimi platter comes with this pot of seasoned soup which is used to do a quick shabu shabu! What that means is that you take the sashimi and quickly dip it in the hot soup for just like 1-2 seconds. Thats all it takes to retain the freshness of the sashimi and not over cook it

Restoran Makanan Laut Villa at Sitiawan

After Cheng Beng in Ipoh, decided to bring everyone on a day trip to Sitiawan and also have dinner there. Before dinner, we went to the famous Tua Pek Kong temple facing the sea and only after that we went to have dinner at Villa!

We arrived about 7.15pm and the place was packed to the brim with people! I was really surprised by so many people and according to my uncle who is pretty familiar with the place, this seems to be the norm here on weekends and the advise is to come on a weekday! Too bad that is not that feasible for me. 

We had to wait over an hour before food is served and it was a horrendous wait as we had to endure the many plates of appetizing food that kept passing over our table. The thing that piqued my interest the most was that I was seeing tables with only a few person and they were ordering huge plates of seafood. I was wondering, how on earth will they finish all the food? Or is it that they planned to bring the leftovers home? It was as if every table were ordering large portions. Or was it really cheap? 

Well, I finally found out when our order arrived at the table! Lo and behold, the size and portion of the dishes were mind blowing huge! First time I saw a mountain stash of clams being served! Everything was huge except the plate of prawns which I specifically mentioned to be a small portion. I was expecting this to be a hefty sum but I was thoroughly surprised by the price for everything! At only RM87 including rice and drinks, the food here is a steal! I hope after writing about this place the price doesn't sky rocket. Now don't say I don't let good things out of the bag (hehhe)

Its not hard to spot this place but come earlier

 Just look at the crowd

Gee Seng Seafood at Bukit Tambun

How times has changed since I last had dinner at Bukit Tambun which is a fishing village located near Juru. I have been to this place ever since I step foot in Penang and it used to be a place to get high quality seafood at a very affordable price. Well, I would say that fresh seafood is still in abundance here with the many seafood restaurants located here but the price has definitely gone up. I guess we just can't escape inflation right? I guess for the same amount of money, we can surely get similar or better food on the island and moreover, the traffic here is really terrible as there is only 1 road in and out of this place.

Here, as you drive towards Bukit Tambun town, just keep driving in on the road and you will reach till the road ends and on the right you will see Gee Seng Seafood. Its such a big place that you can't miss it. Enjoy the photos ya!

The first dish to arrive. Even though the place was packed, but the food was out of the kitchen really fast. I guess they have many cooks here. The fried noodles were rather bland and was just fried with some bean sprouts, egg and dried shrimp. Not too bad as a starter to fill the hungry stomach first.

The satay was equally fast. The size was pretty reasonable and this one also has the sauce on the meat while its cooked already. I'm wondering if this is a Penang thing with satay being made this way? Saves one the hassle to dip it in sauce but I do miss a good helping of Kajang Satay!

Paya Terubong Seafood, Ah Sui

Just some random shots of one of my favorite seafood place in Penang. This place is located along Jalan Paya Terubong right after the cemetary and before the fire station :) So this is another great place to share. The owner, Ah Sui Ko gets the fish fresh from their village in Balik Pulau thus you can guarantee the seafood here is fresh. Should I reveal the GPS coordinates of this place? Worry that even more people will flood this place and I have to wait longer. Hahah. So enjoy the pictures

Thats tenggiri looking at you! Crystal clear eyes!

Hai Boey Seafood Restaurant, Another visit

As my mom and sister came to Penang for a visit, decided to bring them to Hai Boey Seafood at Teluk Kumbar for dinner. Reason for coming here is that besides seafood, they do get to have some non seafood items as well which is the nice part about Hai Boey. The other of course is that its by the beach, and one can get a nice sunset evening almost daily here. Do check this place out if you like to have some good food by the beach.

The picturesque view here! 

Good Friend Seafood Restaurant ~ A Review

For those who live in the southern part of Penang island, its almost certain that they have heard of Good Friend seafood located on the beach at Teluk Kumbar. The place which I will write about on the other hand is located in Bayan Lepas and is actually run by the same owner who started the one at Teluk Kumbar. The owners objective now is to provide a place for even better quality food as well as a more relaxing air conditioned environment for his customers.
So here we are invited for this review here. The first thing that struck me was that the place was cozy and that the menu now have more varieties of dishes other than just seafood. This is really good news as I feel that sometimes having a meal purely of seafood can be abit overwhelming. So I will use the same format as I did in my previous post, writing about each photo instead of a big summary here. Keep reading ya and always welcome for comments.

Address: 19-A, Sunway Prima, Jalan Sungai Tiram 5, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang.
Phone : 04-6430118


The exterior of the restaurant at night with the bright sign board

 The simple interior. They also have more space upstairs with bigger tables and more seating area

 Steam Grouper at about RM80/kg. This was the first dish to be served. Its steamed without other condiments other than the soy sauce topping. The fish was definitely very fresh and steamed just nicely.

 Steam clams ~ RM18. This is steamed clam with a dash of chinese wine and also some ginger and chilli padi. The clams are fresh and of a quite large size. Its not too spicy and with fresh seafood, you can always be sure of a good taste.

Hai Boey Seafood Restaurant @ Teluk Kumbar

I was very lucky to be invited out for a seafood dinner last week and was fortunate enough to have brought along Apple's camera which I could conveniently stuff in my pocket. Thankfully she loaned it to me that night else I wouldn't have photos to post here.

Anyway, Hai Boey is located on the road leading to Gertak Sanggul on the southern tip of Penang island. The roads leading to this place is pretty dark at night so do drive slowly. It's easily spotted with the huge signboard with its name on it. For those heading there from Bayan Lepas, its on your left.

So on with the food. Since this was my first time there, I let my friends do the ordering and just be prepared for any surprises which will come along. The first was "Chi Leh" or spiky shells. Its cooked by just blanching it with hot water and we use a toothpick to pull out the meat of the shells. Its like a type of snail from the sea. Nothing too special here.

The 2nd dish was fried meat with brinjal. The brinjal and meat was held with skewers and then deep fried with a light batter. It was pretty refreshing and there was pork and prawns in the mix. I couldn't taste much of the brinjal though as it was sliced pretty thin. Probably would have been good if it was abit thicker. I still like it though.

3rd came my drink for which I ordered a coconut. Thankfully it was from the fridge so the juice was cold! Great. But the coconut was very old and the meat was hard and not very nice to eat. So I ended up just drinking the coconut juice. OK la for a drink.

4th, happens to be the 4 heavenly kings. No we are not talking about canto pop but this is basically 4 types of vegetables fried with Belacan or fermented prawn paste. This was really good and the Belacan was flavorful and it has just the right amount of spiciness to it. The vegetables was also well cooked and you can tell it was cooked over high heat (wok hei).

The 5th dish caught me by surprise. We had lobster, and it was huge! I'm not really a big fan of lobster as I feel that lobster meat is abit tough. The lobster was prepared ala local stir fried lobster with cheese. The meat was cut into large chunks and I got a pretty decent piece. It smelled good and looked menacing. But as I thought, it was abit tough to the bite. It's just not as tender as it is with a tiger prawn. But I guess for a lobster, it was pretty well prepared. Cooked anymore and it would be really spoilt. So a pretty good attempt though its not something I would eat everyday.

6th is their Char Hor Fun. Now this I have to say was a really good noodle dish. The noodles was well fried and flavorful and the sauce that is filled with seafood like squid and prawns was made just right. Highly recommended I would say. Later the captain did mention that their signature was Char Hor Fun with lobster, but that would then mean a really expensive plate of Char Hor Fun.

7th is steamed marble goby. This was probably the best dish of the evening. In Chinese, this fish is also known as Soon Hock or Lam Goh. Its a fresh water fish which is carnivorous and it used to be affordable until everyone realize how good it tastes. The flesh is very smooth and like a silky texture to it. It was also steamed just nice, perfectly cooked and the soya sauce that compliments it just give it a sweeter taste to the fish. Very good indeed.

8th is another vegetable dish. This time its steamed bitter gourd with meat stuffing. Yeap another vegetable with stuffing but for those that like bitter gourd, this one is really pretty tasty. The bitter gourd is steamed till its soft, and then its poured with a sauce. Its cut when its served at the table. The sauce goes well with the bitter gourd and the meat just adds some sweetness to compliment it.

9th is stir fry baby kai lan. This was just cooked with garlic and it was pretty normal. Nothing to shout about here.

10th and 11th are the last dishes and they are both crabs. There was BBQ crab with honey glaze and then there was the crab cooked with salted egg yolk. I preferred the BBQ crab more as you are able to savour the sweetness of the crab meat. I felt the one with the egg yolk was abit overcooked and the meat of the crab didn't turn out so well.

All in all, I must thank my friends for this lovely, and expensive meal (the lobster probably cost half of it). Hai Boey is surely a good place for some good food and the place was actually pretty packed with people even on a weekday. Try this place out ya. Do leave some comments too especially if you have been there and maybe have some food to recommend.