If you happen to be heading out to the airport or working in Cyberjaya/Putrajaya, this could be one of your stop overs for a bite to eat. On our way back from the airport, my family decided to give it a try.

Here are some of the dishes we ordered that night. Their homemade tofu was delicious and one of my favourite dishes in the restaurant. Topped off with minced meat, and laden with a sweet soya sauce, this dish is perfect to share.

The Tong Po Pork was the highlight for me at this restaurant. The pork is silken soft and layered with succulent fat. The meat is sweet and goes well with the mantou.

The Kam Heong Sotong was not particularly good. However, the Tong Po Pork did make up for it.

Here are some of the other dishes we had that night:

Dengkil Seafood Restaurant

Lot 20 Jalan Puchong Dengkil,

48300 Dengkil

Tel: +603 8786 7868

Non-Halal

” Uncle Soon Guan (SG) became a Chartered Accountant to avoid inheriting his father’s business as a noodle vendor which gives only a tough life.

He grew up with operators of all kind of street food (his father’s friends), which has given him an extensive knowledge and love for the subject. ”

One of the several long drives we would take is along the coastal road down south of Klang towards Port Dickson. After Klang is Banting and Morib, another 40km south is a thriving fishing town called Tanjong Sepat. This drive is along a breezy not busy road lined with coconut trees. Very pleasant drive, I guarantee.

We arrived at Tanjong Sepat at 4 pm, an hour where little food can be found except their famous dumplings in Hai Yew Heng pau shop manned by two youngsters, uninterested with customers after a long day. We bought and ate a kaya and a black bean dumpling, the last few in a coffee shop hoping to also sample Tanjung Sepat coffee, the beans grown and processed in the area but the two youngsters were not too service minded. A tourism poster in the shop revealed that the town has some more interesting food, one is seafood bak kut tea which is served only in the morning and the other is of course seafood.

For seafood we had to wait an hour till 5pm for a restaurant by the sea front when it opened for dinner. This place, Baywatch Restaurant is the biggest in Tanjung Sepat, has a great ambience minus the bikini clad life guards in the famous television series. The restaurant food has been reviewed by many food critics locally and from abroad and the restaurant proudly displays a merit certificate by Jason, the famous local Chinese program food reviewer. We ordered 4 dishes and again we over-ordered as is usual with the two of us. The portions were quite big, probably serving the locals who are hardworking Chinese fishermen with big appetite.

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Recently, I had the privilege to visit my dad’s hometown in Sungai Besar. Its about a 1.5 hour drive out from Petaling Jaya through the coastal road and is in the district of Sabak Bernam. As its name suggest Sungai besar is where the river mouth connects to the ocean. Hence, a good place to go for fresh seafood.

So we found ourselves in Restoran Kuang Wah, which is being run by my dad’s ex primary schoolmate. Amazing how people still keep in touch. This restaurant is popular both among the locals and the tourists. A famous place for seafood as it is situated right next to the river mouth.

It was only 430pm when we arrived there and you can see the restaurant was ALREADY PACKED! So you can imagine how packed it will be during lunch and dinner time. I found it abit weird for people to have their lunch or dinner so late or early ( whichever they are having).

We sat down and ordered as the uncle recommended the freshest catch of the day. The below list of what we ordered will definitely send the cholesterol sky high.

Promfret with noodles RM75

Mantis Shrimp with black pepper sauce RM15

Deep fried squid and fish RM30

Prawns with rice wine and steamed egg RM30

Fried Tang Hoon RM18

All of us went ‘ wow’ when we saw the size of the pompret. It was huge, I kid you not. I think for this kind of size, it will easily be more than RM100 if it were eaten in KL. But it only cost us RM75. Very interesting dish, where the fish is eaten with the bee hoon and not the other way around. The fish was very fresh and not too many bones. The bee hoon was also very tasty when eaten with the sauce. (more…)

At the suggestion of one of our friends, Kwong, Steve and I paid Unique Seafood in Section 13 a visit for a small dinner. Including Kwong’s friend, Wayne, there were just the 4 of us.

For those who don’t know, Unique Seafood is actually under the same ownership of the people who own Pantai Seafood, in Kampung Kayu Ara. They have a few other brances as well.

The difference is that this one caters to the slightly more expensive crowd, with Japanese clients favouring the place.

I let Kwong do all the ordering, as he’s been to the restaurant more often than I had, all I asked was for my Sey Teem Tai Wong (yeah I know, my spelling sucks.) and the rest I left it up to him.

First up was a sashimi/ hot broth fish dish. I say both sashimi and hot broth because they serve you the fish raw and you get to choose whether to eat it sashimi style, dipped in soy sauce, or to cook it and drink it in a herbal soup broth.

When I say raw, I mean RAW. Kwong said that they serve it right after taking it out of the tank and sometimes you can see the gills still twitching. Well for us, some of the fins were twitching. It was interesting for me since I hadn’t been served fish like this before.

Steve opted out of eating it raw after seeing it twitch so he cooked it in the broth. I on the other hand, had to try it sashimi style. The verdict? Not as soft and tender as salmon, butter fish or tuna, a little bit chewy in fact.

I then tried flash cooking the meat in the broth and eating it with the soup. The soup was really light and tasty, with just a hint of the herbs they had put in it. With the semi cooked fish being soft and flaky, it went really well in the soup.

After you’re done eating the ready sliced fish slices, they take the remainder of the fish and cut it up for you to cook in the broth. This makes the soup tastier and allows you to eat the remainder of the meat off the bone.

The second dish was ginger and spring onion fried la-la (clams). As I prefer my flavours stronger, like kum-heong style, or fried with chillies, I didn’t particularly enjoy this dish. But for those who like a lighter taste, they may have liked it more.

I’ll say it again, Sey Teem Tai Wong. My vegetable dish came and tasted pretty similar to those made in other restaurants, although it could have done with some petai and four angled beans instead of lady’s fingers.

Our second last dish, Kum-Heong style fried meat crab came. I love crab and the crab here was definately fresh. The Kum-Heong sauce didn’t go into the meat as much as I thought it would, but that could have been because the crabs Kwong chose were quite large and meaty.

Our final dish was a noodle dish, which Kwong said his grandmother loves to order, but admittedly I can’t remember what it was called. It’s either the ‘Tai Lok Meen’ or long life noodles that you usually order on your birthday.

Quite tasty but I usually order Tung Fun when I go to sea food restaurants… probably cause of the stronger flavours again.

Total cost RM280 for 4 of us. The food was nice, but a little expensive, a nice place to bring clients, family and friends for special occasions etc. It’s clean, large and bright so you do pay a bit extra for the ambience.

Unique Seafood

Lot 9B-3, Jalan Kemajuan,

Section 13,

46200 Petaling Jaya

Cuisine: Chinese, Seafood

Halal

Tel: 03 – 7960 2088

Original Okonomiyaki Hiroshima Style

Recently on a visit to low yat plaza we stumbled upon this hidden stall at the corner of the food court selling none other than my favourite Okonomiyaki. Honestly, I thought I will never get to taste this ever again since their last 2 branches in PJ ( Atria and The Curve) closed down. So it was a pleasant surprise to see the original stall still open in Low Yat Plaza. This stall has been here over 10 years pioneered by a Japanese woman, can’t remember her name now.

Okonomiyaki is a savoury Japanese pancake. I found out Okonomi means ‘ What you like/want’ in Japanese while  Yaki means ‘grilled’. There are different styles of Okonomiyaki as the method varies in different states. This one in particular originates from Hiroshima.

View of the shop

In this tiny cosy little shop, you get to sit on actual tables or by the side of the hot plate on which the chef cooks your meal. I personally like sitting by the hot plate cause I get to see my meal coming together step by step.

Anyways, got to the stall and placed our orders below.

Supreme Set ( 2 pax)  RM35.90

Okonomiyaki Supreme RM21.00

Okonomiyaki Seafood RM19.00

After taking our orders, the chef started busying himself . Sitting by the hot plate, I managed to get some nice shots of our meals before and after.

Laying out the batter, the base layer of our okonomiyaki

Ingredients on top, lots of shredded cabbage followed by the meats and seafood

The okonomiyaki is flipped over, allowing the ingredients to cook, and, at the same time lightly frying the soba.

The eggs are cracked to form the top layer

Spreading out the egg to complete the top layer of the okonomiyaki

Transferring the okonomiyaki unto the egg

The whole okonomiyaki is flipped around again, leaving the egg on top and the 'special' sauce is generously spread over the top.

And after a few garnishing of chopped parsley, salt, pepper, ajinomoto you get………………………

~Okonomiyaki Seafood topped with scallops and cheese~

I ordered mine with a topping of cheese cause thats how I’ve always eaten it. There’s an additional cost for cheese. You can also ask for additional mayonaise for an extra cost as well. As the name sounds, this okonomiyaki had squid, prawns and scallops along with rice cakes thrown in. Yummy yum yum.

Okonomiyaki Supreme

The other okonomiyaki was pretty much the same as the seafood, except that instead of scallops it had pork. (I’m sure you  know who’s order this was..).

Eating straight off the hot plate, with our lil spatula.

The chef served us on the hot plate itself, so basically, we were eating it straight off the ’stove’ which it was cooked on. Interesting huh. He also gave us these tiny spatulas to help cut the okonomiyaki to make it easier to eat.

I had such a good time eating here. I savoured every moment, cause I dont’ know when is the next time I’ll be here.Those looking for authentic Japanese okonomiyaki, this is the place to come to. Its a must.

You can find this place at the foodcourt of lowyat, its opposite the magazine shop and situated near the ATM machines at the corner.

Original Okonomiyaki Hiroshima Style

Lot LG3, LG Floor,

Plaza Low Yat,

Jalan 1/77 Off Jalan Bukit Bintang,

57100 Kuala Lumpur

Non Halal

Opening Hours : 1130 – 2130

The mandarin words translates to the number of competitions he won

As always, every chinese new year my family will have a family reunion dinner at a designated chinese restaraurant. This time round, my uncle was the one who decided on the place and we found ourselves in the heart of Klang in Noble House Seafood restaurant.

The wall is covered in certificates, the medals were on another wall

One should not mess with the chef in this restaurant. Check out the amount of certificates and medals on the wall. It says so on the name card, the different competitions he has won, but my primary school level chinese doesn’t help much in translating what it means. Those chinese readers out there can see and interpret it for themselves.

They had 3 different Chinese new year set dinners that night. We went for set B and our orders are as below.

Prosperity Salmon Yee Sang

Noble House Five Combination Special

Braised Shark Fin Soup with Dried Scallop & Seafood

Steamed Fresh Cod Fish

Tong Poh & Crispy Chicken with Almond

Stewed ‘ Fatt Choy’, Oyster & Abalone Slice

Chef’s Speciality Baked Glutinuous Rice

Fried Ice Cream

Total cost Rm538

Prosperity Salmon Yee Sang

The salmon yee sang was ok, but I thought that the salmon slices used were not fresh cause it had a very fishy taste.

Nobel House Five Combination Special

I loved this dish. The ‘fish’ you see is not only for decoration but its made of yam. Inside the ‘fish’, is a medley of mixed vegetables and mushroom. Very interesting presentation. The rest of the combination specials were really tasty.

Braised Shark Fin Soup with Dried Scallop & Seafood

The shark fin soup was alright, alot of crab meat but abit too much on the starchy side.

Steamed Fresh Cod Fish

This was one of my favourite dishes. The fish was very fresh,  and tender (if you can actually use that word to describe a fish). It was superb.

Tong Poh & Crispy Chicken with Almond

This dish had a little twist to it. The tong poh yuk was good, tender, but you see the slice chicken skin around it. When you flip the skin over, you’ll see its been topped with almond slices and sesame seeds.It tasted like a savoury biscuit when eating it. Nice to have something different.

Stewed ' Fatt Choy', Oyster & Abalone Slice

Oooo..I love the abalone on this dish. I ate so much. I always look forward to this dish in chinese new year. Normally this dish comes with stewed chinese mushrooms, but the chef substituted the mushrooms for oysters. Yum.

Chef’s Speciality Baked Glutinuous Rice

At this point, I was going to explode with all the good food. But I managed to squeeze in a few mouthfuls of this goodness. There is a reason why its called the chef’s speciality. De-li-cious or what they say in cantonese ‘hou sek’!

Fried Ice Cream

Lastly, our desserts was fried ice cream. The were huge, as you can see from the pic above. The ice cream they used was the normal local ice cream, but it was ok. Nice end to a good meal.

All in all, this is a good place to visit for chinese new year reunion dinners. The price is fairly reasonable, or even considered cheap at RM53.80 per person. Overall the food was good, and also had some good presentations. Its worth considering a try.

Map to get there- Good Luck!

Noble House Seafood Restaurant

No.5, Jln Temoh,

41400 Klang,

Selangor

Cuisine: Chinese

Non-Halal

Tel: 03-33430927

Fax:03-33420927

www.nobleseafood.com

It's close and convenient for those living in the Damansara area.

The other day I went with Sue Ann and our families to Pantai Seafood in Kampung Kayu Ara for a nice seafood dinner.

If you’ve ever been to this place you kind of wonder how the owner ever decided to put his/her restaurant there in the first place. It’s located in the middle of a kampung area and surrounded by those car chop shops (where you see alot of halved cars stacked up on shelves).

I guess rent was cheap.

Look what I found in the large tanks of seafood

My dad, after just getting back from Dubai where he works was in need of some good Chinese food and as usual when he just gets back, he ordered alot of food.

Tung Fun

First up was some tung fun (if that’s how you spell it) or glass noodles, a favourite of my family. It’s just so light to eat and all the sauces seem to stick really well to the noddles. It must be the starch content I guess.

Talapia fish

Although I say ‘next up’ was the fish dish, in reality all the dishes arrived at the same time so that you can enjoy your whole meal at once. The man who took our order specifically asked us if we wanted all our food out at the same time but we told him to bring the tun fun out first.

The fish was cooked with just soy sauce, garlic and some spring onions and was really fresh.

Potato leaf vegetables

Nestum deep fried squid

The potato leaf vegetables are a favourite of Sue Ann and her family. The Nestum deep fried squid is basically squid fried in the usual batter but with Nestum flakes in it. This gives the dish a savoury-sweet flavour which works really well.

Deep fried pork 'hand'

I always thought it was pork foot or knuckle when you order it, but the guy said it was pork ‘hand’ which was a bit strange to me. But other than that, this is the house specialty, deep fried to a golden brown, cut up and served with a pepper based dipping sauce.

The meat is tender and soft while the outer skin is crunchy with a slight salty taste which goes well together.

Tiger Prawns

Salted egg crab

Kam Heong crab

As for the seafood, my dad ordered prawns, 1kg of salted egg crab and 1kg of Kam Heong crab. All the dishes above were eaten by 8 people. Almost 1 dish each. haha.

The prawns tasted like most other prawns I’ve had before, fried in some type of black sauce, but they did taste fresh.

The salted egg crab was really nice, the salted egg giving the meat a very nice savoury taste but also making it taste almost ‘creamy’.

The Kam Heong crab tasted almost like black pepper crab but with a hint of the Kam Heong flavour, similar to the taste you would get from curry leaves.

All in all the bill came to just above RM250 but our fish was free, because we had been to Pantai Seafood a few weeks before and when you spend above RM200+ you get a voucher for one free fish (talapia) with any new purchase of RM100 and above.

So we got another voucher since we spent more than RM200 again. All in all, a very nice meal at an affordable price (for that much seafood) and located within 10 minutes from my house.

Pantai Seafood Village

Lot 13575, Jalan Cempaka

PJU 6A, Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara

47400, PJ

Cuisine: Chinese

Non Halal

Telephone: 03- 77255099/77251099